The Creoles brought back new ideas.
The judicial system was much improved, a better grade of officials became the rule, many French Creoles were appointed to office, intermarriages of French and Spanish and even English were encouraged by the highest officials, and in general a liberal and conciliatory policy was followed, which made Louisiana under Spanish rule quiet and prosperous.
The last were peninsulars, the others mainly creoles, and among the wealthy classes of the latter the separatists gradually gained increasing support.
Hubner estimates the mixed of all races at 93%, the highest among all the South American nationalities, and the creoles at 1% only; but this is clearly incorrect.
The Creoles (Criallos) or American-born Spaniards had for long been aggrieved at being shut out from all important official positions, and at the restrictions placed upon their trade, but the bulk of the Creole population was not disloyal.
The towns had municipal franchises, exercised by a governing body comprised of Spaniards, either immigrants from Old Spain, or Creoles, i.e.
In government it had to meet with the growing discontent of the Creoles, who found themselves treated as children, and their country looked on as a mulch cow.
Among the pure whites - who were practically all of Spanish extraction - there were two well-defined classes, the Gachupines or chapetones, Spaniards born in Europe, said, to be so named in allusion to their spurs, from Aztec words meaning " prickers with the foot," and the native-born or creoles: the former, though a small minority, had almost all the higher positions both in the public services and in commerce.
They had done much to civilize the natives and to educate the whites, and their expulsion, which was greatly resented by the Creoles, probably tended to increase the popular discontent and prepare for the overthrow of Spanish rule.
Many Mauritian Creoles have emigrated to South Africa.
Although Chileans claim a comparatively small admixture with the native races, it is estimated that the whites and creoles of white extraction do not exceed 30 to 40% of the population, while the mestizos form fully 60%.
The islands were colonized by Mauritian and Bourbon creoles; the white element, still prevailingly French, has been strengthened by the settlement of several British families.
When the Cuban rising in 1895 assumed a serious aspect, he was sent out by the Conservative cabinet of Canovas to cope with the rebellion, but he failed in the field, as well as in his efforts to win over the Creoles, chiefly because he was not allowed to give them local self-government, as he wished.
Increasing numbers of Creoles came home for education, and though they rarely went beyond Spain, yet Spain itself was being permeated by the influence of French philosophic and economic writers.
