Thus large differences existed between the United States and Canada, on the one hand,
and the rest of the Americas, on the other, in public policies toward suffrage, education,
and land. Based on these and similar patterns, Engerman and Sokoloff (1997, 2002) argue
that initial differences in the degree of inequality—which can be attributed largely to
factor endowments—had long-lasting effects on the paths of development of the
economies of the Americas. In economies characterized by stark inequality at the outset
of colonization, institutions evolved in ways that tended to protect the elite and maintain
a large class of poor, uneducated, and disenfranchised people. Neither the abolition of
slavery not the creation of democratic governments changed the basic patterns.