Políticas británicas en las primeras colonias americanas. Crítica a la visión mítica sobre su establecimiento y efectos sobre la construcción de la tradición legal estadounidense

Abstract

This article analyses the final part of the XVI century and it aims to disable the mythic vision about the English settlements in the current east coast of the United States. It has been alleged that Englishmen that arrived brought with them the seeds of democracy that later sprouted m that country. The main argument of this article contradicts that idea and argues that the first Englishmen that arrived pursued the same objectives as their Spanish contemporaries m the rest of the American continent, and that the policy of permanent settlements were the result of the no existence of material resources that allowed the English Crown either the extraction of precious minerals or the exploitation of a sophistical: indigenous culture. Autonomy to the companies was provided by the Crown, and this sense, a policy of massive land adjudication contrasted the policy of pillage that was in the first place though. This autonomy provided the basis of a legal system founded on the participation of a substantial part of the population and this is the issue treated in the second part of this article.