Aristocracy in California
Don’t be surprised…again history….
The Spanish conquered California, a wide swatch of land encompassing what is now Nevada, New Mexico, part of Colorado, and most of California.
Spain was in a race with Russia to take California. And Spain was operating under the Doctrine of Discovery, claiming all the land for Spain since the Papal Bull decreed that only Christians could own land.
Only Christian white people. Remember Spain was a very racist and hateful country. They had lived under conquest of the Moors for 700 years. The year before Columbus “discovered” America, the Battle of Grenada was won by Spain and for the first time the Moors had to retreat.
So Spanish Conquistadors were white men, Catholics, who were using a Doctrine that basically gave them license to kill as may indigenous people as necessary and that included Russian rivals as to take California.
That is how California was “conquered”; with unspeakable genocide and violence.
Even Father Serra, who for years was celebrated as a caring Priest who helped win California, was in essence a tyrant who beat and killed Naive Californians in great numbers in the name of Christ.
Serra reportedly said that killing a Native American child because he wold not obey was Christian, since he had converted him to Christianity and the child could go to Heaven. That is who the Spanish conquerors were; they were NOT nice people!
And their descendants now rule Latin America, with authoritarian regimes.
Mexico for example has more dictators in its history than democracy.
In California of today, many Latinos are descendants of aristocrats from old California and Mexico, who are racist. The whiter you are in Latin America the more you belong to the ruling caste….those of color do not.
In short, a caste system exists south of the U.S Border all the way to Argentina.
If you read Central and South America history (most of you don’t) you would know this.
When Trump rails about “those people” sneaking into the country, he is talking about dark skinned people, not the aristocratic white Latinos that basically run Latin America with an iron fist. The aristocratic strong man governments of Latin America (the vast majority) is what conservatives strive for.
Latin America looks a lot like the southern states in America, a strong caste system that is dedicated along skin color and a poverty rate that is off the scale.
Look at present day California, again a caste system with the whiter people in charge and privileged while a large majority of people of color barely survive.
That is the legacy of racism and prejudice. The United States did not invent authoritarianism in California and western states, it simply continued the tradition of a caste system along color of skin lines.
America did not invent all of the insidious racism that is slowly destroying democracy; it inherited it from the Spanish.