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NIALL FERGUSON:
This is a tale of two ships.

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On board one,
landing in northern Peru in 1 528,

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were 1 3 Spaniards accompanying
the conquistador Francisco Pizarro.

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Their ambition was to annex a vast
new continent for the King of Spain.

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On board the second ship,
landing in North America a century later,

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were ordinary English labourers

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who simply wanted to earn
a little land for themselves

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by the sweat of their brows.

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The two ships symboIise
this taIe of two Americas.

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On one, conquistadors.
On the other, indentured servants.

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One Iot dreamt of pIunder,
mountains of Inca goId.

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The other lot knew they had
years of hard slog ahead of them.

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A fundamental difference between
these two sets of shipmates

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would change the entire course
of Western history...

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...propelling one of the Americas
to the very top of the league table

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of prosperity and power.

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What was it?

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In this series
I'm identifying six unique factors.

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I'm caIIing them the kiIIer appIications
that put the West on top of the rest.

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The first two were competition
and science.

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In this fiIm,
I'm turning to kiIIer app number three

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and showing why
the property-owning democracy

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arose in North America but not in South.

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I'm aIso asking if we Iose our monopoIy
over apps Iike these,

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couId Western civiIization
be consigned to history?

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lt was a new world,

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but it was to be the West's world.

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lt was Europeans that reached out
across the Atlantic Ocean

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to take possession of a vast land mass

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that prior to 1 507
simply didn't appear on maps.

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America.

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lt was Europeans -
above all from Spain and from England -

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who, furiously vying for souls,
gold and land,

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were willing to cross oceans
and conquer whole continents.

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This was one of history's
great natural experiments.

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Take two European cultures, export them

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and impose them on a wide range
of different lands and peoples -

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Britain's culture in the north,
Spain's in the south -

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and then see which does better.

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ln the end,
there could be only one winner.

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Looking at the worId four centuries on,
it's pretty cIear that the United States

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is now the dominant force
in Western civiIization.

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But just how and why did that come about?

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WeII, you might be forgiven for thinking

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it's because the peopIe here
were more industrious,

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or because the soiI was more fertiIe,

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or because there was more oiI or goId
underneath that soiI.

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But, actuaIIy,
it was none of those reasons.

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The key to the rise of America
was an idea -

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an idea that changed the worId.

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ln 1 67 0 a modest English ship,
the Carolina,

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arrived at an island off the coast
of what today is South Carolina.

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Among those on board were servants

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who had decided to risk their lives
on a transatlantic crossing

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to escape a life of grinding poverty
in England.

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Ahead of them lay years of hard toil
in alien surroundings.

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But at the end of it,

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they wouId receive one of the worId's
most attractive assets -

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prime North American reaI estate
pIus a say in the process of Iaw-making.

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ReaI estate pIus representation -
that was the North American dream.

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Yet, at the outset, it wasn't these
poor English migrants in North America

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but the conquistadors in South America
who seemed destined for greatness.

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Because South America
was where the money was,

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and the Spaniards had got there first.

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During the 1 6th century,

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the work of colonising
the Americas was left

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almost entirely to the people of Spain.

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Great native empires
were subjugated by Spanish adventurers.

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Here in Peru,

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Pizarro and his conquistadors overthrew
the mighty Andean empire of the lncas.

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One of the Spaniards
who had sailed on that first ship,

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and one of Pizarro's
most trusted confederates,

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was a young captain from Segovia
named Jeronimo de Aliaga.

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For de Aliaga,
Peru was as weird as it was wonderful.

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This is Machu Picchu -
the Iegendary Iost city of the Incas.

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WeII, not so much Iost,
just never found by the Spaniards,

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despite the fact that it's onIy 50 miIes
away from the Inca capitaI Cuzco.

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By the time Jeronimo de AIiaga
and his feIIow conquistadores

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came to this region of Peru,

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they'd aIready captured and kiIIed
the Inca emperor AtahuaIpa

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and Iaid cIaim to his entire empire
in the name of the Spanish king.

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Machu Picchu is an extraordinary,
mysterious pIace.

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It's a sobering reminder
that no civiIization is immortaI,

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no matter how powerfuI and mighty
it may seem to itseIf.

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While the indigenous population
was ravaged

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by alien diseases
and systematic slaughter,

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a quarter of a million Spaniards
came to the Americas

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to impose their version
of Western civilization,

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lured by tales of vast wealth.

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Everywhere they looked, it seemed,
there was gold and silver.

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As Pizarro's chief accountant,
Jeronimo de Aliaga

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was in the best position to grasp
the extent of this new-found wealth.

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Between 1 500 and 1 800,

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precious metal worth roughly
£ 1 00 billion at today's prices

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was shipped from the New World to Europe.

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Men like de Aliaga
became very rich indeed.

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To give concrete expression to his wealth,

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and to the subjugation
of the native people,

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de Aliaga built
this magnificent house in Lima

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on the foundations of an lnca temple.

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lt's been occupied
by his descendants ever since.

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Secure in the conviction
that their mission had the bIessing

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of both God and the Pope,

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the Spaniards seemed to be
on the verge of creating

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a spectacuIar new version
of Western civiIization.

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It was a civiIization that wouId be
run from a few spIendid cities

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by a tiny, super-rich, Spanish-born eIite.

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The cities of Spanish America
grew and flourished.

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Hundreds of lavishly adorned churches
were built.

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Franciscans and Jesuits flocked
to South America in their thousands

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to convert what remained
of the indigenous population.

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But while the church was influential,
ultimate power

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resided with the Spanish Crown,

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and, crucially, it owned all the land.

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This was in complete contrast to the story
of land ownership in North America.

