Are you kidding?

The Brittish didnt make it a point to totally annhialate Indian civilization like the spanish did to the aztecs and inca. The Brittish actually studied ancient veda script while the spanish burned every piece of native text they can get their hands on.

wow your tone in this thread came out of left field. maybe you simply have some inferiority complex and take offense very easily. "Racism" was not my intent, my thread was based on the observation that Malaysians, Singaporeans, Bruneis think highly of their Brittish ex-colonialists while Filipinos hate the Spanish-era.

I also noticed that ex-brittish colonies have been in general more well-off post-colonialism compared to the mostly agriculturally based economies of former Spanish colonies.

I believe that had it been the Brittish to colonize the Aztecs and Incans, the academic world would have more to work with as Aztec and Incan written documents would not have been saught after and destroyed forever like the Spanish did. Is that racist. 

the thing about the native americans is that the natives didnt have written text and advanced culture to destroy. I believe the Aztec and Inca would have gone the way of Siam/Thailand had it not been for the Spanish making it a point remove their culture from the face of history.

Uh..  the reason they were "grouped" "against" Spain was because, let me guess.... uh, oh yea! Spanish conquered the Aztec and Incans! Wow what a thought. Had the Dutch, German or Chinese colonized, forced religous change, and tried to wipe out Aztec and Incan civilization then they would be the subject of this topic. but currently... the Spanish are the ones who once ruled over said civilization. what a thought huh?

1. Gold
2. Silver
3. Plantations
4. Administrative positions
   

Wow, what a brilliant observation. Then, I suppose that had I agreed with you, that would make me coming out of the right field.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

WTF! You believe!? You believe!? This is a history forum, not a propaganda forum to prove through belief that the British colonisation was good and justifiable. I already said that since the 16th century the British have been denigrating the Spanish just to "prove" that they would be "better" colonisers. Do you think that the English went to grab colonies due to that 19th century myth of the "White Man's burden", bringing civilisation to savage lands? If the British were such good guys, then why were they expelled after WW2?

Manipulation of data. The only British colonies that are well are those were it occurred a strong European immigraton. They are "Britains" overseas.  Let me explain you something: colonies were made exclusively for exploitation.

How convenient, uh? Since only the Spanish governed those lands then you can imagine anything about what the others would do. Let me tell you for your information that initially the Spanish government was more interested in having commercial deals with the Aztecs and Incas. It were instead the Conquistadors that took the initiative of conquering those empires against the will of the Spanish authorities. In the case of Cortes, the Spanish authorities even sent a failed expedition to punish him. What happened is that after the conquests, the Spanish authorities decided to be pragmatic and assumed the administration of those conqquered lands.

Thank you for the insight in this paragraph 

native americans as in native united states of americans, not mesoamericans. i apologize for the confusion

you sound like a 12 year old, it is not that you did not agree with me but that you reply in an offensive manner.

I can tell in your post that i am right, i sense inferiority complex

Like for example Malaysia? Singapore? Hong Kong? India? It seems YOU are the one being racist here, sounds like you are saying Europeans are superior.

Thank you for the insight in this paragraph 

East Timor was a portugese colony. Most of those countries are from Africa, and that has less to do with any single colonial power and more to do with Africa's climate(difficult to raise consistant crop), disease, and tribal division.. ie. a lack of national unity.

Im not even Pro Brittish like some people are trying to paint me, my argument is that the Brittish studied their colonized cultures while the Spanish annhialated local culture. Much of the Philippines for example was muslim, and there were even some Hindu datu's but the Spanish tried their best to wipe out Islam in the PI in favor of Catholocism.

good points, however i believe the difference between mesoamerica and africa was national unity. Africa is strife with tribal warfare(civil wars between tribes). The Aztecs and Incans would have been able to do what Japan did and modernize with the help of foreigners

I didnt mean the Philippines was mostly Muslim, but much of it was, in fact the name of the capital city Manila, comes from a local Muslim settlement around the Pasig river banks. There are no Muslims in the area anymore. Muslims had been at war with the Spanish throughout there tenure on the Islands becuase Catholic converts recieved all the benefits while Muslims were discriminated against. Not that is hasnt been happening all over the world forced conversion is a pattern you see throughout Spains former territories.

