Latin America Its Problems and Its Promise A Multi... - (Part 2)

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Part II
HISTORICAL SETTING
Copyright © 2010. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
Knippers, B. J. (2010). Latin america : Its problems and its promise: a multidisciplinary introduction. ProQuest Ebook Central
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Chapter 5
C O L O N I A L L AT I N A M E R I C A
Peter Bakewell
The colonial period in Latin America lasted just over 300 years and would be
impossible to describe even broadly in a few pages. So this chapter does not try to
give a summary of events in colonial times. Rather, it aims to examine two broad
themes: (1) What, in a quite practical way, is meant by “colonialism” in Latin Amer-
ica in the 1500s, 1600s, and 1700s? (2) What features and influences of colonial
times have carried over into, and helped to form, the Latin America of today?
Conquest and Settlement

Let’s begin with some basic dates and geographical data. The colonial period of
Latin America began when Columbus sailed across the Atlantic from Spain in
1492 and claimed the lands he touched for Spain. They were, on that first voyage
of 1492–1493, the islands of Cuba and, as the Spaniards came to call it, Hispan-
iola (now divided between the Dominican Republic and Haiti). It is illogical to say
that Columbus “discovered” the Americas because obviously the true discoverers
were the people who first entered and settled them. And people from Asia had
done those things many tens of thousands of years before Columbus arrived, be-
coming in the course of time what are now referred to as native Americans. From
the point of view of Spain and Europe in general, however, Columbus did find the
Americas, and more importantly, his “discovery” led to the establishment of a per-
manent link between the two sides of the Atlantic—something that the Norse ex-
peditions to North America from Greenland, around AD 1000, had failed to do.
As soon as Columbus reported the existence of Cuba and Hispaniola to the
Spanish crown, Spain claimed the right to settle and govern those islands and other
lands that might be found in the same direction. The pope of the day, Alexander
VI, who was a Spaniard, confirmed the claim. His confirmation was sought be-
cause, as the chief representative of God on earth, he was the highest authority in
the world known to Christian rulers. In any case, no other European state, with
the possible exception of Portugal, was strong enough to challenge Spain’s claim to
possess and govern the lands Columbus had found.
The Portuguese had been exploring westward and southward in the Atlantic for
many decades before 1492 and were understandably disturbed by Spain’s claim to
77
78 PETER BAKEWELL
all land on the west side of the Atlantic. Conflict was averted, however, by an
agreement (the Treaty of Tordesillas) drawn up in 1494 that divided the tasks of
exploring and settling the world between the two countries. To the west of an
imaginary north-south line in the Atlantic, Spain should explore and settle, and to
the east of that line, Portugal should do so. Although unanticipated at the time,
that agreement would give Portugal a large section of eastern South America since,
as defined in the treaty, the line passed down through the mouth of the Amazon,
leaving the coastline again at about 30 degrees south latitude. Hence, the eastern
bulge of South America, once it was discovered in 1500, became Portuguese terri-
tory, forming the basis of modern Brazil.
The colonial history of Spanish America, having begun in 1492 with Colum-
bus, ended in the years 1810–1825 as the various Spanish colonies in the Amer-
icas, with two exceptions, fought for and gained their independence. The
exceptions were Cuba and Puerto Rico, which did not become free of Spain until
1898. Brazil broke from Portugal in 1822. So, in both the Spanish and Portuguese
cases, the colonial period was long—almost twice as long as the time that has
elapsed between independence and the present.
Colonial Spanish America was much larger than Portuguese America. Even
though the Portuguese gradually pushed westward beyond the Tordesillas line,
Spanish America still covered a greater area, extending ultimately from the south-
ern tip of South America to well within the present limits of the United States. In
the 1700s, Spain had settlements as far north as San Francisco in California, south-
ern Arizona, most of New Mexico, and much of Texas—as well as in a substantial
part of Florida. And all territory, with a few exceptions—most notably Brazil—
between that northern frontier and the far tip of South America was Spanish. Spain
also held the larger Caribbean islands and some of the smaller ones. The empire in
the Americas—Las Indias (the Indies), as the Spanish called their possessions—was
truly vast: some 9,000 miles (almost 14,500 kilometers) from north to south.
Colonial Governments and Economies

What made these great areas explored and settled by Spain and Portugal colonies?
First, certainly, is the fact that the two home countries governed them. One of the
remarkable features of Latin American colonial history is that governments were
set up and actually worked, despite forbidding difficulties. For one thing, dis-
tances were enormous, not only within the Americas but also between the Amer-
icas and Europe. The colonial period was a time of sailing ships, which were slow
and unreliable. (Ships improved technically with time, but not until the 1700s
were they good enough to sail regularly around Cape Horn to the colonies on
the west coast of South America. Before then, travelers from Spain reached the
west coast by crossing the Atlantic to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing the isth-
mus by barge and mule, and taking Pacific ships to the various west coast ports.)
Travel within the colonies was beset by difficulties such as mountains, deserts,
forests, and temperature extremes. One basic necessity of effective government—
communication—was therefore difficult to achieve from the start. Nevertheless,
governments were installed, and their authority was extended even into remark-
ably remote areas.