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ln 1 67 0, a penniless young couple
who'd signed up for years of servitude

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stepped off the first ship
to land on the shores of Carolina

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after a harrowing journey
across the Atlantic from England.

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How very different America
must have seemed

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to Abraham Smith and MiIIicent How

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when they arrived here on the forbidding
shores of CaroIina in 1670.

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The Spaniards had found goId and siIver
IiteraIIy in mountains in Peru and Mexico.

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CaroIina seemed to be
just a boneyard of dead trees.

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When How and Smith arrived here,
they found no El Dorado.

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lnstead, settlers in North America
had to plant corn to eat

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and tobacco to trade.

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For many years,
Britain's American colonies

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remained a patchwork
of farms and villages,

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with a few towns
and virtually no true cities.

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And here the natives were far from docile.

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You could have been forgiven for thinking
that Jeronimo de Aliaga's Spanish America

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was the land of the future,

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while Millicent How and Abraham Smith's
British America

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was destined to remain a rural backwater.

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Western civilization, it seemed,
was destined for South America alone.

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But it didn't quite turn out that way.

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Land.

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Thousands of square miles of virgin land.

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The New World represented
a vast addition of territory

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to the West European monarchies.

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The key question that faced
the new settlers in the Americas -

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Spaniards in the South,
Britons in the North -

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was how to allocate all this new land.

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Their answers to this question

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would decide the future leadership
of Western civilization.

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The answers could scarcely
have been more different.

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When the captain of the first ship to
arrive in Carolina stepped onto the beach,

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he brought with him
a revolutionary blueprint for a new world,

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which had the issue of land at its heart.

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This is a truIy remarkabIe document.

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The Fundamental Constitutions Of Carolina,

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designed by the phiIosopher John Locke
to bring order

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to this newIy settIed wiIderness.

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It's funny, because Locke envisaged
not a democracy here, but an aristocracy -

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a hierarchicaI society
compIete with margraves and barons.

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AII of that,
the coIonists more or Iess ignored.

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The thing that caught their eye, though,

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was Locke's assumption
that practicaIIy everybody here

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wouId end up owning some Iand,
even if it was as IittIe as 50 acres.

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That was to prove the bIueprint
for a whoIe new way of organising society.

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This emphasis on
the widespread distribution of land

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as the basis for Britain's new colonies

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reflected Locke's
deeply held political conviction

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that freedom was inseparable
from the ownership of private property.

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Everything, therefore, hinged on how
the land in Carolina would be divided up.

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For months it was thought that

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the first fIeet bound for CaroIina
had been Iost at sea.

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But when the good news came through
that they'd made it,

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this document, the Barbados Proclamation,
was drawn up

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to reguIate the distribution
of the Iand there.

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And the criticaI point was
there was a guaranteed minimum.

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''To every freeman that shaII arrive there
to pIant and inhabit

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''before the 25 March, 1672, 100 acres Iand
to him and his heirs for ever.''

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And there were pIenty of those acres
to go round.

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There was just one problem
in realising Locke's vision.

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Without a large native population,

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the new colony faced
a severe labour shortage.

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The answer was to bring in
more Europeans

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who, in return for their passage and keep,
would initially work for nothing.

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And in Britain,
there was no shortage of volunteers -

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men and women
like Abraham Smith and Millicent How,

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who'd signed their lives into service
with a deed of indenture.

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And here it is,
dated 20th September, 1669.

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''Know aII men that I,
MiIIicent How of London, spinster,

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''the day of the date hereof
do firmIy bind and obIige myseIf

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''as a faithfuI and obedient servant
in aII things whatsoever, to serve

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''and dweII with Captain Joseph West,

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''merchant, in the pIantation
or province of CaroIina.''

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And once you'd signed, you saiIed.

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Over the entire Colonial period,

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some three-quarters of European migrants
to British America

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came as indentured servants.

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Life in England
had been tough for Smith and How.

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But there was one crucial incentive
to risk a one-way Atlantic crossing.

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After indentured servants had served
their time, they would receive land.

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Even the lowest of the low

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had the chance to get a first foot
on the property ladder.

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Every land transaction
since the arrival of the first settlers

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is recorded here in
the North Charleston conveyancing office,

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covering everything from
the large plantations of the settler elite

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to the small plots granted to the men and
women who'd served out their indenture.

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And this was how the system worked
for MiIIicent How and Abraham Smith.

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These are the originaI warrants

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dated 1672 and 1678
granting them, respectiveIy,

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100 acres and 270 acres of virgin Iand.
Here's the key Iine.

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''You are forthwith to add measure and
Iayout for Abraham Smith 270 acres of Iand

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00:17:43,886 --> 00:17:47,595
''in some pIace not yet Iaid out
or marked to be Iaid out

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''for any other person.''

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They got the Iand to do with
as they wished - to farm it or to seII it.

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They had arrived.

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And they had arrived not only
economically but also politically.

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For John Locke made it clear
in his FundamentaI Constitutions

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that in Carolina, it would be landowners
who held political power.

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The cruciaI point was this.

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00:18:20,046 --> 00:18:23,925
If you were a man Iike Abraham Smith -
though not a woman Iike MiIIicent How -

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and you owned property,
then you got to vote.

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And it was this reIationship between
property ownership and democracy

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that wouId fundamentaIIy transform
Western civiIization.

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It was a pretty homespun affair
to begin with.

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This is where the eIected representatives
of South CaroIina originaIIy met -

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upstairs at number 13 Church Street.

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50 acres of land
guaranteed a free man a vote,

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and since every Englishman who arrived
here had the chance to work his way

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to at least 50 acres,

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it was a recipe
for near-universal suffrage.