My point is not to say the Brittish are better imperial powers and run colonies better, it is to ask.. had the Brittish, Dutch, French, Portugese etc.. "discovered" mesoamerica, would they have made it a point to wipe out or eradicate local culture? Had the Portugese colonized "mexico", would Aztec culture be alive to this day, moreso then it is these days? or would mexico have even gone the way of Siam/Thailand, or Japan?

However. that said, how many former Spanish colonies rank in the top 50, compared to Brittish colonies?

1. 1.United States
2. 2. United Kingdom
3. 3. Australia
4. 4. Japan
5. 5. France
6. 6. Canada
7. 7. Germany
8. 8. Norway
9. 9. China
10. 10.Italy
11. 11.Spain
12. 12.Russia
13. 13.Portugal
14. 14.Luximbourg
15. 15.Lichenstien
16. 16.New Zealand
17. 17.Ireland
18. 18.Sweden
19. 19.Finland
20. 20.South Africa
21. 21.Turkey
22. 22.India
23. 23.Netherlands
24. 24.South Korea
25. 25.Belguim
26. 26.Switzerland
27. 27.Austria
28. 28.Denmark
29. 29.Poland
30. 30.Greece
31. 31.Iceland
32. 32.Pakistan
33. 33.Thailand
34. 34.Israel
35. 35.Brazil
36. 36.U.A.E
37. 37.Kuwait
38. 38.Argentina
39. 39.Egypt
40. 40.Taiwan (Claimed by China)
41. 41.Romania
42. 42.Bulgaria
43. 43.Bolivia
44. 44.Peru
45. 45.Saudi Arabia
46. 46.Hungary
47. 47.Nigeria
48. 48.Monaco
49. 49.Croatia
50. 50.Zambia

1. USA (partly ex-British, ex-French, ex-Spanish, ex-Russian and independent Hawaii)
   
2. Canada (ex-British; formerly mostly French)
   
3. Japan (independent)
   
4. Australia (ex-British)
   
5. Qatar (ex-British - oil emporium)
   
6. Singapore (ex-British)
   
7. Brunei (ex-British - oil emporium)
   
8. New Zealand (ex-British)
   
9. UAE (ex-Bristish - oil emporium)
   
10. Israel (ex-British)
    
11. South Korea (ex-Japansese, later US occupation)
    
12. Bahrein (ex British, oil emporium)
    
13. Bahamas (ex-Bristish)
    
14. Barbados (ex-British)
    
15. Kuwait (ex-British, formerly Turkish - oil emporium)
    
16. Oman (ex-British - oil emporium)
    
17. St. Kitts and Nevis (ex-British)
    
18. Saudi Arabia (independent, formerly partly Turk - oil Emporium)
    
19. Trinidad and Tobago (ex-British)
    
20. Argentina (ex-Spanish)

I dont think its fair to split the United States into Brittish, French and Spanish as the former 2 had very little to do with the building of the nation, they just had territories America wanted.

I also do not think it is fair to exclude Hong kong(and Singapore if you included it with the micro-states) who do have significant population centers unlike other "micro-states" who do not rely on oil, or do rely on tourism for exonomic boost, and have less natural resources, having to import raw materials.

Spain gets a really bad rap for Mexico, and its undeserved. The Spanish had no interest in genocide, contrary to the modern outlook: that was, in fact, more a feature of North American colonists. The Spanish were undoubtedly interested in the cultural obliteration, but not physical obliteration: they envisioned the native populace as potential converts. Colonial powers in North America, with the possible exception of the French, sought to remove the inhabitants completely from the land and were uninterested in their fate. While the Spanish were very harsh and do deserve some of their reputation, they were not as brutal to the population in Mexico as their counterparts in the north. They were simply dealing with a much larger native population and had conquered a more developed native civilization. People have more horror over the bombardment and conquest of Tenochtitlan than they do over whole tribes that were completely eradicated in more northerly regions, and I think part of that has to do with the fact people recognize that the Aztecs were an urban civilization but feel less empathy towards tribal groups, whom they think of as barbaric and feel less loss over their extermination.

