With the development of commerce and industry, with the growth of activities which bring men into touch with each other in everyday affairs, something like a solidarity of sentiment might have been awakened.

In its absence the only bond among the dominant whites was their sense of superiority to the colored masses beneath them.
Manual labor and trade had never attracted the Spaniards and the Portuguese.

The army, the church, and the law were the three callings that offered the greatest opportunity for distinction.

Agriculture, grazing, and mining they did not disdain, provided that superintendence and not actual work was the main requisite.

The economic organization which the Spaniards and Portuguese established in America was naturally a more or less faithful reproduction of that to which they had been accustomed at home.