Why Did the US Get Rich But Latin America Never Did

Why did the US get rich but Latin America never did? In 1700, by one famous estimate, the average Mexican was almost as rich as the average person in the English colonies. Today the gap is about eight to one. And the mountain that once produced nearly half of all the silver on Earth sits in Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in South America.

This is the economic history of Latin America told through its map: Latin America vs USA, from the Potosi silver mine (Cerro Rico, "the mountain that eats men") and the forced labor of the mita, to where all that Spanish silver really went: Seville, Genoa, London and China. Why is Latin America poor if it found the treasure? The resource curse may have started right here: the Spanish empire built rules to take things out, while colonial America had nothing to dig and had to give away land to bring people in.