Key to the whole thing is that the native population of the Spanish and Portuguese sphere is to this day large and vibrant, and can be counted in the millions, while the natives of North America have come very close to disappearing and, outside of the far north, number only in the thousands, scattered in small groups. In the areas of the most intense colonization they simply don't exist anymore, while native blood is still common even in the largest urban centres in the south.

It's the Dutch and English that really deserve the reputation the Spanish have got. Did the Spanish ever do anything comparable to what the English did to the Beothuk?

As well, one has to remember none of these entities were monolithic. The Spanish tried to have Cortes arrested, initially. Later, elements of the clergy in Spain would be among the first to assert a concept of universal human rights and put forth a great effort to catalogue the culture other elements had attempted to destroy. Likewise in the north, the British adminstration drew a line across the Appalachians and opposed settlement in native territories but English colonists revolted and poured across the boundary to displace these peoples. There were different elements at work in every group.

Good point about Southern Europe. Maju is very Jacobin and is always seeing Southern Europe in this period as being under the tyranny of the Catholic Church.

On the other side, I don't agree with your comment about Germany, since the whole territory was destroyed in the 30 Years War. England and the Netherlands were at the level of Southern Europe in the 17th century, whereas the other Northern European countries only achieved that during the Industrial Revolution.

In a lot of the British colonies, the indigenous people became minorities in their own lands and thus have no power to this day. The British often brought foreign labourers that they use to keep the indigenous people in check. Divide and conquer and all that jazz.

In Spanish colonies, most of the indigenous people remain the majority. Also Spanish attitude, similar to the French, is to mold their colonies in to copies of their culture. Intermarriage took place widely and the colonised are brought into Spanish society, however marginalised. However with the British, no matter how anglophone you are, you will never be considered part of British society. Other whites not sharing the same culture like russians, germans etc will be treated better than you. Hence the afro latinos feel part of their society but afro americans don't.

As a Filipino, I am glad that it was the Spanish that colonised the Philippines. If it was the British, we would have been minorities in our own country the way Malays were in Malaysia. The only reason Malays control Malaysia now and have become the majority is because during their independence, the British felt some guilt at what they did and favored Malay dominance over Malaysia instead of chinese and indian. To maintain Malay majority, singapore was kicked out and Sabah, part of the Philippines that was leased to the British by the Sultan of Sulu, was annexed against Filipinos will but supported by then colonial masters the US.

Rubbish. Russia isn't an impact? The Danification of England under Canute isn't an impact? The birth of British seapower as a reaction to Scandinavian raids isn't an impact?

Not even that, though I suppose that might have had something of an impact. More their social organization in tribal structures which had the kind of primitivist democracy seen in many tribal groups around the world. They did not have an abundance of outmoded, established institutions.

If the English really were just Anglo-Saxons, this idea would have some merit. Culturally, Denmark and England were very different before the Danes began to colonize England. Danes were seafaring, English were not, to name an obvious example. Danes were mostly pagan, English were mostly Christianized. Etc etc etc, too many massive differences to even mention. Similarities yes, but lets not overstate things by saying they were the "same" - you'd have to cast a net big enough to haul in half of Europe to say that. 

One must remember that the Anglo-Saxons did not wipe away the previous inhabitants, but assimilated them and in the process adopted portions of their culture - else you would not have pre-Roman British folk myths being recorded for the first time in the 1700 and 1800s. It's not clear Britain has ever been anything but distinct, due to its isolation.

Right ... the same is even more true of the Scandinavian societies, this is exactly what I mean by "vigour". The Scandinavians had never even experienced urban civilization at any point in their history (unlike the English). Also their societies were relatively well-disposed to traders, with the elites eagerly engaging in it - the same is definately not true of medieval Europe. The more primitive influences coming from the north also injected a sense of individualism, again, something not really a feature of the majority of medieval Christian Europe. All this predisposed the cultures they influenced to become "first adopters" of new developments, developments which first surfaced in the more civilized centres like Italy but whose implementation and full realization was also difficult due to the conservative weight of such lengthy civilization and all its assorted institutions.