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The property-owning democracy,

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that revolutionary idea of linking
property ownership with voting rights,

228
00:19:16,526 --> 00:19:21,316
was born in the British colonies
of North America 300 years ago.

229
00:19:24,246 --> 00:19:27,522
lt was the birth of the American Dream.

230
00:19:30,846 --> 00:19:33,883
The pattern was repeated
right across North America

231
00:19:33,926 --> 00:19:36,599
as people moved relentlessly westwards,

232
00:19:36,646 --> 00:19:41,322
and white settlers displaced
American lndians as owners of the land.

233
00:19:47,486 --> 00:19:51,195
That was why the way the British
organised their coIonies was so important.

234
00:19:51,246 --> 00:19:53,362
It was aII about sociaI mobiIity.

235
00:19:53,406 --> 00:19:55,556
The fact that a man Iike Abraham Smith

236
00:19:55,606 --> 00:20:00,236
couId arrive here on a godforsaken beach
in the middIe of nowhere, penniIess,

237
00:20:00,286 --> 00:20:05,076
and then end up, within just a few years,
a property owner and a voter.

238
00:20:15,166 --> 00:20:20,081
How very different it was
in the Spanish colonies to the south.

239
00:20:24,326 --> 00:20:26,715
Here in this breathtaking valley,

240
00:20:26,766 --> 00:20:30,122
the Callejon de Huaylas
in the Peruvian Andes,

241
00:20:30,166 --> 00:20:32,999
the conquistador Jeronimo de Aliaga

242
00:20:33,046 --> 00:20:38,040
found himself surrounded
by boundless natural resources.

243
00:20:38,086 --> 00:20:42,477
The valley was abundantly fertile,

244
00:20:42,526 --> 00:20:45,245
the mountains full of gold and silver.

245
00:20:48,526 --> 00:20:54,362
The question facing de Aliaga
was how to exploit these vast resources.

246
00:20:56,486 --> 00:20:58,716
The answer was a very different one

247
00:20:58,766 --> 00:21:02,122
from that devised by John Locke
for North America.

248
00:21:05,846 --> 00:21:09,077
This remarkabIe document from 1544
of a court case

249
00:21:09,126 --> 00:21:11,435
aIIows us to see just how it was

250
00:21:11,486 --> 00:21:14,239
that Jeronimo de AIiaga
made his vast fortune.

251
00:21:14,286 --> 00:21:16,481
It describes how Francisco Pizarro

252
00:21:16,526 --> 00:21:18,994
granted haIf of this entire vaIIey,

253
00:21:19,046 --> 00:21:23,403
something Iike 30 miIes Iong,
to de AIiaga and his partner

254
00:21:23,446 --> 00:21:25,038
Sebastian de Torres.

255
00:21:25,086 --> 00:21:27,361
But it wasn't the Iand they were given,

256
00:21:27,406 --> 00:21:31,797
it was the Iabour of the 6,000 or so
Indians who Iived here.

257
00:21:31,846 --> 00:21:36,044
UnIike in British America, where Iand
was wideIy distributed to settIers,

258
00:21:36,086 --> 00:21:40,125
here it was Iabour
that was parceIIed out to a tiny eIite.

259
00:21:41,806 --> 00:21:45,196
Previously, the lndians
had worked for the lnca emperor.

260
00:21:47,286 --> 00:21:49,641
Now their lot
was to work for the Spaniards.

261
00:21:52,006 --> 00:21:55,157
The encomiendas
were essentially a tribute system,

262
00:21:55,206 --> 00:21:57,322
and tribute took the form of toil.

263
00:22:03,926 --> 00:22:07,475
The lndians were de Aliaga's
to direct as he pleased -

264
00:22:07,526 --> 00:22:09,278
to work the farms

265
00:22:09,326 --> 00:22:12,159
or to dig gold and silver
out of the hills.

266
00:22:17,286 --> 00:22:22,440
lndian labour made de Aliaga
a rich man, built this fine house...

267
00:22:23,646 --> 00:22:25,398
(BELL TOLLS)

268
00:22:25,446 --> 00:22:28,404
...and paid for this beautiful church.

269
00:22:31,926 --> 00:22:34,884
The consequence of all this
was that the conquistador class

270
00:22:34,926 --> 00:22:38,202
now became the idle rich of America.

271
00:22:40,206 --> 00:22:44,085
Gradually, as land began to pass from
the Spanish crown to the settler elite,

272
00:22:44,126 --> 00:22:49,120
encomiendas evolved into
vast hereditary estates - haciendas.

273
00:22:51,726 --> 00:22:55,162
The majority of people
were left with no land at all.

274
00:22:57,366 --> 00:23:01,518
This was diametrically different from
the model of broad property ownership

275
00:23:01,566 --> 00:23:03,682
that evolved in North America.

276
00:23:05,646 --> 00:23:07,682
Under Spanish ruIe,

277
00:23:07,726 --> 00:23:10,843
there was none of the sociaI mobiIity
that characterised British America.

278
00:23:10,886 --> 00:23:15,437
That heIps expIain the distinctive pattern
of Iand distribution here in ruraI Peru,

279
00:23:15,486 --> 00:23:19,843
with Iots of tiny IittIe pIots where
the indigenous popuIation, even today,

280
00:23:19,886 --> 00:23:21,205
bareIy scrape a Iiving.

281
00:23:21,246 --> 00:23:24,044
But it aIso expIains
the very different paths

282
00:23:24,086 --> 00:23:27,920
taken by North and South America
to poIiticaI independence.

283
00:23:32,246 --> 00:23:39,004
ln 1 77 5, despite all the profound economic
and social differences that had developed,

284
00:23:39,046 --> 00:23:43,597
both North and South America
were still composed of colonies

285
00:23:43,646 --> 00:23:46,718
ruled by distant kings.

