Malthus y España
Españoles crueles: “No settlements could well have been worse managed than those of Spain in Mexico, Peru, and Quito. The tyranny, superstition, and vices of the mother-country were introduced in ample quantities among her children. Exorbitant taxes were exacted by the Crown. The most arbitrary restrictions were imposed on their trade. And the governors were not behind hand in rapacity and extortion for themselves as well as their master”.
Pero la población creció: “Yet, under all these difficulties, the colonies made a quick progress in population. The city of Lima, founded since the conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand inhabitants near fifty years ago. Quito, which had been but a hamlet of indians, is represented by the same author as in his time equally populous".
Supersticiosos y siempre exagerando: “Mexico is said to contain a hundred thousand inhabitants, which, notwithstanding the exaggerations of the Spanish writers, is supposed to be five times greater than what it. contained in the time of Montezuma”.
¿Y los portugueses?: “In the Portuguese colony of Brazil, governed with almost equal tyranny, there were supposed to be, thirty years since, six hundred thousand inhabitants of European extraction”.
Los continentales avaros: "The Dutch and French colonies, though under the government of exclusive companies of merchants, which, as Dr Adam Smith says very justly, is the worst of all possible governments, still persisted in thriving under every disadvantage”.
And the winner is...: “But the English North American colonies, now the powerful people of the United States of America, made by far the most rapid progress. To the plenty of good land which they possessed in common with the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, they added a greater degree of liberty and equality. Though not without some restrictions on their foreign commerce, they were allowed a perfect liberty of managing their own internal affairs. The political institutions that prevailed were favourable to the alienation and division of property. Lands that were not cultivated by the proprietor within a limited time were declared grantable to any other person”.
En An Essay of the Principle of Population (1798).
Pero la población creció: “Yet, under all these difficulties, the colonies made a quick progress in population. The city of Lima, founded since the conquest, is represented by Ulloa as containing fifty thousand inhabitants near fifty years ago. Quito, which had been but a hamlet of indians, is represented by the same author as in his time equally populous".
Supersticiosos y siempre exagerando: “Mexico is said to contain a hundred thousand inhabitants, which, notwithstanding the exaggerations of the Spanish writers, is supposed to be five times greater than what it. contained in the time of Montezuma”.
¿Y los portugueses?: “In the Portuguese colony of Brazil, governed with almost equal tyranny, there were supposed to be, thirty years since, six hundred thousand inhabitants of European extraction”.
Los continentales avaros: "The Dutch and French colonies, though under the government of exclusive companies of merchants, which, as Dr Adam Smith says very justly, is the worst of all possible governments, still persisted in thriving under every disadvantage”.
And the winner is...: “But the English North American colonies, now the powerful people of the United States of America, made by far the most rapid progress. To the plenty of good land which they possessed in common with the Spanish and Portuguese settlements, they added a greater degree of liberty and equality. Though not without some restrictions on their foreign commerce, they were allowed a perfect liberty of managing their own internal affairs. The political institutions that prevailed were favourable to the alienation and division of property. Lands that were not cultivated by the proprietor within a limited time were declared grantable to any other person”.
En An Essay of the Principle of Population (1798).
1 comments:
Una pieza de colección para la leyenda negra.
Aún hoy asombra revisar el modo como los anglosajones observaron la colonización en América, y el modo en que estas leyendas influyen en las percepciones actuales.
Aunque para ser justos los colonos del norte tenían también ideas universalistas para fundar un "Imperio de la libertad", en la práctica la colonización implicó una apropiación sin contemplaciones de las tierras nativas, el incumplimiento sistemático de los contratos firmados con los indios y, finalmente, el exterminio de la mayoría de la población indígena -en un grado en absoluto inferior al de la conquista española.
Malthus omite que la "libertad" que sí gozaban los americanos del norte se restringía a los colonos de origen europeo y anglosajón.
Creo que le dedicaré un articulillo. Saludos.
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