5 – Colonial Latin America 79
The Spanish had the greater problems because of the size of their colonies and
the distance from Spain. (Brazil was quite easily reached by sea from Portugal.) The
Spanish home government saw, once the size of the Americas began to be appreci-
ated, that it would have to delegate responsibility to administrators in the colonies,
since making all the necessary decisions in Spain would be impossible. So two pow-
erful positions—viceroys who would live in Mexico City and Lima—were created.
The officeholders were usually Spanish noblemen of much experience who acted in
place of the king (which is precisely the meaning of the word “viceroy”). They had
authority to make all but the largest of decisions, and each was ultimately responsi-
ble for everything that happened in the area under his command. The first viceroy
appointed to Mexico City arrived in 1535. As the area of Spanish exploration ex-
panded, this viceroy came to have control over Mexico, the Spanish islands of the
Caribbean, and all of Central America except Panama. This area of authority, or ju-
risdiction, was known as the viceroyalty of New Spain. The first viceroy in South
America reached Lima in 1544. This territory eventually included everything from
Panama in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south, excluding, of course, Por-
tuguese America. The jurisdiction centered on Lima was known as the viceroyalty
of Peru. In the 1700s, for closer control, two further viceroyalties were created in
South America: New Granada (corresponding roughly to modern Colombia) in
1739 and River Plate (roughly speaking, modern Argentina) in 1776.
Obviously it would have been impossible for individuals to run these vast
viceroyalties unassisted. So in the 1500s the Spanish government at home created
a series of councils to assist the viceroys and carry their authority far from the two
viceregal capitals of that time. These councils were called audiencias. Besides advis-
ing the viceroys and making executive decisions themselves, these councils func-
tioned as regional courts of appeal. By 1570 there were ten audiencias, each with
authority over a large subarea. At a lower administrative level than the audiencias
were local governors, some administering large frontier regions and others, of lesser
rank, towns and villages.
By modern administrative standards, this system was clumsy and corrupt. Many
officials, for example, paid more attention to preventing other officials from in-
truding on their powers than they did to implementing the king’s law. And nearly
all officials, in the general manner of the times in Europe, saw their position as a
means of enriching themselves far beyond their salaries, which were often low. In
view of the difficulties, it is a near miracle that the system worked at all. Also sur-
prising is the speedy construction of the system. Generally speaking, within a few
years of the conquest of a given region, there were royal administrators in place to
enforce laws, collect taxes, and send reports home. Although Spanish America was
a vast and rough place, the king’s men made their presence felt throughout most of
it, and they commanded respect.
The Portuguese set up a similar system in Brazil centered on Bahia (until Rio de
Janeiro became the capital in the mid-1700s) but never achieved quite such a pow-
erful grip on their colony as Spain did. There were various reasons for this differ-
ence. Portugal simply did not have the money or manpower to create a powerful
administrative machine like the one Spain built in the Americas. For many decades
after founding Brazil, Portugal paid far more attention to its spice-yielding colonies
in the Far East than to the apparently rather poorly endowed coast of Brazil.
80 PETER BAKEWELL
The first outstanding feature of colonization, therefore, was government. The

second was the extraction of wealth from the Americas. The Spanish freely admit-
ted that they had conquered the Americas for the sake of gold and God. One of
the main tasks of the colonial governments was to ensure that Spain and Portugal
received as large an income as possible from the colonies. The main type of wealth
that Spain received from its colonies was silver. We tend to think of Spanish gold,
sunk perhaps in galleons off the coast of Florida, and the conquerors did find large
amounts of gold. But in the long run, silver proved to be more plentiful. One of
the main reasons for Spain’s very rapid exploration and settlement of the Americas
(and hence for the quick expansion of government) was that the conquerors
ranged far and wide in search of mines. In a surprisingly large number of places,
they found them, especially in the highlands of Mexico and what is now Bolivia.
These mines were the greatest sources of silver in the world throughout the Latin
American colonial period, and they made Spain the envy of its neighbors in Eu-
rope. Other profitable goods that Spain took from the Americas were red and blue
dyes, chocolate beans, hides, sugar, and some spices.
The Portuguese also did well from their colony in Brazil. Before 1560 or so, the
main export was a wood that yielded a red dye. From then until about 1700, a far
more profitable export predominated: sugar, which the colonists produced on large
plantations. For fifty years thereafter, gold and diamonds were the most spectac-
ular products of the Brazilian economy, stimulating substantial population of the
interior for the first time and increased immigration from Portugal. Finally, in the
last half century or so of colonial times, the sugar trade recovered and the cultiva-
tion of other crops, such as chocolate and rice, grew.
The term “exploitation” is often applied to the extraction of wealth by Spain
and Portugal from their American colonies. It signifies an unjust and greedy
grasping by the colonizing powers of the natural riches of Latin America—a
process that had the result, among others, of leaving the states of Latin America
considerably poorer than they otherwise would have been after independence.
But an unqualified charge of exploitation against the Spanish and Portuguese is

too crude to be convincing. In some cases, the valuable export product was some-
thing that the colonizers had introduced into the Americas: sugar, for instance, in
the case of Brazil, or hides from cattle introduced into Mexico by the Spanish.
