Colonial American Society In The 1600's

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Colonial Era Society In the 1600’s, there were two major players in the new world. There were the British in North America, and the Spanish in Latin America. These colonies were very different from each other. In terms of society, the British evicted the natives out of the lands that they later took over. The Spanish, on the other hand, took control of the people already living in Latin America, and put them under new leadership. Another difference was that the British ventures were private ones while the Spanish were sent to Latin America by the government. British North America’s superior society allowed to build and sustain better colonies compared to Spanish Latin America. The first way in which the British Colonial American Society was…show more content…
According to Gordon Wood, “the distribution of wealth in eighteenth-century colonial society was far more equal than it would become in the nineteenth century” (Wood 22). In this quote the reader is told that no one was destined to be on the top of the societal ladder and no one on the bottom. Of course, this rule did not apply to everyone. Slaves still held a permanent spot on the bottom of the societal ladder. Furthermore, Wood states, “They thought of themselves as connected vertically rather than horizontally” (Wood 24). Here Wood talks about how the society of British America was likely more vertical than other societies at the time, such as Spanish Colonial Latin…show more content…
British North America simply kicked out the natives and established a system where everyone started fresh. The Spanish on the other hand, set out to control. They took power over the natives that lived in Latin America, put them on the bottom of the social ladder, and forces them to change their religion. The Spanish were curating a society for revolution as is had a permanent underclass, and were forcing people to change their traditions. However, the British had to keep sailing in more people to increase the population of the colonies, and they also had to deal with the native wanting their land back. In the colonial era, the relationship of colonists and natives was essential to society. Furthermore, Linton urges that, “a ready-made hierarchy of relations with which explorers and colonists negotiate a broader range of cultural differences” (5 Linton). Linton is stating that a hierarchy was already in place for colonists and explorers, which allowed them to negotiate cultural differences with the
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