{"id":2595982,"date":"2026-04-28T07:38:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-the-united-states-became-a-powerhouse-after-colonialization-while-central-america-collapsed\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T07:42:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T11:42:43","slug":"why-the-united-states-became-a-powerhouse-after-colonialization-while-central-america-collapsed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/why-the-united-states-became-a-powerhouse-after-colonialization-while-central-america-collapsed\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The U.S. Left Central America In Dust After Colonialization"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwhy-the-united-states-became-a-powerhouse-after-colonialization-while-central-america-collapsed%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2595982&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Four <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/buttigieg-claims-racism-is-physically-built-into-u-s-interstate-system\/\" title=\"Buttigieg Claims Racism Is \u2018Physically Built... Into U.S. Interstate System\">hundred years ago<\/a>, Francisco Pizarro set out from Panama with 160 men to find a wealthy empire in the south, eventually gaining royal backing even after an early Peru expedition largely failed. With more funding, Pizarro and a few hundred men helped conquer the inca, and Spanish rule went on to build a vast empire stretching from places like California to Tierra del Fuego and encompassing millions of people. Yet the author argues that,unlike the British model to the north,Spanish rule contained built-in weaknesses-instability,dysfunction,and corruption-that contributed to its collapse,especially as revolutionary movements emerged.<\/p>\n<p>A major factor was the sheer size and remoteness of Spanish holdings: they controlled territory at least an order of magnitude larger than the British 13 colonies, spreading resources thin across difficult, often indefensible frontiers. Even if more Spaniards immigrated in total,they were thinner and more widely dispersed,making governance harder. the Spanish also ruled over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/nasa-accuses-china-of-failing-to-clean-up-space-junk-after-rocket-careens-back-to-earth\/\" title=\"NASA Accuses China Of Failing To Clean Up Space Junk After Rocket Careens Back To Earth\">densely populated<\/a> Indigenous empires (Aztec and Inca), placing large populations under harsh systems that reduced them to second-class status and often used labor regimes such as encomiendas-sometimes with the church playing a role in directing Indigenous work toward building projects. The British, by contrast, were described as more likely to establish European settler communities in less densely populated or depopulated areas, producing different colonial social and political dynamics.<\/p>\n<p>The piece further highlights that Spanish colonial society lacked familiarity with republican self-government. While the British had centuries of decentralized parliamentary practice before and during the colonial era,the Spanish were accustomed to hierarchical monarchical rule. Consequently, British communities developed more self-governing political and economic habits, whereas Spanish colonists are portrayed as acting more like subjects of a kingly realm than partners in local governance.<\/p>\n<p>Despite these critiques, the article also acknowledges notable Spanish achievements, particularly in engineering-such as canal and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hochul-declares-state-of-emergency-as-flash-floods-soak-new-york\/\" title=\"Hochul declares emergency as floods drench NY.\">water management systems<\/a> in Mexico City, and ambitious infrastructure in the andes. It argues, however, that the empire\u2019s exploitative purpose-colonies treated mainly as sources of wealth for Europe-made colonial independence increasingly unavoidable.Inspired by the American Revolution, Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar and others eventually broke the Spanish hold, but unlike the U.S.founding story, the new governments fractured into many countries that quickly adopted authoritarian tendencies similar to those they replaced.<\/p>\n<p>In the author\u2019s view,the American colonies avoided this fate due to longer experience with self-government,a more tightly connected geography,and shared european roots that helped them stay united. Through the Revolution and afterward, they formed a more enduring republic-something the author contrasts sharply with the Spanish empire\u2019s inability to produce a unified, stable equivalent.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Four hundred years ago this year, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and 160 men departed the small Spanish community of Panama in search of a great and wealthy empire they had heard existed to the south. Although that particular expedition to Peru was largely a failure, Pizarro\u2019s steadfast bravery alongside the so-called <em>Los trece de la fama<\/em> (the \u201cfamous 13\u201d) was enough to gain royal support and inspire enough Spaniards to fund another voyage to Peru a few years later. Pizarro and a few hundred men would conquer the mighty Inca.<\/p>\n<p>Without a doubt, Spanish conquistadors such as Pizarro\u2019s army (and their successors in the ensuing centuries) created an impressive empire, one that eventually traversed thousands of miles from California to Tierra del Fuego, incorporating millions of people. Yet, compared to that of their British rivals to the north, it was a markedly different animal, one whose instabilities, dysfunction, and corruption eventually spelled its doom. <\/p>\n<p>As Americans celebrate our own 250th anniversary, it\u2019s worth contemplating with gratitude what differentiates the \u201cAmerican experiment\u201d from what transpired to our south.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>A Larger and Less Governable New World<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>One of the most dramatic differences between the British and Spanish colonial experiments was simply the sheer size of their New World holdings. Spanish claimed and administered holdings in the Americas \u2014 encompassing the Caribbean, Mexico, and what is now the southwestern United States, Central, and South America \u2014 were at least ten times larger than what was eventually the 13 colonies governed by the British. <\/p>\n<p>Scholars Felipe Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto and Manuel Lucena Giraldo note in their book, <a href=\"https:\/\/press.uchicago.edu\/ucp\/books\/book\/distributed\/H\/bo214800094.html\"><em>How the Spanish Empire Was Built: A 400-Year History<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThe most impressive feature of the Spanish monarchy \u2014 its enormous reach \u2014 was a source of weakness, for it spread tenuous along effectively indefensible frontiers and vulnerable routes, with resources thinly distributed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thus, even though in total <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/full\/10.1111\/ehr.13279\">more Spaniards immigrated to Spanish America<\/a> than did British subjects to the American colonies, the British were concentrated in a far tighter geographic area, with most arrivals arriving in a shorter amount of time. The vastness of the Spanish empire and the small number of actual Spaniards, of course, made their colonies far more difficult to govern. This was especially true given that some of those administrations, such as that in the Andes region, were quite remote, even from other Spanish holdings elsewhere in the Americas.