British conquest of what would become the United States and the Spanish conquest of Mexico during the late 1400’s into the early 1500’s, would result in two very different racial structures. British conquest was primarily based on the need for raw materials, to send back to England to support their newly established capitalistic economic system. There was immediate confrontation between the settlers and the indigenous population, thus the birth of racism in the United States. In the early1700’s, the need for cheap labor rapidly increased to support the flourishing plantations of the South. Africans would become the labor force of choice. In order to exploit their labor, the wealthy plantation owners would create an institutionalized system of white supremacy based on African slavery. This dominance of a white and wealthy class in the South, as well as the North to a lesser degree, would become the major racial trend through the end of the Civil War in 1865. It would later be reconfirmed after Reconstruction with a set of legislation known as the Jim Crow laws.

Race in Mexico was not as "black and white" as in the United States, but more like many

Not only did the wealthy plantation owners use psychological arguments to turn the poor white class against blacks, but they also required it through law. According to the "Act for Better

Religion has been used many time throughout history as a way of justifying superiority. The Catholic Spanish believed them selves superior to the Aztecs, based on what they viewed as barbaric and primitive religious practices. They attempted to eradicate all evidence of the native religion as Burkholder and Johnson point out in Colonial Latin America, "After cleaning the temples of the stains and stench left from human sacrifices and whitewashing their interiors, the Spaniards replaced the stone image of Huitzilopochtli or another native god with a cross and the image of the Virgin Mary" (47). This common practice of replacing symbols of indigenous gods, as well as incorporating native rituals with those of the Catholic church, made conversion easier. Once the indigenous people were converted, it was less difficult for the Spanish to maintain white dominance.

This strict caste system is still prevalent in Mexico today. This is ironic, considering that following Independence in 182I, Mexico adopted the position of equality of all citizens regardless of race, in response to the colonial development of racial categorizing. There are many Mexican nationalists who pride their country as being less racist than the other countries of North America, often pointing to the fact that the country’s most revered president Benito Juarez was a full Indian (Russel 95).

The victory of the North at the end of the Civil War put an "end to slavery" in the United States, although in actuality it was far from it. The installment of the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment which gave all men equal citizenship, and the 15th Amendment which gave all men the right to vote, looked as though there would be a change in social status among blacks (US Const.). But another set of legislation, which have today become known as the Jim Crow laws, were implemented in the South after the removal of Northern troops from the South in agreement to the Hayes-Tilden compromise. These laws once again institutionalized racism, although it was not as obvious as before. The 13th Amendment did abolish slavery, but a common loop hole used by the elite were "Vagrant Acts," much like this one from Georgia:

Some topics in this essay:
Virgin Mary, Mexico Spanish, Negroes Slaves, Racism United, African European, Race Mexico, South Carolina, Jim Crow, United Spanish, Acts Georgia, indigenous population, plantation owners, strict caste, crow laws, set legislation, indigenous people, jim crow laws, caste system, jim crow, set legislation jim, poor white, economic systems, wealthy plantation owners, legislation jim crow, strict caste system,