And even where the exported wealth was something already existing in the Amer-
icas, such as silver, that wealth was not merely lying on the ground waiting to be
picked up and sent back to Europe. In all cases, and especially in that of mining,
successful extraction of the product was the result of the application of new tech-
niques, investment of capital, and use of freighting methods not known in the
Americas before the Spanish and Portuguese arrived. The wealth of the Americas
was great, but it did not come for nothing, even to the greatest of the conquerors
or the most fortunate of settlers.
Exploitation of Labor
That said, it cannot be denied that the term “exploitation” describes how the
Spaniards and Portuguese used native Americans for labor. Within a few years of
the conquest, the idea became firmly rooted among settlers, and even among some
theologians and government officials, that native Americans were by nature infe-
rior to Europeans. It seemed, therefore, quite natural to the colonists and both
governments that the natives, once conquered, should work for their conquerors.
Some enlightened Spaniards and Portuguese opposed this reasoning, but their
views were far outweighed by Iberian public opinion. So the American native peo-
ples were forced in one way or another to work for the colonists. Sometimes they
were enslaved. This was common in both Spanish and Portuguese America be-
tween the conquest and the mid-1500s. Also in the 1500s, many natives were dis-
tributed among Spanish settlers in a system called encomienda (“entrustment”).
The people who had been “entrusted” were to work for the settler or supply a trib-
ute in goods or cash in return for being taught Christianity and the Spanish way
of life in general. Settlers were also charged with protecting the people entrusted to
them from enemies. On paper, this encomienda arrangement had strengths. The
natives were not legally slaves of the settlers but free people. In return for services
rendered, they were to receive physical security and what was for the Spanish, at
least, the highest spiritual gift imaginable: Christianity. In fact, however, few
Spaniards fulfilled their part of the bargain, and the encomienda often became an
oppressive means of making the native people work for the settlers.
Because of its damaging effects and because it tended to direct disproportionate
amounts of native tribute and labor toward the conquerors and early settlers at the
expense of later Spanish immigrants, the encomienda soon ceased to be the home
government’s preferred arrangement for the supply of native labor to the colonists.
Indeed, from the 1540s on, the home government actively opposed the encomienda
and tried to take native people away from those settlers to whom they had been
entrusted—much to the settlers’ anger. From the 1550s on, draft labor was intro-
duced in many places. A small proportion of the adult men from each Indian town
would be assigned each year for a period of time—between a week and a month,
generally—to a Spanish employer. The assignments were made by a Spanish official,
and, at least in principle, workers were directed to tasks of public utility: agriculture,
road and bridge building, and mining (because it was a central economic activity).
When the system began, draft labor was probably less of a burden on the natives
than encomienda had been. It also probably made more effective use of native labor
because the draft spread the available workers more evenly among Spanish employ-
ers. During the second half of the 1500s, however, the number of settlers wanting
workers increased while the native population decreased, with the result that draft
work soon became a very great burden for the native people. Consequently they
offered themselves for hire to individual Spanish settlers, evading the draft as best
they could. Since many employers were in great need of workers, the native vol-
unteers could obtain much higher wages than they were paid under the draft sys-
tem. Paying wages to volunteer workers was first practiced by settlers who were
short of labor and had the means to pay, in silver mining, for example. By 1600,
for example, three-quarters of all mining workers in Mexico were native people
who had been drawn by the high pay. After 1600, wage labor became increasingly
common in many occupations in Spanish America. Broadly speaking, it gave the
workers more freedom and better conditions than the previous labor arrangements
82 PETER BAKEWELL
had done. So it is generally true that the 1500s were the years of harshest exploita-
tion of native workers by the Spanish.
When there was a shortage of native people to work for the Europeans, black
slaves were imported from Africa. Exactly how many slaves were brought across the
Atlantic in colonial times to Latin America is not known, but the number was cer-
tainly in excess of 3 million, with the main importing regions being Brazil and the
Spanish Caribbean. Both regions produced sugar on plantations—strenuous labor
that blacks tolerated better than native Americans did. In the Spanish Caribbean,
most of the native populations of the large islands perished in the sixteenth cen-
tury due to maltreatment, enslavement, and, above all, disease. In Brazil, the na-
tives survived in larger numbers, but they were unable to adapt to plantation labor.
The importation of blacks into Brazil was simplified and cheapened by Brazil’s
proximity to the West African coast, which was the source of most slaves in colo-
nial times. In addition, Portugal had several small colonies and bases on that coast
where slaves were traded.
Increasing numbers of black slaves were needed after the Spanish and Por-
tuguese conquests in the Americas because the native populations declined dra-
matically. There were several reasons for this decline. Some natives were killed in
the battles of the conquest. More serious, however, were the aftereffects of con-
quest: the seizure of good agricultural land by the Europeans; the disruption of na-
tive families resulting from the imposition of labor burdens; and a falling birthrate
among native peoples as a result of poor nutrition, social dislocation, and, above
all, discouragement at finding themselves, their beliefs, and their gods so easily
overcome.
Even more damaging to the native populations, however, were the sicknesses
that the Europeans unwittingly brought with them. Many diseases common in Eu-
rope, Africa, and Asia were unknown in the Americas because of the geographical
separation of the continents. Consequently, the American native peoples suffered
severely from seemingly minor infections such as the common cold and measles.