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, while European diseases wreaked havoc across all indigenous populations, British North America lacked the densely populated urban centers or empires that existed under the rule of the Spanish. This meant that the British colonies from the very beginning were often composed of settlers who created communities of European immigrants. <\/p>\n<p>The Spanish, in contrast, governed former Aztec and Incan empires that had millions of people. This had a direct effect on the character of the colonies in British- and Spanish-administered regions: While the British generally settled sparsely populated (or depopulated) areas, the Spanish ruled over large indigenous populations who lived effectively as second-class citizens, if not little more than slaves. Indeed, Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto and Giraldo note that the Roman Catholic Church often kept <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >indigenous people busy building churches<\/a> and other projects to shield them from the <em>encomiendas<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Spanish had little familiarity with republican self-government. While both colonies were originally formed under the auspices of a European crown, the British had centuries of decentralized parliamentary government upon which to draw, while the Spanish were exclusively familiar with a traditional and stratified monarchical form of rule. Thus, while the English-speaking Americas formed self-governing communities that were politically and economically independent \u2014 permitted, in Edmund Burke\u2019s famous phrase, by \u201cwise and salutary neglect\u201d \u2014 the Spanish colonists tended to act as lords of a kingly realm.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>An Inherently Unstable Spanish Colonial Rule<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>All of this said, it is truly remarkable what the Spanish accomplished in their colonies given the geographic obstacles and far more developed indigenous civilizations. As Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto and Giraldo relate, the incredible engineering feats alone across the Spanish colonies often improved upon what had already been accomplished by native peoples. \u201cThe Spanish Empire of the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth would not have functioned without the efforts of the engineers,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n<p>In Mexico City, the Spanish improved on the great Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan by building canals, cisterns, and ditches to curb regular flooding that swamped the city and its inhabitants. In South America, Spanish observers expressed admiration for the Andean peoples\u2019 ingenuity, including roadworks through mountains and valleys which one Spaniard described as inspiring admiration similar to that of \u201cHannibal\u2019s conquest of the Alps.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Early on, the Spanish recognized the possibilities associated with a canal across the isthmus of Panama, although it would require modern (American) engineering to pull it off. The church was often at the forefront of construction projects, including bridges, roads, irrigation systems, and rope-walks. All of this was accomplished despite tremendous difficulties in identifying construction materials.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, both the geographic nature of the Spanish Empire and its exploitative character \u2014 with colonies viewed as little more than means to extract wealth to send back to Europe \u2014 meant that it was only a matter of time before the colonies would attempt to strike out on their own. Inspired by the American Revolution, Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar and other revolutionaries eventually threw off the shackles of the Spanish Empire. <\/p>\n<p>However, unlike the Founding Fathers, the Bol\u00edvarians were unable to keep their new government together, and the Spanish Empire soon devolved into more than a dozen new countries across Central and South America. Almost immediately, these fledgling nations embraced the same authoritarian qualities as the former Spanish regime.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Thank God for the Peculiarities of America<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Fortunately, the American colonists did not suffer the same fate. Many years of self-government, a comparatively tighter and more united geographic landmass, and a civilization that largely shared a common European heritage gave the United States a far better chance of survival. <\/p>\n<p>Despite the many differences between the colonies, they held together, both during the American Revolution and afterward, and labored together to form a \u201cmore perfect union\u201d that would in time realize the vision of freedom articulated in the Declaration of Independence. They created a republican form of government that in its political genius and realism regarding the human condition has thus far weathered tempests both within and without.<\/p>\n<p>Evaluating the Spanish empire, Fern\u00e1ndez-Armesto and Giraldo observe: \u201cBut if one allows for the acceleration of change, it was no discreditable achievement to keep so vast and diverse an empire going for so long in the unpropitious circumstances of the modern world.\u201d It\u2019s undoubtedly true, and an achievement worthy of admiration. But as history has shown us, it was no United States of America.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He is a regular contributor at many publications and the author of three books, including the upcoming &#8220;Wisdom From the Cross: How Jesus\u2019 Seven Last Words Teach Us How to Live (and Die)&#8221; (Sophia Institute Press, 2026).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four hundred years ago, Francisco Pizarro led 160 men from Panama searching for a wealthy empire in the south<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":658,"featured_media":2595984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Copy-of-Untitled-83.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[57766,34490,11323,71109,37683],"class_list":["post-2595982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-central-america","tag-cold-war","tag-colonialism","tag-interventionism","tag-u-s-foreign-policy"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Copy-of-Untitled-83.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/658"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2595982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2595987,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595982\/revisions\/2595987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2595984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2595982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2595982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2595982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}