Sorry for Building Colonial Empires?

By Pedro Canales

Demanding apologies and repentance from colonizers is becoming a claim raised by governments and some sectors of public opinion in many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Historians, sociologists, economists, and public, governmental or private figures are embroiled in a never-ending debate. Everyone is right, somewhat right, or not right at all.

The Mexican government demands repentance from the Spanish Crown for Hispanic colonization in America, particularly in Mexico. The Algerian government asks the French state to acknowledge “the horrors of colonization” and “ask for forgiveness.”

Responding to the pressure of public opinion in their own countries and demands from former colonized peoples, several governments, kings, and presidents around the world have acknowledged mistakes and atrocities committed during the colonial past.

In April 2024, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stated that Portugal was responsible for crimes committed during the transatlantic slave trade and the colonial era, and suggested the need for reparations.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander officially apologized in July 2023 for his country’s slave-owning past during the colonial era, saying he felt “personally and deeply” affected.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologized in November 2023 and asked for forgiveness for atrocities committed by German forces during the colonial era in Tanzania.
Belgium’s King Philippe acknowledged for the first time in 2020 the “violence and cruelty” exercised in the Congo under the rule of his predecessor Leopold II.

Even the Vatican, in 2023, denounced its colonial past, officially stating that the papal bulls (official decrees) that legitimized the appropriation of indigenous lands during the colonial era “did not adequately reflect the equality of dignity and rights of indigenous peoples.”

However, the debate is far from over. On one side are those who defend that the actions of governments, autocracies, or crowns “brought progress and faith (mostly Christian) to colonized countries”; on the other side, people continue to contest the brutal colonial wars, symbols of cruelty, discrimination, and crimes against humanity.

In this context, voices are emerging that try to explain history, including the colonial era, from different perspectives. Two authors, Francisco García-Blanch and Avelino Cortizo Martínez, the former Spanish and the latter Mexican, have just published a detailed study with a controversial title: “Hispanism: The Zenith of Humanism.” Their view is at least unorthodox compared to the official pro-colonization narrative and the indigenous-centered defense of the subjugated cultures.

García-Blanch, an engineer with a degree in business studies, complements Cortizo Martínez, a historian, philosopher, and researcher of technological development, in a study on the reality in colonized countries, covering the development of agriculture, crafts, inventions, infrastructure, schools, water use, and the personal contributions of adventurous entrepreneurs—all within a framework of cultural and societal hybridization.

In the case of Hispanism in America between the 15th and 19th centuries, with an agile and educational style, they manage to show the fusion between the new technological areas introduced by the colonizers and indigenous knowledge. The book addresses topics such as mining, commerce, agriculture, industry, navigation, defense, and construction.

According to the authors, there was significant understanding between the entrepreneurs and officials, between the bearers of knowledge and the Spanish Crown. What they describe as the “Hispanic legacy” spans from Alaska to Cape Horn. Colonization, in sum, was not a planned or organized enterprise but unfolded empirically over several centuries.

A thought expressed by the authors says it all: “When objectively analyzing the facts, one can consider that the titanic work of Hispanism would not have been consolidated if it had not been carried out by the thousands of people who crossed the ocean and settled in the New World, with an admirable entrepreneurial spirit and all their knowledge and technologies of production and labor, aiming to achieve better living conditions than they had in the Old World.”

The crucial question is whether this novel vision of “the Hispanic colonial epic in America” can be extended to other continents and colonial metropolises. Is there something similar in the exploitation of African lands, forests, and deserts by European settlers? Can we observe infrastructure, roads, railways, dams, towns, and cities through this same prism of spontaneous technological development? Has there been the same cultural hybridization in Africa, Asia, and Oceania as in America, which allowed for the union of developmental contributions and indigenous tradition?

Is there a resemblance between Egypt-Congo-Algeria-Morocco-Niger, etc., and Paris-London-Madrid-Lisbon-Rome-Berlin?

The book by Francisco García-Blanch and Avelino Cortizo Martínez does not close the debate. On the contrary, it reopens it from a new perspective.