Other diseases that are still considered dangerous were also transmitted to the
Americas by the conquest: plague and, most damaging of all, smallpox. These sick-
nesses cut great swaths through the natives in conquered areas in the 1500s. In
most regions settled by the Spanish, native populations had dropped by the end of
the 1500s to 10 percent or less of what they had been just before the conquest,
perhaps less in Brazil. Many native people there fled to the interior forests, so it is
not clear how many fled and how many died.
The terrible destruction of the native populations is one of the striking features
of the social history of colonial Latin America, and its effects were equally striking.
It meant that far more black slaves were imported than would otherwise have been
the case. It made the fate of the surviving Indians considerably harder since they
were forced to do the work of those who had died (although some survivors re-
ceived higher wages for their work if they chose to become wage laborers), and it
reduced the difference in numbers between the native population and the white
population, thus accelerating the rate of racial mixing between whites and natives.
As a result, the present-day populations of Latin America are notably whiter and
more European in culture than they would have been if the natives had survived in
their original numbers.
Roman Catholic Evangelism

In view of the work burden and harsh treatment to which native Americans were
subjected by the conquerors, it might seem contradictory that Roman Catholic
evangelism was one of the two main motives for the conquest and settlement of
Latin America. But it was indeed so, especially for the Spanish. Spain was the most
powerful Christian country in the world when Columbus crossed the Atlantic, and
it continued to be strong for a century thereafter. The Spaniards were sure, for a
variety of reasons, that it was not a matter of chance that their expedition, led by
Columbus, had established the link between Europe and the Americas. They felt
that Spain, as the leading Christian nation of the time, had been singled out by
God to conquer and settle the Americas and to carry the Christian faith (for them,
of course, the only true faith) to the native peoples of that region. Some Spaniards
believed in certain biblical prophecies that once the whole world had been con-
verted to Christianity, Christ would return and rule in justice and peace for a thou-
sand years (the Millennium). Clearly the Americas made up a large part of the
world, and the Millennium could not begin until Christians converted its peoples.
In apparently entrusting the Christianization of the Americas to Spain, God had
given it a central part to play in the history of the world. Spain’s work in spreading
the true faith was to be a large and direct contribution to the second coming of
Christ. Only a small minority of Spaniards, mainly some mystically inclined Fran-
ciscan friars, truly believed in this prophecy, but the fact that even a few priests
could see Spain’s mission in the Americas as having such cosmic importance is
some indication of Spanish religious zeal.
That zeal resulted in great efforts to convert American native peoples during the
first fifty years or so after the conquest in various regions of the Americas. Many
remarkably tough and intelligent missionaries—drawn mainly from the Francis-
can, Dominican, and Augustinian orders—set to work in Spain’s expanding
colonies. Their efforts were especially vigorous in Mexico, as manifested by the
many church buildings that have survived from the 1500s. Millions of native peo-
ple were baptized. Most of them did not understand Christianity very well and
ended up mixing elements of their preconquest religion with elements of Chris-
tianity. The friars, however, generally took the view that it was better to convert
many people partially than a few thoroughly.
After the mid-1500s, Spain’s missionary zeal waned for many reasons. One was
an understandable fatigue among the missionaries after many years of effort and
after the newness of the challenge had gone. Another reason was that by then,
many native people in the central areas of Spanish settlement had been converted
up to a point and could be entrusted to the more humdrum care of parish priests.
Missionary activity continued in remote frontier areas where there were peoples yet
to be converted. Among the best-known and enduring of these later missionary
enterprises were those of the Franciscans in New Mexico and the Jesuits in
Paraguay.
The Portuguese were, on the whole, less concerned than the Spanish with mak-
ing natives into Christians. From the start, the Portuguese had less religious zeal
than the Spaniards, and possessing colonies in Africa and Asia, as well as in the
Americas, meant that their effort was spread rather thin. Precisely because of this
84 PETER BAKEWELL
lack of interest, however, the Jesuits found an open field for mission activity in
Brazil from about 1550 onward. They dominated the religious history of colonial
Brazil as no single order managed to do in Spanish America. The spread of Jesuit
missionary villages into the interior became one of the means by which Portuguese
America advanced westward beyond the Tordesillas line in the 1600s and 1700s.
Conclusion
Some of the main features of colonization by Spain and Portugal in the Americas
included rapid exploration and settlement (particularly by the Spanish), rapid in-
stallation of government (again more noticeable in the case of the Spanish than
the Portuguese), economic employment of the settled lands for the profit of indi-
vidual colonists as well as the home governments, exploitation of native labor, im-
portation of black slaves, and the spread of Christianity. Some of the processes
took place only in the 1500s, though their influence persisted long after that
time. Others—the utilization of land and other resources and the exploitation of
native and black workers—continued through colonial times. They persisted in
changing forms; for example, by the progression from slavery and encomienda to
draft labor and finally to wage labor.
