John Locke had the general idea.
As the sponsor of Christopher Columbus's voyages, Spain was the first European power to settle and colonize the largest areas, from North America and the Caribbean to the southern tip of South America.
All this is saying is that when the Europeans colonized Africa they did great damages to the social and political institutions of the natives on a local level, as opposed to necessarily a national level, due to the fact that power in Africa was relatively localized.