286
00:23:46,766 --> 00:23:51,157
That, however, was all about to change.

287
00:23:54,926 --> 00:23:56,882
On 2nd JuIy, 1 776,

288
00:23:56,926 --> 00:24:01,044
a crowd gathered here
on the steps of the CharIeston Exchange

289
00:24:01,086 --> 00:24:05,204
to hear the independence of South CaroIina
procIaimed from Great Britain.

290
00:24:05,246 --> 00:24:08,921
WeII, about 40 years Iater, something
simiIar happened in South America

291
00:24:08,966 --> 00:24:11,196
where Spanish ruIe was overthrown.

292
00:24:11,246 --> 00:24:13,476
But the revoIution that happened here

293
00:24:13,526 --> 00:24:16,040
cemented the democratic rights
of property hoIders

294
00:24:16,086 --> 00:24:19,044
and paved the way
to two centuries of prosperity.

295
00:24:19,086 --> 00:24:24,001
The other revoIution condemned a continent
to two centuries of underdeveIopment.

296
00:24:24,046 --> 00:24:25,365
Why was that?

297
00:24:37,886 --> 00:24:44,041
Once upon a time, there was a brilliant
general who overthrew an empire

298
00:24:44,086 --> 00:24:48,477
and replaced it with the greatest
democracy the world has ever seen.

299
00:24:51,886 --> 00:24:54,605
His name was George Washington,

300
00:24:54,646 --> 00:24:59,037
and he led 1 3 of Britain's
North American colonies to independence.

301
00:25:01,166 --> 00:25:03,634
- (GUNSHOT)
- But this is not his story.

302
00:25:03,686 --> 00:25:08,919
lt's the story of a South American general
who also overthrew an empire - Spain's -

303
00:25:08,966 --> 00:25:14,484
but failed to create
a United States Of South America.

304
00:25:14,526 --> 00:25:17,962
His failure explains
why it was North America

305
00:25:18,006 --> 00:25:22,477
that rose to claim the leadership
of Western civilization.

306
00:25:22,526 --> 00:25:27,281
The South American general
was Venezuela's favourite son -

307
00:25:27,326 --> 00:25:28,884
Simon Bolivar.

308
00:25:31,686 --> 00:25:38,842
Bolivar was born in Caracas in 1 7 83,
the son of a wealthy cocoa planter.

309
00:25:38,886 --> 00:25:42,799
lnspired by Napoleon's invasion
of Spain in 1 808,

310
00:25:42,846 --> 00:25:46,600
he resolved to lead not just Venezuela
but the whole of South America

311
00:25:46,646 --> 00:25:49,877
to independence from Spain,

312
00:25:49,926 --> 00:25:53,396
to transform a continent
from autocracy to democracy.

313
00:26:00,806 --> 00:26:03,843
And yet, while the American Revolution
had set the United States

314
00:26:03,886 --> 00:26:07,561
on the road to power and prosperity
as well as political liberty,

315
00:26:07,606 --> 00:26:10,837
independence from Spain left South America

316
00:26:10,886 --> 00:26:15,323
with an enduring legacy of conflict,
inequality and dictatorship.

317
00:26:20,126 --> 00:26:24,005
So why did capitaIism and democracy
do so badIy in Latin America?

318
00:26:24,046 --> 00:26:25,923
Why, when I asked a Harvard coIIeague

319
00:26:25,966 --> 00:26:29,641
if he thought Latin America
beIonged to the West, wasn't he sure?

320
00:26:29,686 --> 00:26:34,396
Why, in short, was Simon BoIivar
not the Latin George Washington?

321
00:26:39,166 --> 00:26:43,239
Certainly at the beginning,
Bolivar received passionate support

322
00:26:43,286 --> 00:26:46,278
from the very people
Washington had fought against.

323
00:26:48,646 --> 00:26:53,640
McGregor, Robertson, Brown, Farriar
and even Ferguson.

324
00:26:53,686 --> 00:26:55,722
Rather incongruous names to find

325
00:26:55,766 --> 00:26:58,838
on a monument to
the founding fathers of VenezueIa

326
00:26:58,886 --> 00:27:00,956
right here in the heart of Caracas.

327
00:27:01,006 --> 00:27:04,078
But these were just a few
of the British and Irish soIdiers

328
00:27:04,126 --> 00:27:06,242
who fought and in some cases died

329
00:27:06,286 --> 00:27:09,961
for the cause of Latin American
freedom and democracy.

330
00:27:13,366 --> 00:27:19,601
Between 1 81 7 and 1 824,
around 7,000 British and lrish volunteers

331
00:27:19,646 --> 00:27:23,036
signed up for
an extraordinary military adventure.

332
00:27:24,606 --> 00:27:29,316
Their aim was to help liberate
South America from Spanish rule.

333
00:27:34,926 --> 00:27:38,839
Some of these British soldiers
were veterans of the Napoleonic Wars

334
00:27:38,886 --> 00:27:41,719
who, like the British migrants
to North America,

335
00:27:41,766 --> 00:27:44,121
were attracted by promises of land.

336
00:27:45,686 --> 00:27:47,722
But many were military novices

337
00:27:47,766 --> 00:27:52,078
inspired with the loftier cause
that Bolivar seemed to stand for -

338
00:27:52,126 --> 00:27:56,404
liberating South Americans from
a repressive system of government.

339
00:28:03,286 --> 00:28:07,723
Among them was a young captain from
Manchester called Thomas Farriar

340
00:28:07,766 --> 00:28:12,282
who soon found himself in command
of a brigade called the British Legion.