Similarly, there were changes, as time passed, in the strength of colonial govern-
ments. The rapid formation of an administrative apparatus in Spanish America in
the 1500s was a strenuous business, and the system was relaxed somewhat once it
had been built. This tendency was increased by Spain’s growing problems in Eu-
rope in the late 1500s, which distracted the home government’s attention from the
colonies. As a result of these and other influences, colonial governments were less
effective and disciplined in the 1600s than in the previous century. In the 1700s,
Spain attempted, with some success, to remedy this weakness. The creation of two
new viceroyalties was part of this effort (New Granada in 1739 and River Plate in
1776), and many other administrative reforms were also introduced. Consequently
the force of Spanish government was felt by colonists in areas where it had never
been strongly present before, and Spain’s income from colonial taxes increased sev-
eral times over. But many colonists resented the increasing pressure of government
and taxation felt in the late 1700s and turned their thoughts toward greater self-
determination and, in the end, toward outright independence from Spain.
Suggested Readings
Bakewell, Peter. A History of Latin America. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
Bethell, Leslie. The Cambridge History of Latin America. Vols. 1–2. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1984.
Chevalier, François. Land and Society in Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1963.
Gibson, Charles. The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of
Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964.
Haring, Clarence H. The Spanish Empire in America. New York: Oxford University Press,
1947.
Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1970.
Lockhart, James, and Enrique Otte, eds. Letters and People of the Spanish Indies: The Six-
teenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Span-
ish America and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Lynch, John. Spain Under the Hapsburgs. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1964–1969.
———. The Spanish-American Revolutions, 1808–1826. New York: Norton, 1973.
Maclachlan, Colin M., and Jaime E. Rodríguez. The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Rein-
terpretation of Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980.
Parry, John H. The Spanish Seaborne Empire. New York: Knopf, 1966.
Phelan, John L. The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century: Bureaucratic Politics in
the Spanish Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.
Schwartz, Stuart B. Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil: The High Court of Bahia
and Its Judges, 1609–1745. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
———. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550–1835. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Chapter 6
L AT I N A M E R I C A
SINCE INDEPENDENCE
An Overview
Michael Conniff
In the past two centuries, the region we know as Latin America has experi-
enced immense changes, generally following the patterns of the rest of the Western
world. These changes include the shift from colonial status to independence; from
monarchy to democracy; from agricultural, pastoral, and mining economies to in-
dustrial ones; from rural to urban residency; from traditional cultures to multifac-
eted ones; and from simple to complex societies. Historians usually emphasize
continuities over long periods, but in the case of modern Latin America, the
changes clearly overwhelmed lingering inheritances from the past.
This change has been all the more extraordinary because of the enormous di-
versity of peoples, geographies, resources, and ruling structures the region inher-
ited from colonial times. The founders of new countries in this era faced greater
difficulties in building institutions, citizenries, and national identities than their

counterparts in North America and Europe. Travel was difficult and costly. Large
numbers, often majorities, of their people did not speak the national languages nor
identify with their leaders. Huge segments of some economies relied on labor im-
ported from abroad, mostly African slaves but also coerced workers from other
parts of the world. Ethnically, religiously, culturally, the countries that emerged
from independence were segmented, even disjointed.
Today Latin America consists of nearly a half billion persons in over thirty coun-
tries, ranging from the Brazilian powerhouse to tiny island nations in the
Caribbean. A few colonies persist—the Dutch and French territories—but they are
mere reminders of a distant past. Most Latin American countries are democracies,
largely presidential but with a few parliamentary systems, especially the former
British dependencies. A rough tally shows that some 200 million persons partici-
pated in elections since the year 2000, a turnout rate that surpasses those of the
United States and of many Western European countries. The economies of the
larger countries, moreover, have become industrialized and sophisticated, and their
workforces have organized into powerful unions and federations. Latin American
86
6 – Latin America Since Independence 87
women, who sometimes played exceptional leadership roles in the nineteenth cen-
tury, have become respected actors in the political, economic, cultural, and social
realms in the twenty-first.
These trends—generally, the “westernization” of Latin America—seem about to
give way to global forces that would sweep these people into a worldwide system
of economic transactions, migration flows, power blocs or centers, climatic and
meteorological vectors, and cultural transformations. Latin Americans themselves,
however, show signs of rejecting such globalization, which would threaten their
identity and perhaps undermine their control over their own destiny.
Political Generations
For reasons not fully understood, leadership patterns in Latin America seemed to
run in generations during the past 200 years. Similar domestic situations, external
pressures, foreign models, geographical determinants, broad economic cycles, and
other factors probably brought about this patterned evolution.
The first identifiable generation of leaders in modern Latin America was made
up of the precursors of independence, the men and women who struggled against
European rule in the Americas and the status deprivation brought on by colonial-
ism. Most were socially well-to-do, though born in the New World and hence Cre-
oles, and most had good educations for the period. Most also had personal as well
as political grievances against the colonial authorities and distant monarchies that
ruled their lives. These leaders included Antonio Nariño, the Colombian fire-
brand; Tiradentes, the Brazilian revolutionary; Francisco Miranda, the Venezuelan
adventurer; and Toussaint L’Ouverture, the African prince who began the over-
throw of the French slave regime of St. Domingue, today Haiti. The precursors
sacrificed their material well-being and eventually their lives, becoming martyrs to
independence.