Nor was it only the Norse/Germanic influence ... all the former "fringe" areas around what were once Roman territories became powerhouses during the Middle Ages, including the Middle East and North Africa (and even Ireland, though only in a cultural sense). These cultures too impacted and revitalized parts of Europe, but, Latin Europe was better positioned to resist that impact (and consequently did not reap the same benefits). But even so, the "victims" of the middle ages, like Spain, became the top dogs of the early Renaissance, precisely because of those influences.

I'm at a loss to understand why this thinking should be branded racist ... it has nothing to do with race, it is more about established societies with strong institutions being less adaptable, less flexible, and less likely to become first adopters. When those institutions are destroyed - or never existed - and you add the benefits of the advances made in more civilized lands, you have a potent recipe for a vigorous first adopter. Same principle lies behind the current success of the US, even.

[/QUOTE] Italians were 100% more genuinely individualist and commerce minded then any Norse and so were North African (back to the topic of the subforum). [/quote]

I can't say about the North Africans, but as far as the Italians are concerned: yes, they had a very developed commerical infrastructure, but, the top elites of the society were not traders. They were religious authorities and nobility who disdained that profession. As regards individualism, the aristocracies of feudal societies like Italy were much more entrenched and fixed and had far more control over the thoughts and opinions of the lesser ranks of society than the Scandinavian groups. Scandinavians had some chiefs and petty kings, and a warrior/trader class, but it was not a very top-heavy or rigidly entrenched set of institutions, it was quite primitive and unsophisticated as institutions of authority go, closer to a basic pecking order than an abstract galaxy of authority based in theoretical notions and dogma. Not to mention that a good deal of decision making in northern areas was still by tribal consensus, eg the Allthings of the Saxons and Norse - there was nothing much comparable in medieval Italy that I'm aware of. 

I think your chronology is a little off, or I don't understand your point. The last of the major foreign invasions into England ended more than half a millenia before the Civil War or the Glorious Revolution.

Nor am I entirely clear why a nation has to be a complete tabula rasa before it can have any foreign influence. Modern societies which have existed for centuries are being influenced by foreign ideas all the time; why should this be any different a millenia ago?

The greatness of Roman naval forces certainly is ... that doesn't sound odd. If it happened to be that Rome were principally a naval power, I imagine the Carthaginians would be accorded much of a role in the Roman rise.

That's a silly old stereotype. The Vikings did far more settling and trading than anything else. Christians demonized them during the medieval period, as they were brutal at times, but a nation of such cartoonish characters never would have travelled as far as they did: there's no point for Vikings to sail all the way to the Middle East or Sicily just to raid some village. They wanted to trade, and establish far-flung colonies to support a long-range trade network.

People get all taboo talking about Scandinavian contributions, worrying about racism and Hitlerian boogeymen, and then turn around and commit the very thing! It's not any more fair to describe Viking cultures as nothing but raiding and war than it is to describe Aztec culture as nothing but big pyramids and human sacrifice, or plains Indians as nothing but groups that liked to go around massacring white villages. I can't understand how people DO that.

Right, but that "right set" was produced by synthesis and exchange of values between cultures, as much as evolution. A particularly strong synthesis occurred in the exchange between Europe's vigorous outer fringes (Scandinavia, North Africa, Ireland, Middle East, etc) and its civilized centers. The primary benefactors were Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands - all countries with one foot in the Roman legacy and another in the fringe.

Well, it probably had a role in the English development of government ... things like jury trials are rooted in Danish traditions, even the idea of democratic decision making probably had more to do with roots in the Allthings of the Danes (or maybe Saxons, but they probably adopted it) than with any Greco-Roman ideals.

Scandinavia did have a few firsts (eg transoceanic settlement) but it wasn't Scandinavian culture alone that produced the stronger nations of the colonial era - it was a mix between the fringe cultures and the ideas coming out of the great centers of medieval Europe. Like a chemical mixture - helium alone is one thing, oxygen another, and H20 yet another thing altogether.