VivirLatino

You're both right; it's somebody else's myopic view of us.
But, I would also add:

Liza, while I agree with a most of what you have to say, I think that some of it may be questionable.

"It was Spain, not England, that instituted the slave trade in "The New World" right after they killed off through slave labor and disease 90% of the native populations of the Caribbean. Spain and Portugal were the largest slave-traders in the world, starting as far back as the late 1500's and way before it was introduced in any of the Thirteen Colonies."

• Spain, and later Portugal instituted slavery in the "New World" because they established themselves in the region BEFORE the English. Do you think that the English would have been more benevolent if they had invaded the developed areas of the region, such as Mexico, and South America? No, they wouldn't have. The European mindset of the era, was one of exploitation, regardless of whether they were southern or northern Europeans. Equally, they held the rest of the world in contempt. Look at the damage the English managed to visit on Africa and Asia, and you can get an idea of what they would have done had the tables been turned, and they got to the Caribbean and the continent first.
To this day, Anglo-American "history" puts the onus of genocide and slavery on the Spanish and Portuguese, but refuse to state that it was their brethren and descendants who murdered their way across the North American continent and trafficked in African slaves. Letting the English off the hook buys right into the historical BS that they've been perpetuating for two centuries - the lie of having the moral high ground.

• Historians are only now, begrudgingly, questioning the "Killing off of 90% of the indigenous population".
The earliest census data was done by the Spanish in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, and even those documents are skewed in favor of the one who called for it. The Spanish were tired of conducting census long before the English managed to survive one season in the north; all their attempts, (like Jamestown in 1607, failed) that census data is readily available for anyone to see, right now, and the first thing that should be asked is; how did they cover such large distances with the primitive modes of transportation that they had? Did they manage to go everywhere? The answer is no. So, when it came time to send the info to Spain, it was sketchy at best. Everybody with and agenda, bandied numbers about. The fact is, when many of us look in the mirror, we can see our indigenous heritage. It's not like the 10% that remained got busy having babies to make their masters happy.
What the Spanish did, and it was allowed by royal decree, was to marry indigenous women - something that the English, in their never-ending hypocrisy wouldn't admit.
I'm not defending the Spanish and the Portuguese; I'm saying that the 90% number is inflated, because no one really knows how many people were on the continents when the Europeans arrived.
I DO have a problem with the Hollywood lie of the Anglo-American experience versus the Spanish experience in America, because it still gives them a moral authority that they bestowed on themselves, and they don't deserve it anymore than any other European group that stuck their grubby hands into American soil.
Piracy grew out of greed for what the Spanish were stealing, not because they were out to help anyone but themselves.

• "......and way before it was introduced in any of the Thirteen Colonies." Yeah, but when they got a foothold, they went at it with the same fury - right?
We all know that Native Americans and Africans in the north got, and continue to get nothing but contempt from the descendants of those "13 colonies".
It may seem like apples and oranges, but when those 13 colonies got their independence from England, one of the first things that they did was give itself power to ride roughshod over the entire western hemisphere, thanks to that self-serving document called the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. And, it's worth noting that they never tried to drive the English from their colonies. Guyana became a CROWN colony in 1928!!!
The Anglos didn't bring us anything that we didn't pay for in blood and misery - no different than the Spanish and Portuguese, and equally hellbent on subjugating us.