The next generation comprised the heroes of independence, those who over-
threw European rule in the Americas during the 1810s and 1820s. Most were born
in the 1780s and grew up with Enlightenment ideals. They tended to come from
propertied families whose interests diverged from those of the colonial regime. The
foremost hero of independence was Simón Bolívar, known as the Liberator of
South America, followed closely by José de San Martín, who helped consolidate
Argentina’s independence and drove the Spanish from Chile and portions of Peru.
Bernardo O’Higgins of Chile also figures in this group.
Several pseudoheroes emerged in the era of independence, leaders who took ad-
vantage of the struggles of others and declared separation from Europe, but with-
out the sacrifices and courage of the true heroes. This group includes General
Agustín Iturbide of Mexico, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, and President Francisco de
Paula Santander of Colombia.
The conclusion of the wars of independence coincided with the onset of depres-
sion in Europe, bringing on a period of falling trade, prices, and incomes around
the world. Latin Americans defaulted on loans and sought refuge in protectionism
for domestic producers. The next leadership generation, the caudillos, rose to power
in this setting. These leaders dominated the stage until the mid-nineteenth century
88 MICHAEL CONNIFF
and guided their young nations through perilous times. Foremost among the
caudillos were José Antonio de Santa Anna of Mexico, Juan Manuel de Rosas of
Argentina, Diego Portales of Chile, and José Antonio Páez of Venezuela. Caudillos
are often referred to as men on horseback, and indeed most were mounted while
commanding troops. Yet their strength and authority also came from personal
qualities such as fairness, intelligence, courage, rectitude, and respect for hierarchy.
They gathered followers and troops loyal to themselves and believed deeply in their
legitimacy, regardless of existing constitutions. They cared for order and com-
mand, not for rule of law. Caudillos gave the outside world a negative impression
of the region, yet they held their countries together, avoided warfare, reduced
crime, and preserved a subsistence level of economic activity.
In the mid-nineteenth century, more principled leaders rose to power across the
region, usually inspired by the promise of liberalism as practiced in Europe. These
autocratic modernizers paid attention to constitutions and legislatures, enacted
laws providing more freedom and equality for citizens, and tried to diminish the
privileges of traditional institutions like the military, the Church, and landowners.
Most of the reforms they introduced were aimed at unleashing the economic po-
tential of land and labor, and at attracting foreign investment and technology. The
best examples of the autocratic modernizer are Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, Benito
Juárez of Mexico, and Bartolomé Mitre of Argentina. A second generation arose
somewhat later, exemplified by Justo Rufino Barrios of Guatemala, Julio Roca of
Argentina, Porfirio Díaz of Mexico, and Antonio Guzmán Blanco of Venezuela.
The stability and incentives provided by these two generations led to construction
of railroads and port facilities, urban modernization, distribution of public lands,
growing efficiency in mining, ranching, agriculture, and industry, and booming
export trade. For this reason, the second half of the nineteenth century is often
called the era of the export economies.
After the turn of the twentieth century, fresh breezes blew over South America
and awakened a different sort of leader, the early populist. This generation was also
principled but shifted goals from economic to social and political progress. Their
economies boomed but their peoples suffered. Constitutional provisions for elec-
tions and representation languished. And the well-being of the workers and peas-
ants, male and female, declined due to killing labor regimes and lack of
protections. The three outstanding examples of early populists were José Batlle y
Ordóñez in Uruguay, Hipólito Yrigoyen in Argentina, and Arturo Alessandri in
Chile. These leaders championed workers’ rights, public benefit over private privi-
lege, restrictions on foreign capital, and open, clean elections. They campaigned
among the common people and promised to defend their interests. And most of
the early populists were reasonably honest and successful in fulfilling their cam-
paign pledges. The appearance of this generation marked the beginning of democ-
racy in the region.
Another generation arose at the turn of the century, the dictators of the
Caribbean basin. What they lacked in principles they made up for in greed and
self-indulgence. Guaranteed power by corrupt military forces, the dictators went
about the usual business of governing (building public works and utilities, hosting
foreign corporations, expanding native enterprises, collecting taxes) but never con-
sulted the common people nor concerned themselves with the general welfare.
They enriched themselves obscenely at public expense. Among the best examples
of this generation were Manuel Estrada Cabrera of Guatemala and Mario García
Menocal and Gerardo Machado of Cuba. Since their economies depended heavily
on US markets and Wall Street banks, the dictators maintained close relations with
Washington, DC. When necessary, they were capable of horrific violence and re-
pression to protect the wealth and position they and their families enjoyed.
Not all leaders sought power at the ballot box to institute needed reforms. Al-
most simultaneously a generation of revolutionaries arose and led rebel armies
against dictators and entrenched interests in government. Mexico’s revolution of
1910–1920 is the best known of these uprisings, led by infamous guerrilleros like
Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, but there were others too in this period. Luís
Carlos Prestes of Brazil pulled together several thousand rebel officers and recruits
who had first protested in 1922 and led them on a great march through the back-
lands of his country. And in Nicaragua, Augusto Sandino mounted a guerrilla ac-
tion that stymied his own country’s forces as well as US Marines sent to capture
him. Few of these revolutionaries lived to take power and carry out their programs,
but their courage and tactics inspired a later generation of revolutionaries that
would be more successful.