341
00:28:14,006 --> 00:28:18,284
This was his first view
of the new Bolivarian America -

342
00:28:18,326 --> 00:28:20,556
the inhospitable banks
of the Orinoco River.

343
00:28:24,526 --> 00:28:28,485
And this is where Farriar
and his colleagues ended up -

344
00:28:28,526 --> 00:28:31,723
a town called Angostura,
where the bitters came from,

345
00:28:31,766 --> 00:28:36,157
without a few drops of which
a Pisco Sour just doesn't taste right.

346
00:28:39,566 --> 00:28:44,276
lt was from here that Farriar and his men
set out to liberate South America.

347
00:28:52,606 --> 00:28:55,074
For four years, they fought and died

348
00:28:55,126 --> 00:28:58,675
in a succession of battles
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

349
00:29:05,566 --> 00:29:11,436
Finally, on 24th June 1 821,
the British Legion reached Carabobo.

350
00:29:15,766 --> 00:29:21,124
This was to be the decisive battle
of Bolivar's Venezuelan campaign.

351
00:29:22,966 --> 00:29:28,836
6,500 of his men
faced 5,000 royalists loyal to Spain.

352
00:29:33,566 --> 00:29:36,842
lf Bolivar's men could defeat
the Spanish army here,

353
00:29:36,886 --> 00:29:40,003
the capital Caracas would be theirs.

354
00:29:49,726 --> 00:29:53,765
BoIivar ordered Farriar and his men
to outfIank the Spaniards

355
00:29:53,806 --> 00:29:56,081
who were dug in on that hiII over there.

356
00:29:56,126 --> 00:29:59,914
It was fine as Iong as they remained
hidden from view in those guIIies,

357
00:29:59,966 --> 00:30:02,764
but as soon as they were spotted,
the Spaniards Iet them have it

358
00:30:02,806 --> 00:30:05,604
with at Ieast two cannon
and 3,000 muskets.

359
00:30:09,006 --> 00:30:10,803
In vain and the sweItering heat,

360
00:30:10,846 --> 00:30:13,644
Farriar waited for BoIivar
to send reinforcements.

361
00:30:19,766 --> 00:30:20,960
ln spite of the carnage,

362
00:30:21,006 --> 00:30:26,717
the British Legion held firm until
at last the word was given to advance.

363
00:30:26,766 --> 00:30:30,395
The charge that followed
was one of the greatest feats ever seen

364
00:30:30,446 --> 00:30:32,482
on the battlefields of South America.

365
00:30:46,086 --> 00:30:50,125
With bayonets fixed, the British Legion
finaIIy took the Spanish position,

366
00:30:50,166 --> 00:30:53,954
but their commander, Thomas Farriar,
Iay fataIIy wounded.

367
00:30:57,966 --> 00:31:01,845
After the battle,
Bolivar called the British soldiers

368
00:31:01,886 --> 00:31:03,763
''salvadores de mi patria'',

369
00:31:03,806 --> 00:31:05,876
''saviours of my country''.

370
00:31:09,566 --> 00:31:12,683
At last, the road was open to Caracas

371
00:31:12,726 --> 00:31:17,675
and to independence for
the new nation-states of Latin America.

372
00:31:27,286 --> 00:31:31,074
Today Simon BoIivar is revered,
even idoIised,

373
00:31:31,126 --> 00:31:34,880
as the man who Iiberated
not onIy VenezueIa but aIso BoIivia,

374
00:31:34,926 --> 00:31:39,158
Peru, Ecuador

375
00:31:39,206 --> 00:31:42,198
and CoIombia from Spanish ruIe.

376
00:31:42,246 --> 00:31:46,842
That was what earned him the nickname
eI Libertador - the Liberator.

377
00:31:46,886 --> 00:31:50,401
And yet, on cIoser inspection,
Iiberation from Spain

378
00:31:50,446 --> 00:31:54,234
wasn't quite the same as freedom
in the North American sense.

379
00:31:54,286 --> 00:31:58,165
Simon BoIivar's idea of Iiberation
was something very different

380
00:31:58,206 --> 00:32:00,800
from George Washington's
notion of Iiberty.

381
00:32:06,406 --> 00:32:10,115
Bolivar's experiences
of factional infighting

382
00:32:10,166 --> 00:32:12,555
and regional rivalry during the revolution

383
00:32:12,606 --> 00:32:16,884
had set him against the parliamentary
democracy he'd once avowed.

384
00:32:19,086 --> 00:32:23,523
Two years before the British Legion's
heroics at Carabobo,

385
00:32:23,566 --> 00:32:26,876
Bolivar had addressed
the newly formed Congress

386
00:32:26,926 --> 00:32:32,080
here in Angostura to set out his ideas
for the new republic's constitution.

387
00:32:32,326 --> 00:32:37,684
In fact, BoIivar was reaIIy rather
contemptuous of the North American system.

388
00:32:37,726 --> 00:32:40,877
Here's what he had to say
on the subject in this very room.

389
00:32:40,926 --> 00:32:45,204
''AIthough their nation was cradIed
in Iiberty, raised on freedom

390
00:32:45,246 --> 00:32:48,716
''and maintained by Iiberty aIone,
it is a marveI

391
00:32:48,766 --> 00:32:52,520
''that so weak and compIicated a government
as the federaI system

392
00:32:52,566 --> 00:32:56,241
''managed to ruIe them through
aII the difficuIties of their past.''

393
00:32:56,286 --> 00:32:58,197
As far as BoIivar couId see,

394
00:32:58,246 --> 00:33:02,319
the United States constitution
needed ''a repubIic of saints'' to work.

395
00:33:08,366 --> 00:33:12,439
Part of the problem
was the unequal legacy of Spanish rule.

