Following an independence revolution a nation tends to proceed into a period where they learn independence and can function on their own with their own identity. They learn to respect the rights of its citizens, provide national security, instill a sense of patriotism, and learn to handle economic endeavors in a way to benefit the nation as a whole. After their revolutions for independence, the countries of Latin America did not achieve many of these milestones. The countries of did not show any signs of becoming anything close to independent after their revolutions. They allowed Great Britain and the U.S. to come in and dictate their economic infrastructure by exploiting the masses and allowing only a few individuals to enjoy wealth. This in return led to brutal political dictators, a large number of landless farm workers, a low literacy rate, and worker repression. Latin America is a rich land with poor people as its inhabitants because leaders of each country have failed to recognize how to effectively create an independent nation.
After most of the Latin American countries achieved independence from Spain in the late 19th century the issue of what type of government the countries would adopt and who would oversee them arose. Many wanted to maintain the Spanish American tradition of a monarch ruling; while others were intrigued by the teachings and doctrines of the Enlightenment and admirers of the American success and wanted to start fresh as a republic. The federalist and centralist factions became aligned with two main political currents that dominated Latin American politics during the nineteenth century: liberalism and conservatism. Generally, liberals viewed the United States as a model whereas, conservatives ...
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...ndividuals in power were too selfish to worry about the nation as a whole. Their only concerns were to make themselves as rich as possible regardless of the well-being of others. In a sense, Latin America is not “detached” from Spain. The core of Colonial Spanish America was to exploit the masses and to restrict power and wealth amongst the elite. This notion has been prevalent throughout Latin American History. Until Latin American countries can break away from exploitation and the involvement of foreign powers in their economy they will never be able to ha[-]. The United States partook a large role in the lack of progessiveness in Latin American following the nineteenth century. Anything that challenged business interests of the United States in Latin America led to a radical reaction by the United States. These radical reactions put fear into many citizens.
Around the year 1850 conservatives ruled the roost for most Latin American nations. However there was a dividing force that drove a wedge between the people of Latin America. International trade on a regular and large scale had become the focus of national markets. This pushed many liberal ideals to the forefront of business and in turn politics. The main idea behind this is the simple fact that money talks and at the time liberal leaning policies were more business and trade friendly.
Latin America’s independence kicked of with the independence of Haiti. Before the the independence movement that overtook Latin America, Haiti had gained independence twenty years before the movement. The Spanish Empire had been in decline for a period of time after the rise of the English empire and many failed battles on the Spanish (class notes). The French Revolution and the American Revolution had inspired many of the Latin American countries to fight for independence (Chapter 3). They were inspired by the Enlightenment that washed over Europe. Of the inspired, one man stood out and took the movement by heart.
Harry E. Canden. , & Gary Prevost, (2012). Politics Latin America. (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Immediately following the war with Spain, the United States had both the political will to pursue imperial policies and the geopolitical circumstances conducive to doing so. But the way in which these policies would manifest was an open question; was the impulse to actively remake the world in America’s Anglo-Saxon image justified? Hence, there were several models of American imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century. In the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Samoa, the United States asserted unwavering political control. In Cuba, and later throughout most of the Caribbean basin, the economic and political domination of customarily sovereign governments became the policy. Ultimately, the United States was able to expand its territory
The historian Ronn Pineo wrote “Beginning in the 1980s nearly all of Latin America began to take part in a great experiment, the adoption of capitalist free market economic policies.” (1) This great experiment began with the promotion of democracy and free market that promised a better future for Latin America. Neoliberalism, the economic ideology that promotes free-market capitalism, laid the foundation for many of the US military interventions and economic policies that caused a dramatic transformation of Latin America. This promise of a “democratic” government came from a policy initiative labeled as polyarchy. Polyarchy is “ a system in which a small group governs and mass participation in decision making is limited to choosing leaders in elections that are carefully managed by competing elites” (Lecture: Polyarchy and Resistance). It, however, was a sales pitch to continue Latin America’s subordinate position in to the global market. As a result, much of Latin America, by the late 1980 through the early 1990s, transitioned into this form of “democracy”. Consequently, Latin America suffered and still suffers today from underdevelopment, high levels of socioeconomic inequality, and immigration. Globalization of capital, off-shore production, and new technologies have created structural barriers and have
... a great contrast to the most apparent feature of the Western Society. The Westerners created new political ideologies never seen before, resulting in neither an absolute or dictatorial structure. The Catholic Church still remained an intricate part of the Latin American life and continued to provide a key cultural adhesive throughout the Latin civilization, as the Western Societies role of religion lost popularity. The loss of interest in the church was partly because of the rising popularity nationalism and socialism provided as competition for the church. Lastly, The Latin American economy depended mainly on their agriculture and consisted of each country developing a cash crop or mineral specialty, while industrialization left an immense imprint on the shape of society in Western nations, by creating new specialty professions which required extensive training.
