Question 1
John Locke argued that a government loses its legitimacy when it violates the natural rights of its citizens. Which of the following best describes how Creole leaders in Spanish America applied this argument against Spanish colonial rule?No clue? Show me the answer
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IncorrectStep-by-step walkthrough
Choose a solution method
Method #1Direct Application of Lockean TheoryStep 1: Identify Locke's core principle
Locke argued that government is legitimate only when it protects the natural rights of the governed — life, liberty, and property — and rests on their consent. A government that violates these rights forfeits its claim to obedience.
Step 2: Apply the principle to Spanish colonial grievances
Creole elites argued that Spain violated their liberty through mercantilist restrictions (denying free trade) and violated their effective political liberty by reserving viceroyalties, audiencias, and senior church posts for peninsulares, denying Creoles governance over their own affairs.
Step 3: Connect grievance to the social contract argument
By Locke's logic, a ruler who imposes restrictions without consent and excludes subjects from power has broken the social contract. Creoles used exactly this framing: Spain had never genuinely obtained colonial consent and had actively denied the rights consent was meant to protect.
Step 4: Select the correct answer
The correct answer describes the Lockean argument as applied in Spanish America: Spain's trade restrictions and political exclusion of Creoles constituted a violation of natural rights and a breach of the social contract, justifying resistance.
Method #2Process of EliminationStep 1: Identify what the question is asking
The question asks how Creole leaders specifically applied Locke's theory to justify resisting Spanish rule — requiring knowledge of both Locke's argument and its historical application.
Step 2: Eliminate the chronological argument
The option claiming Spanish authority over pre-1689 colonies was automatically void misunderstands Locke entirely. Locke's theory concerns the ongoing relationship between ruler and governed, not a one-time founding date. This option conflates historical chronology with philosophical principle.
Step 3: Eliminate the republic-only argument
The option stating Locke's contract only applied to republics is factually wrong. Locke's Two Treatises were directed against monarchy as practised by Charles II and James II; the argument was that all governments, including monarchies, must protect natural rights to be legitimate.
Step 4: Eliminate the racially restricted argument
The option suggesting natural rights were limited to Europeans contradicts Locke's universal framing of rights as pre-political and inherent to all persons. While Creole leaders in practice often excluded non-Europeans from the benefits of independence, they did not argue Locke's theory was racially bounded in principle.
Step 5: Select the remaining correct answer
The correct answer — that Spain broke the social contract through mercantilist restrictions and exclusion of Creoles from top offices — accurately reflects both Locke's theory and how Creole revolutionaries actually deployed it rhetorically against Spanish authority.