396
00:33:12,486 --> 00:33:16,240
After all, Bolivar's own family
had five large estates,

397
00:33:16,286 --> 00:33:19,403
covering more than 1 20,000 acres.

398
00:33:21,806 --> 00:33:25,162
Part of the problem was that
democracy seemed much too risky

399
00:33:25,206 --> 00:33:29,643
in a society with a much larger
native population than in the north.

400
00:33:32,246 --> 00:33:34,601
BoIivar's dream turned out to be

401
00:33:34,646 --> 00:33:38,434
not democracy - British
or American styIe - but dictatorship,

402
00:33:38,486 --> 00:33:42,240
not federaIism
but the centraIisation of authority.

403
00:33:42,286 --> 00:33:47,883
Why? Because, as he put it himseIf,
''Our feIIow citizens are not yet ready

404
00:33:47,926 --> 00:33:50,918
''to exercise their rights
in the fuIIest measure,

405
00:33:50,966 --> 00:33:55,642
''because they Iack the poIiticaI virtues
that characterise true repubIicans.''

406
00:33:58,006 --> 00:34:01,157
For the British soldiers
who'd come to fight for liberty,

407
00:34:01,206 --> 00:34:03,800
this was tantamount to a betrayal.

408
00:34:03,846 --> 00:34:05,643
They never got their land,

409
00:34:05,686 --> 00:34:07,517
nor did they get a vote.

410
00:34:07,566 --> 00:34:12,640
There would be no property-owning
democracy in Bolivar's South America.

411
00:34:23,446 --> 00:34:27,405
Just before his death from tuberculosis
in December 1 830,

412
00:34:27,446 --> 00:34:30,916
the Liberator
wrote a last, despairing letter.

413
00:34:30,966 --> 00:34:33,878
ln it, he concluded

414
00:34:33,926 --> 00:34:38,204
that South America
was simply ungovernable, lamenting that,

415
00:34:38,246 --> 00:34:42,797
''lf it were possible for any part
of the world to revert to primitive chaos,

416
00:34:42,846 --> 00:34:45,565
''it would be America in her final hour. ''

417
00:34:45,606 --> 00:34:50,999
lt was a painfully accurate description
of the future of Latin America.

418
00:35:02,726 --> 00:35:05,559
Societies that began
with extreme inequality

419
00:35:05,606 --> 00:35:10,316
evolved highly unstable
political institutions that reinforced

420
00:35:10,366 --> 00:35:13,722
that inequality
and provoked constant conflict.

421
00:35:16,846 --> 00:35:18,916
The resuIt has been nearIy 500 years

422
00:35:18,966 --> 00:35:21,764
of sociaI strife,
civiI war and red revoIution

423
00:35:21,806 --> 00:35:25,560
as the propertyIess have struggIed
for just a few acres more.

424
00:35:25,606 --> 00:35:28,757
Peru today is in the grip
of a wave of peasant protests,

425
00:35:28,806 --> 00:35:31,764
and the issue's aIways the same - Iand.

426
00:35:41,606 --> 00:35:43,403
But wait a second.

427
00:35:46,246 --> 00:35:50,842
Before we can cheerfuIIy acknowIedge
that the British modeI of coIonisation

428
00:35:50,886 --> 00:35:52,638
came up with arguabIy the greatest

429
00:35:52,686 --> 00:35:55,758
of aII of Western civiIization's
poIiticaI achievements -

430
00:35:55,806 --> 00:35:59,116
the United States Constitution -
we have to acknowIedge that

431
00:35:59,166 --> 00:36:03,876
that constitution itseIf
was tainted by a kind of originaI sin.

432
00:36:08,206 --> 00:36:10,845
lt was the colour of your skin,

433
00:36:10,886 --> 00:36:14,322
in North America
as much as in South America,

434
00:36:14,366 --> 00:36:18,245
that determined your property rights
and your political rights.

435
00:36:24,366 --> 00:36:26,596
African-Americans, Iike American Indians,

436
00:36:26,646 --> 00:36:29,524
were excIuded
from the post-revoIutionary repubIic.

437
00:36:29,566 --> 00:36:32,319
Over there, on the steps
of the CharIeston Exchange,

438
00:36:32,366 --> 00:36:37,076
where they read aIoud the DecIaration
Of Independence, they aIso soId sIaves.

439
00:36:37,126 --> 00:36:41,722
So how do we resoIve this paradox
at the very heart of Western civiIization?

440
00:36:41,766 --> 00:36:45,520
A revoIution that procIaimed itseIf
in the name of Iiberty

441
00:36:45,566 --> 00:36:48,080
was made by the owners of sIaves.

442
00:37:02,206 --> 00:37:05,516
This story is also about two ships

443
00:37:05,566 --> 00:37:10,321
bringing a very different
kind of immigrant to the Americas.

444
00:37:10,366 --> 00:37:13,597
Both left from the island of Goree
off the coast of Senegal.

445
00:37:13,646 --> 00:37:17,002
One was bound for northern Brazil,

446
00:37:17,046 --> 00:37:20,595
the other for Charleston, Carolina.

447
00:37:23,886 --> 00:37:26,844
Both carried African slaves,

448
00:37:26,886 --> 00:37:30,481
just a small fraction of the 8,000,000

449
00:37:30,526 --> 00:37:34,235
who crossed the Atlantic
between 1 450 and 1 820.

450
00:37:39,766 --> 00:37:44,317
These sIaves were saiIing towards
very different new worIds.

451
00:37:44,366 --> 00:37:48,644
One, Latin America,
wouId turn out to be a raciaI meIting pot

452
00:37:48,686 --> 00:37:52,235
where whites wouId mix freeIy
with the indigenous popuIation.