In Michel Gobat’s The Invention of the Latin America: A Transnational History of Anti-Imperialism, Democracy, and Race, he discusses the social construction of the term Latin America in the 19th century. The term Latin America was used to push against United States expansionism and European imperialism. The emergence of ‘Latin America’ is tied to a race, a democratic-republican government and linked to the idea of modernity, and the pushback against the United States. To be Latin America is to be modern, speak a romantic language, have Iberian ties and to embrace Roman Catholicism. By calling this specific geographical part of the world Latin is to imply the French imperialism within it. “Latin” is linked to this idea of “whiteness”, this means modernity that will allow Latin Americans to compete with the Anglo Saxon race. an argument for coining this term is because the people of current Latin America did not want to call the land America because of it’s association with the United States. They also did not want to call it just Latin because that implies that it is only associated with the French, instead they combined both to incorporate the two different words into one meaning. The Latin American identity also rose with the democratic, republican, and anti-colonial political culture that was shared in both North and South America.
“In the 1840s, a new generation of politicians emerged, challenging the persons and policies of those who had held power since the end of the 1820s” (Safford, 67). It was a political change in Latin America because before there were only caudillos that only filled the political role in a country and those caudillos still acted like the kings during the colonial period. With new liberals that challenged the norms at the time period led to radical changes, such in Mexico. Since the caudillos didn’t do much that was different that their former colonist rulers. After the Wars of Independence, caudillos came into power because of the liberalism failure to get away from the colonialism legacy. Many of these caudillos took advantage of the failure of these changes that were promised by liberals. Caudillos such as Jose Manuel de Rosas from Argentina took control over the country and caused many problems between the people. Even though Rosas brought order in Argentina, he failed because of the strict leadership and may people feared off until he left in exile to England in 1852. That is one of the differences is that caudillos were the leaders that still follow the colonialism legacy, while the new liberals in the 1840s were the ones that actually
The conquest of Latin America was a fairly quick process in which the theme of hegemony was vastly prominent. The cultures of colonialism and competitive nature to obtain wealth through exploitation were the main driving force of hegemony. It is natural to exploit the people of lower class or societal rank for one's own advantage, and that is what happened. As the pressure of power and control became overbearing toward the people, resistance was sure to follow.
Burns, E. B., & Charlip, J. A. (2007). Latin America: an interpretive history (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
One of the differences was timing, with the newly founded United States achieving independence some thirty years before the Latin American colonies. This gave the U.S. a decided advantage over its southern counterparts, as the U.S. economy and government were already established by the 1810s, just as the Latin colonies began to pull away from Spain. Because of this establishment, the U.S. was able to exert its influence over Latin America from the beginning of its process of independence. Perhaps the strongest example of this was the Monroe Doctrine. Stated by President Monroe in 1823 as a warning to Europe that the Americas were closed to future colonization, it also indicated the intention of the U.S. to dominate the
McDonald, Ronald H. and Ruhl, J. Mark. Party Politics and Elections in Latin America, Westview Press, 1989
Latin American Independence was the drive for independence from Spain and France by the Latin American people. There were many contributing factors that ultimately led to the uprising of Latin American colonies. Europe's strong hold on the economic and political life of Latin America, was creating friction between the Latin Colonies and the European nations. Eventually, this would become enough for the Latin American people and the drive for independence from France and Spain would begin.
As the Latin American nations set out to construct a new government and society in the 1800´s, two opposing models aroused regarding which one would best benefit the countries. ¨Civilization vs. Barbarism¨ by Domingo Sarmiento, a recognized Argentinean revolutionary, contrasts Jose Marti´s ¨Our America¨ ideology which critiques U.S. capitalism and focuses on developing a good government based on the needs of the nations and each nation´s autochthony. Contrastingly, Sarmiento, guided by his beliefs in democratic principles, declares his preference towards the European urbanized way of life as the key to progress and stability for the nations. Despite the differences in the models proposed by Marti and Sarmiento for the New Nations to follow,
Scholars have debated not only the nature of Iberian colonialism, but also the impact that independence had on the people of Latin America. Historian Jaime E. Rodriguez said that, “The emancipation of [Latin America] did not merely consist of separation from the mother country, as in the case of the United States. It also destroyed a vast and responsive social, political, and economic system that functioned well despite many imperfections.” I believe that when independence emerged in Latin America, it was a positive force. However, as time progressed, it indeed does cause conflict.