A classic generation of dictators of the Caribbean basin arose during and after
the Great Depression of the 1930s. As vain, corrupt, power-hungry, and venal as
its predecessor, this generation differed in its relation to and dependence on the
United States. Because of a policy change during President Franklin Roosevelt’s ad-
ministration, the United States eschewed military intervention into Latin Ameri-
can countries. In the case of Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and
several other countries, however, instability led the United States to continue en-
couraging the formation of effective national guards, which could maintain order
and protect US interests. In each case, the commander of the national guard grav-
itated to the presidency of his country and assumed dictatorial powers, with the
blessing of the United States. The best known of these classic dictators of the
Caribbean basin were Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, Fulgencio Batista of Cuba,

and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. They ruled for decades or passed
along power to their children and cronies.
After World War II ended, a new generation of populists appeared in Latin
America, no longer limited to the Southern Cone. The return of peace and the vic-
tory of the Western democracies strengthened the demands, internal as well as for-
eign, for elected governments in the region. The United States pressured dictators
to step aside in favor of duly-elected representatives. The mid–twentieth century
classic populists, as they are called, revolutionized political campaigns, elections,
media, and behavior. The best examples are Juan and Evita Perón of Argentina,
Getúlio Vargas of Brazil (after 1945), José María Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador, and
Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela. The classic populists posed as men of the peo-
ple, protectors of the poor, defenders of the nation, and enemies of traditional
corrupt politicians. Beyond that, they appealed to popular culture and used the
print and electronic media expertly. They promised better lives for workers and
farmers, a helping hand and the vote to women, prosperity for business owners—
something for practically everyone. They also traveled widely by car, bus, train, air-
plane, and even horseback to visit every possible constituent. They were
90 MICHAEL CONNIFF
indefatigable campaigners, tireless speakers. They strove to create the impression of

a personal connection to each and every voter.
The classic populists came from varied backgrounds and defy easy classification
as to ideology. Their generation was defined more by how they got power—in
competitive elections—than what they did in office. Some flirted with major
structural changes in society; others drifted with little in the way of a program.
Some are remembered for major accomplishments; others were removed for in-
competence or worse. One change they introduced across the board, however: the
demand that direct, honest elections with the largest possible participation be the
sole method of gaining high office. From World War II until the early twenty-first
century, voter participation rose from under 20 million to over 200 million. Along
the way populists and others extended the franchise to women, illiterates, immi-
grants, sixteen-year-olds, and soldiers in most countries. The advent of mass poli-
tics dates to the rise of the populists in midcentury.
A new generation of revolutionaries appeared in mid-twentieth century as well,
inspiring other rebel chieftains, both urban and rural. These leaders, exemplified by
Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Ché” Guevara in Cuba and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua,
practiced an ancient form of warfare in contemporary settings—among the urban
poor or in peasant regions. Just as importantly, they established revolutionary
regimes in the context of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet
Union, thereby posing a security threat to the former. Latin America suddenly be-
came a more dangerous, complex region in world affairs after Castro’s success.
The new revolutionaries demonstrated that small bands of guerrilleros with the
right strategy could defeat vastly larger armed forces. They also showed that pro-
paganda and psychological tactics play an important part in revolutionary strug-
gles. Finally, they proved that a relatively small country can defy the will of the
United States and survive. Once in power, the revolutionaries carried out major
structural changes of a socialist nature, leading to a huge exodus of propertied and
professional families. They nationalized most major enterprises and hence cut
themselves off from trade and investment from the capitalist world and most in-
ternational financial institutions. Throughout the region young leaders aspired to
repeat the achievements of Fidel Castro in Cuba, who remains one of the last com-
munist heroes in the world today.
In the mid-1960s, a spate of right-wing coups brought to power a generation
never before in the limelight, the military high command. At one point, a majority
of the South American population lived under these military regimes. Unlike the
earlier dictators, some of whom were military but took power as individuals, this
generation of officers assumed control as institutional leaders who saw it as their
duty to save their countries and clean up their politics and economies. Their
regimes, sometimes characterized as the national security states, acted on the
premise that the leaders who preceded them—populists perhaps, or incompetents—
could not be trusted with power. They would open their nations to leftist agitation
or at least to collapse and disorder. In either case, the military leaders saw it as their
institutional mission to prevent disintegration of public order and likely commu-
nist revolution. These leaders, best exemplified by Jorge Videla in Argentina,
Humberto Castello Branco in Brazil, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, believed
that the internal cohesion and competence of the military corps would save the
nation, generate economic development, strengthen international ties, and bring

about citizen solidarity. Of course they could also fight internal or external battles
if necessary.
As the 1970s and 1980s wore on, many of the aims and promises of the military
regimes failed to materialize, and they grew unpopular and sometimes teetered on
the brink of disaster. In order to extricate themselves from government, the mili-
tary leaders found ways, sometimes gradual and other times abrupt, to return
power to civilians. This process, at first called apertura, later transition and democ-
ratization, took place at various times in the 1980s. The last to exit power was
Pinochet, who stepped down in 1990, ironically after losing a national plebiscite.
The generation of leaders that assumed control after the departure of the mili-
tary proved heterogeneous. Veteran politicians like Fernando Belaúnde Terry in
Peru, Raúl Alfonsín in Argentina, and José Sarney in Brazil generally failed to
bring consensus and mission to their administrations. Insoluble economic and so-
cial problems plagued them, as well as generalized recessionary conditions. None
was able to build a viable governing party.
