Why did Spanish colonies become 3rd world countries but British colonies became 1st world?

thats a good question,never thought of that. Usually northern latitude civilizations are more advanced because a culture of forward thinking is created because of resource shortages,in the tropics resources are year round creates a grasshopper not ant mentally. If youve heard of the grasshopper and the ant story.

Because the British settled in big numbers and then began the system of industrializing their colonies earlier than independence. Even after the Revolution, the USA had financial ties with Britain, and Britain used to be the primary nation to industrialize. Spain used to be rather late to industrialize, and their colonies had already won independence earlier than the system began. Additionally, Spain did not invest something in their colonies. They conveniently extracted resources from them - gold and silver. They clearly installed a feudal economy with Spaniards granted big tracts of land, and the nearby Indians became their serfs. That type of economic climate is in no way effective.

You mean like Chile (colony of Spain) and India (colony of Britain)?

Because they didn't.

You asked (and apparently didn't research before you posted this), I answered.

I don't know, but some are becoming more prosperous then their past colonizing country. Take Mexico for example. Lots of Spaniards are going there since Spain is in a huge crisis. When I went to Mexico, there were a lot of Spaniards in some cities. And in Brazil, a lot of Portuguese people are going to Brazil. Southern Europe is not that advanced as northern Europe. A lot of Greeks are going to Germany.

The problem lies in the history of Spain itself. At first, Spain was a world power, but soon after colonizing the Americas, their kings were incompetent. Spain was at war with itself and with other powers such as England and France and the rest of its other territories in northern and central Europe.

To finance the wars, Spain would suck in every once of silver and gold from the colonies, making them its bitches. But in reality, Spain was ever European's ***** because most of the gold and money ended up going to places like France, UK, and the other big countries at the time. Eventually, Spain turned its back on the colonies, even more, leaving dictators. The conflict at first between the indigenous and the Spanish created turmoil, and repression.

Later on, the Creoles, Spanish people born in the Americas, came to power, consolidating great masses of land to themselves, and very little to the mestizos, mixed people. Upon Independence from Spain, many Caudillos, military generals, came into power, forming Dictatorships, but still favoring the Creoles.

Have you ever heard of Haciendas? Ranchos? many mestizos and mulatos, those of African descent became very poor because they had to pay to live in these areas, and often times they kids were already born into debt.

If you go to most southamerican countries the majority will be the darker skinned people, and whites make up a small percentage. NOw imagine the majority living under the rule of the minority, where the majority couldn't afford to buy their own land, and if they did, as you can still see today, they government would take it away to give to other people or companies.

This is were the US comes into play. The us had to look for it's own interests, Buying up large masses of land etc for its companies. To get money into the countries, presidents and dictators would suck up to the US, in return the US would help them, knowing that many villagers would be taken out of their little 'homes'

YOu only have to look at places like Guatemala, Bolivia, and the smaller countries to see the effect of the US. You can also look at Cuba's history.

I forgot to add why so much conflict:

After independence from Spain, different groups wanted to take control.( i.e. Federalists, monarchists, conservatists etc.)

In the United States, though, when the time came for independence there was a group of people, the Founding Fathers who worked together for the cause. Many of these people were in the philosophy of Enlightenment.

FYI, most Spanish colones became 2nd world, but a few became 3rd world.

You mean fast emergent former Spanish colony economies like Peru, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Paraguay, Phillipines ?

Lots of british colonies didn't become 1st world countries, like the caribbean, india, african countries, etc.

Basically the only 1st world countries are countries where whites(british and others) actually went to settle down and where they were able to become the majority and killed off most of the indigenous people. I'm guessing Spanish people weren't that brutal and preferred to mix with the locals rather than kill them off or start apartheid.

Anyway the british colonies with whites living there now worked together with the mainland and became a success, because they used the natural resources from non-white british colonies to gain more power and wealth and leaving the non white colonies to become third world countries.

But Argentina which has a large white spanish population living there, still have lots of rich whites living there now. Our Dutch prince is married to a rich white Argentinian woman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_British_Empi...