UN General Assembly
1960

110. We hold no brief for Western colonial imperialism. We were a Spanish colony for nearly four hundred years, and we fared no worse and no better than the other twenty-odd colonies of Spain during the heyday of its imperial glory. Yet, when we consider the history of those four hundred years during which our people rose in rebellion every two or three years, we can yet candidly admit that amid the long litany of evils which colonialism wrought in our country there has remained a residue of good. Upon the basic oriental elements of our native culture, Spain grafted the values of that Latin civilization of which it was the principal bearer to the New World and which now serves as a precious link between us and the twenty republics of that continent.