In geography class my teacher pointed out that South America has more potential resource development than North America. It is larger in temperate land area, richer in resources, more varied in climate and topography, and had quite a head start being intensively settled and exploited earlier than North America. The question naturally arose, "Why then are the countries south of the Rio Grande usually so much poorer, more unhealthy, less educated, and less free than those in the United States and Canada?"

South America had substantial settlements, and in some places - even universities, before the rudimentary outposts at Jamestown and Plymouth. Spain and Portugal, nations with a rich European cultural heritage, settled the region. The modern-era discovery of America by Christopher Columbus occurred the same year as the victory over the Moors, finally expelling them from all of Spain after a struggle lasting hundreds of years. The Spanish conquistadors were fit and fearless, forged by the crucible of war and a fight for freedom that spanned generations. Suddenly the national unity and purpose born of the victorious war with the Moors shifted to conquering and civilizing a new land in the New World. It wasn't long until the auburn-haired, green-eyed Isabella ruled Spanish possessions larger than the size of all of Europe.

The Spanish and Portuguese ruthlessly exploited the native population of the Americas, and those aboriginals they did not kill in war, disease often dispatched. The discovery of precious metals such as gold and silver and the vast tracts of land then in possession of the Spanish throne encouraged the Spanish to integrate with and use the native population to develop the resources. Spanish rulers were spread thin in the immense empire, a tiny minority in a sea of color. Because the physical and psychological character of the Indians adapted poorly to servitude, in some regions, to satisfy their need for laborers, they imported Black slaves from Africa.

Whether conquistador or priest, their primary task was exploitative in nature: the conquistador to cultivate the land's riches, the priest to harvest the inhabitants' souls. Living in a land with few White women but ample Indian maidens and Black slave women, mixed liaisons and marriages were common, although such unions were looked down upon by the more aristocratic classes, who often sent their sons and daughters home to Spain to find a husband or wife.

The Spanish built Mexico and their other colonies throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America in their own image. They established schools, government buildings and churches and carried the art, technology and culture of European civilization to the New World. In addition to Spain and Portugal, Great Britain, France and Holland also had colonies and possessions in the Western Hemisphere. In this vast expanse, only the 13 American Colonies and Canada had White majorities.

In North America, where there was a presence of non-Whites, whether slave or free, social intercourse among Europeans was exclusively White. In North America, Europeans came over by the hundreds of thousands, bringing their families with them, and the farming lifestyle made large families desirable, causing little shortage of women, except at the frontier. Thus America and Canada became overwhelming White nations, while the Caribbean, Central, and South Americas remained mostly non-White, except for a veneer of White leadership and control.