Document Set F: Political Experience
Document F1
Document F2: American Passages by Edward L. Ayers, Lewis L. Gould, David M. Oshinsky, Jean R. Soderlund
The Spanish colonial administration was hierarchical and tied closely to Spain. Sovereignty, or supreme political power, rested in the monarch, who ruled by divine right. Directly below the monarch was the Council of the Indies, located in Spain and composed of men who knew little about the New World. The council regulated trade, appointed officials, made laws, and determined who should be allowed to emigrate. The highest officials residing in American were the viceroys. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish empire consisted of two viceroyalties; New Spain, with its capital in Mexico City, and Peru, with its capital in Lima. The viceroyalites were divided into provinces, ruled by governors and audiencias, who advised the governors and functioned as courts. Niether Spanish colonists or Indians had much say in making and enforcing laws.
Document F3: On Civil Law
Civil Law systems (applied in Spain and the Spanish colonies) evolved under centralizing monarchs who appointed judges to act as agents strictly accountable to the monarch rather than local magnates; required judges to apply the written law rather than general principles to all cases no matter how dissimilar; placed evidence gathering, pleading, and decisions in the hands of judges and magistrates protected from public scrutiny and local influence; avoided juries and open confrontations; and recognized no rights or obligations of citizens not expressly conferred on them by the written law.
http://sipa.columbia.edu/resources_services/faculty_curriculum/dean/documents/mexico_spain.pdf
http://sipa.columbia.edu/resources_services/faculty_curriculum/dean/documents/mexico_spain.pdf
Document F4: A History of the United States and its People
“The Charter of Massachusetts Bay of 1629, for example, declared that all who should settle in that colony should “have and enjoy all liberties and Immunities of free and naturall Subjects . . . to all Intents, [Constructions], and Purposes whatsoever, as [if] they and [everyone] of them were borne within the Realme of England.”[25] One finds similar language in other charters, including Maryland (1632), Maine (1639), Connecticut (1662), North Carolina (1663), Rhode Island (1663), North Carolina (1665), and Massachusetts Bay (1691).[26] Indeed, the last American charter, that of Georgia in 1732, had language virtually identical to that of Massachusetts Bay’s Charter almost a century earlier.[27]”…..
The colonies’ charters, of course, reminded colonial legislators that their laws must not be in conflict with the laws of England. Even so, especially with the passage of time, colonial legislators came to see their chambers as direct descendants of the House of Commons, vested with the privileges asserted and maintained by that body in its protracted struggles with the Crown.[35] An interesting example of this attitude came in the first sitting of Virginia’s House of Burgesses when the assembly’s speaker disputed the qualifications of two members. In response, the burgesses exercised their right to be the sole judge of the assembly members’ qualifications, the same prerogative claimed by Parliament.[36]
Eggleston, Edward, 1837–1902 http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inauthors/view?docId=VAA2336&chunk.id=d1e1535&brand=ia-books&doc.view=notoc&anchor.id=
The colonies’ charters, of course, reminded colonial legislators that their laws must not be in conflict with the laws of England. Even so, especially with the passage of time, colonial legislators came to see their chambers as direct descendants of the House of Commons, vested with the privileges asserted and maintained by that body in its protracted struggles with the Crown.[35] An interesting example of this attitude came in the first sitting of Virginia’s House of Burgesses when the assembly’s speaker disputed the qualifications of two members. In response, the burgesses exercised their right to be the sole judge of the assembly members’ qualifications, the same prerogative claimed by Parliament.[36]
Eggleston, Edward, 1837–1902 http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inauthors/view?docId=VAA2336&chunk.id=d1e1535&brand=ia-books&doc.view=notoc&anchor.id=
Document F5: US Colonial Government Graphic
Document F6: Independence and Revolution in the Americas: Anthony McFarlane
The English Colonies inherited a system of limited, constitutional government, developed in England under the first two Stuarts and nurtured by a body of Whig political thought which stressed the contractual basis of royal government, and emphasized the need for constant vigilance to defend English liberties against the tyrannical, corrupting proclivities of monarchy. Accustomed to a considerable measure of self-government exercised through elected assemblies, and to mild and ineffective restrictions on their economic activities, North Americans had developed largely autonomous economics and policies... In short, Anglo-Americans regarded the empire as a federal structure, united by allegiance to a common crown, in which they enjoyed the rights and liberties of Englishmen and the prerogative of representative government through assemblies which they saw as the coordinates rather than the subordinates of the imperial Parliament.
The English Colonies inherited a system of limited, constitutional government, developed in England under the first two Stuarts and nurtured by a body of Whig political thought which stressed the contractual basis of royal government, and emphasized the need for constant vigilance to defend English liberties against the tyrannical, corrupting proclivities of monarchy. Accustomed to a considerable measure of self-government exercised through elected assemblies, and to mild and ineffective restrictions on their economic activities, North Americans had developed largely autonomous economics and policies... In short, Anglo-Americans regarded the empire as a federal structure, united by allegiance to a common crown, in which they enjoyed the rights and liberties of Englishmen and the prerogative of representative government through assemblies which they saw as the coordinates rather than the subordinates of the imperial Parliament.
Discussion Questions
1. What do documents F1- F3 show about the political experience of people living in New Spain?
2. What do documents F4-F5 show about the political experience of people living in the 13 British colonies?
3. How might these different experiences impact the developing nations?
4. How do these documents help to answer the question: "Why were British North American colonists better prepared for Independence than their Latin American neighbors to the south?”
2. What do documents F4-F5 show about the political experience of people living in the 13 British colonies?
3. How might these different experiences impact the developing nations?
4. How do these documents help to answer the question: "Why were British North American colonists better prepared for Independence than their Latin American neighbors to the south?”