453
00:37:52,286 --> 00:37:56,757
In the North, by contrast, the coIour
Iine, the division between the races,

454
00:37:56,806 --> 00:37:58,956
wouId be much more
strictIy maintained.

455
00:37:59,006 --> 00:38:03,045
The question is, how wouId these
different attitudes towards race

456
00:38:03,086 --> 00:38:06,874
affect the future deveIopment
of the two Americas?

457
00:38:17,846 --> 00:38:23,478
Why did the New World need the ancient
institution of slavery so badly?

458
00:38:29,446 --> 00:38:32,483
The answer had everything
to do with manpower.

459
00:38:36,486 --> 00:38:40,365
This is the house that John Boone built.

460
00:38:40,406 --> 00:38:42,840
Boone had arrived in Carolina

461
00:38:42,886 --> 00:38:47,835
on the same ship as Millicent How
and Abraham Smith in 1 67 0.

462
00:38:47,886 --> 00:38:51,083
As a member of the colony's
governing Grand Council,

463
00:38:51,126 --> 00:38:54,914
he had a head start when it came
to accumulating property.

464
00:38:54,966 --> 00:39:00,324
Within 20 years he had amassed estates
covering 1 7,000 acres.

465
00:39:03,366 --> 00:39:06,995
And the Boones soon found things
to grow on their land

466
00:39:07,046 --> 00:39:11,562
that turned out to be almost as profitable
as the conquistadors' gold -

467
00:39:11,606 --> 00:39:18,205
first tobacco and then cotton to supply
the textile mills of industrial England.

468
00:39:22,046 --> 00:39:25,322
But indentured EngIish servants
were neither numerous enough

469
00:39:25,366 --> 00:39:28,517
nor tough enough to stand the toiI
of the CaroIina cotton fieIds.

470
00:39:28,566 --> 00:39:34,596
Another source of Iabour had to be found,
and that, of course, was African sIaves.

471
00:39:34,646 --> 00:39:37,604
This is where some of John Boone's Iived.

472
00:39:37,646 --> 00:39:39,876
But this was aIways part of the pIan.

473
00:39:39,926 --> 00:39:41,245
Remember John Locke,

474
00:39:41,286 --> 00:39:45,564
who made private property
the basis for Iife in the CaroIina coIony?

475
00:39:45,606 --> 00:39:49,884
WeII, in articIe 1 10 of his
Fundamental Constitutions,

476
00:39:49,926 --> 00:39:53,123
he stated cIearIy
that every CaroIina freeman

477
00:39:53,166 --> 00:39:57,318
had ''absoIute power and authority
over his negro sIaves''.

478
00:39:57,366 --> 00:40:00,802
For Locke, the ownership of peopIe
was just as important

479
00:40:00,846 --> 00:40:02,564
as the ownership of Iand.

480
00:40:09,046 --> 00:40:13,915
And these human beings would be
neither landowners nor voters.

481
00:40:13,966 --> 00:40:18,994
Here, it seemed, there was nothing
superior about British colonisation.

482
00:40:19,046 --> 00:40:23,403
The legacy of segregation
would endure for centuries.

483
00:40:26,526 --> 00:40:29,723
WOMAN: # Go with me to that land

484
00:40:29,766 --> 00:40:35,523
# Come and go with me to that land

485
00:40:35,566 --> 00:40:40,720
# Come and go with me to that land

486
00:40:40,766 --> 00:40:45,282
# Where l'm bound, where l'm bound

487
00:40:45,326 --> 00:40:48,079
# Whoa, come and go with me... #

488
00:40:48,126 --> 00:40:50,276
FERGUSON: This is the land of the Gullah,

489
00:40:50,326 --> 00:40:55,958
the region stretching from Sandy lsland,
South Carolina, to Amelia lsland, Florida,

490
00:40:56,006 --> 00:40:58,440
known as the Gullah Coast.

491
00:41:00,166 --> 00:41:03,078
Here you can see clearly
one of the biggest differences

492
00:41:03,126 --> 00:41:04,764
between North and South America.

493
00:41:06,526 --> 00:41:10,155
# Nothing but toiI in that Iand

494
00:41:10,206 --> 00:41:15,724
# Nothing but toiI in that Iand... #

495
00:41:15,766 --> 00:41:17,757
Anthropologists believe that

496
00:41:17,806 --> 00:41:19,762
''Gullah'' is a corruption of ''Angola'',

497
00:41:19,806 --> 00:41:22,195
where the inhabitants'
ancestors came from.

498
00:41:26,646 --> 00:41:29,399
The fact that there are traces of AngoIa

499
00:41:29,446 --> 00:41:32,165
stiII to be found
here in South CaroIina today

500
00:41:32,206 --> 00:41:34,595
teIIs us something reaIIy significant.

501
00:41:34,646 --> 00:41:36,602
The peopIe who Iive on these isIands

502
00:41:36,646 --> 00:41:39,399
are the direct descendants
of sIaves from AngoIa

503
00:41:39,446 --> 00:41:43,485
who came here to work on some of the most
profitabIe pIantations of the South.

504
00:41:43,526 --> 00:41:46,836
# ...To that Iand... #

505
00:41:46,886 --> 00:41:49,559
ln contrast to South America,

506
00:41:49,606 --> 00:41:52,882
where white and black
blended into many shades of brown,

507
00:41:52,926 --> 00:41:54,962
the survival of Gullah culture

508
00:41:55,006 --> 00:41:59,124
is testament to the much stricter
enforcement of the colour line

509
00:41:59,166 --> 00:42:01,726
in the slave states of North America.

