When some Virginians at the end of the seventeenth century, petitioned the government to build a college for the training of ministers, they were told to forget about the cure of souls and instead to cure tobacco.

The result was that the planter class, unchallenged by any other powerful institutions, was free to shape a slave system to meet its labor needs.

In any conflict which arose between personality rights and property rights the property rights of the master were always protected.
In contrast, the South American planter would not have such a free hand in shaping his own affairs.

The Renaissance and Reformation had not made the same impact on Spain and Portugal as they did on the rest of Western Europe.

Consequently, secularization and commercialization had not progressed as far in eroding the traditional power and prestige of the Crown and the Church.