Democracy In the Colonies essays

Democracy In the Colonies essays Democracy existed in the colonies in the New World even at the very beginning. However some colonies were more democratic than others. The major ideas of democracy like freedom of religion, speech, free market and human rights came to the New World with the first colonists, the Puritans. They came to the Americas looking for freedom and they found it. British America however, was much more democratic in all of its aspects than Spanish America. Politically the English form of government in the Americas followed the democratic ideas much better than the Spanish government in its colonies in the New World. First of all the English colonies didn't have an absolute like the Spanish colonies did. The English had an appointed British governor, but most places held town meetings and that's how they solved their issues. Everyone had a vote in the decisions they made.The Spanish government was headed by an abosolute. The church also had a big control over the people, the church and the state were basically one. That defies all democratic ideas. In British America the women had some rights, much more than in other colonies. Unlike the English, in the Spanish colonies women had no rights whatsoever. In fact only one group of people had any rights at all in Spanish America. Those people were the Peninsulares, they were born in Spain. Again there is no place for democracy here, where your origin determines your place in society. In Br itish America the most rights had male landowners and even women had some rights like I meantioned before. As you can see the British pollitical system is much more democratic than the Spanish. The English economical system was also much more democratic than the Spanish. First of all it was based on trade. Trade was free and the colonists even traded with the Natives. Trade was not well regulated and smuggling with France constantly occured. In Spanish the encomienda system was in effec ...