![]() The political events and tendencies in Spain from the year 800 onwards, and especially the necessity of governing frontier provinces, developed institutions which were well adapted to colonial rule. This may be accounted for by the fact that, before Spain embarked on a career of colonization, she had developed laws and institutions at home which were suited to the solution of colonial problems and she had no more to do than to inaugurate them in the colonies. It is certain that Spain put into operation within a short time a more finished and successful scheme of government than did any colonizing nation in any other part of the world. The government which Spain established in America was admirably suited to the problem which confronted her there. ![]() Such a study will always lead us back to Spain and the contributions which were made by that nation to her former colonies. As a basis for a proper understanding of the fundamental present-day problems arising in Spanish America, it behooves us to examine more closely the basic principles and institutions existing there. The social, cultural and political contributions which Spain made to Hispanic America, her one-time colonies, have not been taken into account sufficiently by those who have attempted to solve the problem of our political and commercial relationship with the nations to the south of us. Spain's rule, however inefficient, continued three centuries, and the political and social structure of present-day Spanish America is largely the outcome of this long period of Spanish administration. Aside from all questions of controversy, two facts stand out most prominently. Spain's failure to learn the lessons which the revolt and loss of England's American colonies taught the latter nation, together with the individual inefficiency of the Spaniard from a mercantile standpoint were important factors which contributed to Spain's decline. The chief cause of her decline as a colonial power was actually the universal abandonment of the policy of commercial monopoly and the advent of an era of free trade, which meant the admission of all nations on competitive terms to the colonial markets of the world, and it brought with it new ideas, the fermentation of which meant the intellectual and political awakening of the new world. Nevertheless modern research is constantly more emphatically revealing the fact that, considered from many viewpoints, Spain's colonial government was no less adequate, and, in fact, was much more carefully planned than those of her contemporaries. It is generally conceded by historians that there were grave defects in the Spanish system of administration. Spain retained and governed her vast colonial empire in America for three centuries. THE INSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND OF SPANISH ![]()
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