Explain What Were The Positives And Negatives Of The Colonial Period In Mexico

Question 1) What were the positives of the colonial period in this country? What were the negatives? Which was greater?

Numerous civilizations rose and fell over a period of nearly 3,000 years in Mexico, until the early 16th century when a group of explorers from Spain arrived at the southern shores of the Gulf of Mexico. After the fall of the Aztec Empire, Spanish gained rule over the land via Viceroyalties sent over from the mainland. In this, began a big part of Mexico’s history known as the Colonial Period. With this came many positives and negative aspects which both helped the country grow and, in some ways, led its citizens to perish. The Colonial Period in Mexico brought many new concepts and ideas, both positive and negative, however

the negative effects done by this period in time, heavily outweighed any positive aspects because of the colonization by Spain.
With the fall of the Aztecs, came a new era in mexico’s history, the Colonial Era which brought many new positive aspects of life to this new land.

By 1810, there were an estimated 6 million people living in Mexico, consisting of 60,000 that born in Spain, 940,000 were Spanish born in the new land, 3.5 million were indigenous Mexicans and 1.5 million were mixed Spanish and Indian blood. The introduction of new people led to a diversity of culture throughout the land which educated many of the Eastern world. Missionaries from Spain were sent to this new colony to introduce the natives to Christianity, but they did much more. In many ways, the Christian Missionaries laid the groundwork for the fusion of Spanish and Mexican culture (Religion and Society). This mixing became essential to the future of the country as it led the people to see each others different religions/cultures and intertwined the two ways of life. The new missionary also brought information about Mexico back to Spain which helped it’s citizens become more educated on the Western world. As stated in Religions and Society, friars and monks collected information about the language, religion, and culture of the indigenous people in illustrated books called Codices. The Codices were brought back to Spain and used to teach it’s citizens about Mexico. These positive impacts both enriched the lives of the Mexicans, Spanish travelers and citizens of Spain by introducing a new culture neither countries had experienced

before.
Even though there were numerous positive impacts of the colonial period, the negative effects brought much more damage to the new land of Mexico. Spain’s new conquerors and explores carried a “storm” with them which devastated the natives population. Within 20 years of Spain’s arrival, smallpox had wiped out at least half the people of the natives and had begun to spread to the South American mainland (Megadeath in Mexico). Doctors in Mexico were lost when patients came in with a new disease nobody had seen before. Colonization not only affected the people living in Mexico, but it also affected the land and ancient structures. Most of the Aztec temples and buildings were leveled, destroyed and buried in Tenochtitlan and the material from them was used to rebuild new Colonial buildings (Mexican History - Colonial Mexico). The Spanish damaged land and ruined hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in property. The harm they caused could not be undone as the structures destroyed were build by an ancient civilization. Another major issue in the colony of New Spain were haciendas. Haciendas were plantations which employed slaves and forced them to work in very grueling conditions. Very similar to the time of slavery in the United States, the haciendas did not treat the workers as humans. They were beaten, mistreated, underfed and not allowed many basic human rights. Eventually, a law came into act which forced the owners to pay them a little bit of money but even with that the conditions did not improve. The negatives brought by Spain killed thousands of people and destroyed property and was much worse than any positives brought on by the Spaniards.
The physical damage done by Spain was nowhere near as bad as the infrastructure that the new rulers set up in Mexico. Spain sent Viceroyalties to Mexico in order to govern the land and to rule the people. Viceroyalties carried out orders of the king in the new land keeping only Spain’s benefit in mind. During the colonial period, all of the rulers who governed Mexico came from the Spanish peninsula and were appointed by the King. In addition, there were no representatives from Mexico in Spain. This meant that Mexicans had absolutely no say in the government decisions very similar to a dictatorship. The viceroyalties also set up a Caste System in Mexico. The caste system separated the inhabitants of the country into separate social classes based on who their parents were and gave different people different levels of importance in society. The four main social groups where, Peninsulares, a Spaniard born in Spain, a Creoles, a person of Spanish descent born in the new world, a Mestizo, a person of European-Indian descent and lastly Negroes, an African slave being the lowest (Las Castas). The classes not only affected your social status but they also impacted everyday life. For example, Creoles, the second highest position where not allowed to hold official positions in government only because of their label. Likewise, the caste system also impacted economics and the tax system. The Spanish colonial government and the church expected more tax money from lower level categories (Las Castas). Eventually, this caste system led the Creoles to revolt against the Peninsulares ending in a very bloody battle with lots of death. The government set up by Spain led to a corrupt system where social classes ruled how you were seen. The infrastructure of the colony brought many negative aspect to its people and hard working citizens.
As one can see, the colonial period in Mexico brought many positive aspects of live, however due to the Spaniards way of rule and government the negative effects greatly outweighed and good that was done. As people got fatally ill with new diseases and old, ancient cities were flattened to the ground, a chapter in the era of Mexico’s history had ended and a new one called the Colonial period had begun. An unstable infrastructure brought many negative aspect and created a social system like no other. As Anthony Burgess once stated, “Colonialism. The enforced spread of the rule of reason. But who is going to spread it among the colonizers?”