Life in the Spanish colonies

What was life like for the average person living in the colonies. I know the Spanish had a Colonial Caste system that differentiated people based on skin color, social class, and where they originated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta). But outside of that, what was the average life for a resident of the colonies like? What opportunities for work and schooling were available? How did they get around? How similar was life in colonies to life in Europe or elsewhere?

I am from an ex-spanish colony, so i have always studied about this. The average person living in a spanish colony was a mestizo. At the beginning mestizos were treated pretty much like spaniards since white women were not numerous in the new world and white spaniards had to take what they had, during this time pretty much anyone exept for blacks and natives (i don't really know about asians since they were not really present at all in america and i don't know a lot about the philippines) could get a very important job, however life was hard and in some cases attacks by natives on settlers were pretty common.
In the later ages of spanish colonization, white women were alviable for white men and these two having children was the norm, this meant that the average person (mestizos) were considered "bastards" since no sane spanish man would marry an indian now and the average life of the average person was reduced to a terrible existance, horrible jobs, literally no schooling (most people were illiterate).
However, it is very difficult to answer your question perfectly, since different parts of the empire had different ways of life, for example, the people who inhabited today's Paraguay had a better existance since the jesuits took care of that region and they pretty much gave jobs, schooling and dignity to everyone living there, however, in the viceroyalty of Alto Peru the average person had a horrible life, complicated, tiring and cheap-paid jobs.
In few words, spanish colonies were the most backward colonies you could find in the entire world and the english/dutch/french ones were much better.

Also, Spain held a monopoly when it came to trade with it's colonies, this meant that only authorised ports could trade and they could only trade with Spain. This benefited Spain since no money would go out of the country, but it made the life of the people worse since they had less opportunities for both wealth and education.

Dittatore_Signore_Massimo wrote:I am from an ex-spanish colony, so i have always studied about this. The average person living in a spanish colony was a mestizo. At the beginning mestizos were treated pretty much like spaniards since white women were not numerous in the new world and white spaniards had to take what they had, during this time pretty much anyone exept for blacks and natives (i don't really know about asians since they were not really present at all in america and i don't know a lot about the philippines) could get a very important job, however life was hard and in some cases attacks by natives on settlers were pretty common.
In the later ages of spanish colonization, white women were alviable for white men and these two having children was the norm, this meant that the average person (mestizos) were considered "bastards" since no sane spanish man would marry an indian now and the average life of the average person was reduced to a terrible existance, horrible jobs, literally no schooling (most people were illiterate).
However, it is very difficult to answer your question perfectly, since different parts of the empire had different ways of life, for example, the people who inhabited today's Paraguay had a better existance since the jesuits took care of that region and they pretty much gave jobs, schooling and dignity to everyone living there, however, in the viceroyalty of Alto Peru the average person had a horrible life, complicated, tiring and cheap-paid jobs.
In few words, spanish colonies were the most backward colonies you could find in the entire world and the english/dutch/french ones were much better.

Hmm, that would explain why former Spanish Colonies are much poorer than Canada and the USA. Also, from what i've heard, up until Independence the Spanish colonies were extremely sparsely populated, and largely rural.

By the way, thanks for the answer!

No problem! if you want to know anything else about them ask me!
Also, the thing that you said about colonies being very rural is truth, however, they were not always sparsley populated, Mexico was very populated compared to Chile. If you want to find wich colonies were more populated then you have to search by yourself, all  know about population was that north american territories (exept for mexico and the caribbean), today's Argentina and Chile had practically no population and they had to resort to european immigration.

This photo shows Italian immigrants in Argentina (my family came in one of those boats )

Dittatore_Signore_Massimo wrote:No problem! if you want to know anything else about them ask me!
Also, the thing that you said about colonies being very rural is truth, however, they were not always sparsley populated, Mexico was very populated compared to Chile. If you want to find wich colonies were more populated then you have to search by yourself, all  know about population was that north american territories (exept for mexico and the caribbean), today's Argentina and Chile had practically no population and they had to resort to european immigration.

This photo shows Italian immigrants in Argentina (my family came in one of those boats )

Apparently something like 60% of Argentina's population has at least some Italian Ancestry.

CptCrape wrote:

Dittatore_Signore_Massimo wrote:No problem! if you want to know anything else about them ask me!
Also, the thing that you said about colonies being very rural is truth, however, they were not always sparsley populated, Mexico was very populated compared to Chile. If you want to find wich colonies were more populated then you have to search by yourself, all  know about population was that north american territories (exept for mexico and the caribbean), today's Argentina and Chile had practically no population and they had to resort to european immigration.

This photo shows Italian immigrants in Argentina (my family came in one of those boats )

Apparently something like 60% of Argentina's population has at least some Italian Ancestry.

True, actually, i recently did a DNA test and i found out i am 53% italian, 11% Croatian slav, 29,% spaniard (mostly from basque region), 4% middle eastern and 3% native. If you go to Brazil, Chile, Argentina or Uruguay you would find out that this countrie's cultures are closer to central european/mediterranean than Mexican or Peruvian.

Actually The Southern Cone has proportionally the same(or almost the same) amount of White(Caucasians/Castizos) than The US or Canada


PS: How much cost a DNA test? as far as I know the price is around $100, hopefully I'm wrong.

Malotun wrote:Actually The Southern Cone has proportionally the same(or almost the same) amount of White(Caucasians/Castizos) than The US or Canada


PS: How much cost a DNA test? as far as I know the price is around $100, hopefully I'm wrong.

I bought it at a page called "MyHeritage DNA" for 69$, i got it in the united states since i have family there

You are damn lucky haha, sadly I have no family in the US, but at least it's cheaper than I thought.