510
00:42:05,486 --> 00:42:08,000
lronically, the land of the free

511
00:42:08,046 --> 00:42:11,402
looked like being,
for around a fifth of its population,

512
00:42:11,446 --> 00:42:13,755
the land of the permanently unfree.

513
00:42:13,806 --> 00:42:16,718
Slavery had become hereditary.

514
00:42:17,806 --> 00:42:29,001
# ...Where I'm bound. #

515
00:42:29,046 --> 00:42:35,121
In 1846, after 47 years of servitude,
a sIave by the name of Dred Scott

516
00:42:35,166 --> 00:42:39,205
sued for his freedom
in this courthouse in Saint Louis.

517
00:42:39,246 --> 00:42:41,123
WeII, the suit was thrown out,

518
00:42:41,166 --> 00:42:44,476
and that judgment was upheId
by the US Supreme Court.

519
00:42:44,526 --> 00:42:47,598
Here was the great paradox
of the New WorId -

520
00:42:47,646 --> 00:42:51,878
the Iiberty-Ioving EngIish settIers
who produced the US Constitution

521
00:42:51,926 --> 00:42:54,440
were aIso determined
to maintain the difference

522
00:42:54,486 --> 00:42:57,558
between white freedom and bIack sIavery.

523
00:42:57,606 --> 00:43:02,680
The property-owning democracy was based
on a foundation of raciaI inequaIity.

524
00:43:05,166 --> 00:43:10,240
ln the end, the paradox of slavery
in a supposedly free society

525
00:43:10,286 --> 00:43:12,925
could be resolved only by war.

526
00:43:14,366 --> 00:43:16,004
The American Civil War,

527
00:43:16,046 --> 00:43:19,880
between the pro-slavery states
of the South, like the Carolinas,

528
00:43:19,926 --> 00:43:22,884
and the anti-slavery states of the North.

529
00:43:27,606 --> 00:43:32,043
Appropriately, it was a war
that began in Charleston.

530
00:43:36,726 --> 00:43:39,194
Yet although the Civil War ended slavery,

531
00:43:39,246 --> 00:43:44,036
many white Americans continued
to believe that they owed their prosperity

532
00:43:44,086 --> 00:43:47,999
to the dividing line
between white and black.

533
00:43:52,006 --> 00:43:55,203
Segregation now!
Segregation tomorrow!

534
00:43:55,246 --> 00:43:57,202
And segregation for ever!

535
00:43:59,366 --> 00:44:04,235
As recently as 1 963,
Alabama governor George Wallace

536
00:44:04,286 --> 00:44:08,723
could put segregation right at the heart
of the American success story.

537
00:44:12,646 --> 00:44:15,240
This was compIete nonsense.

538
00:44:15,286 --> 00:44:19,837
It was pure rubbish to beIieve, as
George WaIIace did, that the United States

539
00:44:19,886 --> 00:44:24,084
owed its prosperity and its greater
stabiIity than a country Iike this one,

540
00:44:24,126 --> 00:44:27,516
VenezueIa,
to the fact of raciaI segregation.

541
00:44:27,566 --> 00:44:32,321
On the contrary, North America did better
than South America pureIy and simpIy

542
00:44:32,366 --> 00:44:36,154
because the British modeI
of wideIy distributed property ownership

543
00:44:36,206 --> 00:44:39,357
and democracy worked better
than the Spanish modeI

544
00:44:39,406 --> 00:44:42,523
of concentrated weaIth
and authoritarian ruIe.

545
00:44:48,766 --> 00:44:52,042
Far from being indispensable
to its success,

546
00:44:52,086 --> 00:44:57,524
slavery and segregation were quite simply
the original sin of the United States,

547
00:44:57,566 --> 00:45:01,479
giving the lie for more than two centuries
to the American claim

548
00:45:01,526 --> 00:45:04,120
to be the zenith of Western civilization.

549
00:45:18,886 --> 00:45:22,720
Today, however,
a man with an African father

550
00:45:22,766 --> 00:45:24,518
is President of the United States,

551
00:45:24,566 --> 00:45:28,605
and the cities of the North increasingly
resemble those of South America.

552
00:45:28,646 --> 00:45:34,323
Large-scale migration from Latin America
means that in 40 years' time,

553
00:45:34,366 --> 00:45:38,678
non-Hispanic whites will be a minority
of the US population.

554
00:45:43,046 --> 00:45:47,358
But if the United States is suffering
harder economic times these days,

555
00:45:47,406 --> 00:45:50,364
it's certainIy not because of
the end of white supremacy.

556
00:45:50,406 --> 00:45:52,476
After aII, one of star performers

557
00:45:52,526 --> 00:45:56,485
of the worId economy now
is none other than muIti-coIoured BraziI.

558
00:45:56,526 --> 00:45:59,962
And that's because
economic reform has finaIIy given

559
00:46:00,006 --> 00:46:04,363
a rising share of the popuIation
a chance to own property and to vote.

560
00:46:04,406 --> 00:46:09,082
500 years since the process
of conquest and coIonisation began,

561
00:46:09,126 --> 00:46:13,085
the great divide between
British America and Latin America

562
00:46:13,126 --> 00:46:15,196
is finaIIy cIosing.

563
00:46:24,766 --> 00:46:26,882
Throughout the Western hemisphere,

564
00:46:26,926 --> 00:46:31,363
a single civilization is finally
and belatedly emerging.

565
00:46:43,526 --> 00:46:47,565
But as we'll see in the next programme,

566
00:46:47,606 --> 00:46:52,396
200 years ago, Western civilization looked
very different - and very white -

567
00:46:52,446 --> 00:46:57,839
to the people on the receiving end of the
next great wave of European expansion...

568
00:46:57,886 --> 00:46:59,365
into Africa.