A last identifiable generation in contemporary Latin America was made up of
the neopopulists, dating from the 1990s. Like their predecessors, they strove to
create loyalty and electoral participation among followers by appealing to nation-
alism and by promising improvements for the common people. They were unusu-
ally adept at using media, public relations, and polling tools. The biggest difference
between this generation and the earlier populists was their abandonment of eco-
nomic nationalism and pro-labor policies in favor of neoliberal reforms such as
lower tariffs, privatization, and a pro-business stance. The most prominent
neopopulists have been Fernando Collor de Melo in Brazil, Alberto Fujimori in
Peru, and Carlos Menem in Argentina. Collor stumbled badly in office and was
impeached, but Fujimori and Menem had successful terms and were reelected.
The preceding account of the many generations of leaders in Latin America does
not include all countries, of course; instead, it suggests broad political trends
throughout the region. Mexico has not followed this progression since the revolu-
tion of 1910–1920 because of the enormous impact of that event on virtually all
aspects of Mexican life. For one thing, the military generals, especially Álvaro
Obregón, Plutarco Elías Calles, and Lázaro Cárdenas, dominated politics for
twenty years and left in place an official party, the Partido Revolucionario Institu-
tional (PRI), which governed the country for the next seventy years. Beginning
with Miguel Alemán, elected in 1946, a long succession of party leaders trained in
the law occupied the presidency.
In 1982, however, partly in response to the economic crisis generated by a world
recession, the PRI chose an economist, Miguel de la Madrid, as president. The
next two presidents were also economists, which reflected the high priority the PRI
placed on growth in GNP and jobs. In 1994 the economist presidents took a huge
gamble by joining the United States and Canada in a North American Free Trade
Agreement, or NAFTA. Mexico’s economy stabilized in the 1990s, due largely to
the economic prosperity of its northern trade partner. Still, the results of NAFTA
were not positive enough to keep most Mexicans loyal to the party. In 2000 they
rebelled and elected an opposition president, Vicente Fox of the Partido de Acción
Nacional (PAN), in a veritable political earthquake. A former businessman and
92 MICHAEL CONNIFF
state governor, Fox continued to emphasize the economy and tried to establish
friendlier relations with the United States, in order to regularize the status of mil-
lions of Mexicans illegally living and working in the north. His efforts bore little
fruit, however, because the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, caused the
United States to harden its security along the border and turn away from con-
structive relations with Mexico.
In the 2006 presidential election, the public was offered a dramatic choice be-
tween a little-known PAN leader, Felipe Calderón, a spirited but flawed PRI can-
didate, and a flamboyant populist from the leftist Partido Revolucionario
Democrático (PRD), Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The election came down to
a virtual tie between Calderón and López Obrador, and the vote counting dragged
on for weeks. The election tribunal eventually decided for Calderón, an outcome
that elicited protests that lasted months. As controversial as this was, it also
demonstrated that Mexico’s political system had evolved into a competitive and
unpredictable one in a relatively short time.
Economic Cycles
Similar to the generational succession in politics, the economic history of Latin
America followed a series of global business cycles, with superimposed waves of
imported technology, immigration, and economic theory. Major expansions oc-
curred in the periods 1816–1828, 1840–1869, 1880–1891, 1898–1914, 1920–
1929, 1946–1972, and 1990–2000. By the same token, major recessions or de-
pressions occurred in the 1830s, 1870s, 1890s, 1930s, 1980s, and the early years
of the twenty-first century. These expansions and retreats affected the quality of
life and sociopolitical interactions of the people.
The earliest economic boom in Latin America coincided with the last round of
fighting for independence, and it was not experienced uniformly throughout the
hemisphere. Countries that depended on silver exports, especially Mexico and Bo-
livia, experienced major disruptions and spent their early years of nationhood
struggling to subsist. Countries where fighting was less intense and production
could revive found 1820s markets extremely favorable for raw materials. This was
especially true for Brazil’s exports of sugar, cotton, coffee, and hides and skins. The
boom was assisted by a general round of loans from British banks and by exuber-
ant European and US trading missions to the region. This cycle ended in a general
North Atlantic depression in the 1830s.
By the 1840s Mexican silver production began to grow, and Brazil’s new crops,
coffee and cacao, found thirsty markets in Europe and the United States. Venezuela,
Colombia, and Costa Rica expanded their coffee production, and Venezuela and
Ecuador increased exports of cacao. Argentina began diversifying its exports to in-
clude wool produced by immigrant shepherds. Cuba, although still a Spanish
colony, became the first Latin American country to employ the workhorses of the
industrial revolution: railroads, steam engines, and iron milling equipment. Sadly,
this decade also saw historic numbers of African slaves imported to Cuba and
Brazil. This iniquitous trade would not end altogether until the 1860s.
The rise of the autocratic modernizers in the 1850s reinforced this expansion by
improving corporate law, inviting foreign investors, welcoming immigrants, and
subsidizing transportation infrastructure. Chilean exports surged with the advent

of a new market in California and the revival of copper prices after midcentury. To
a considerable degree, this economic growth was fueled by the second wave of in-
dustrialization in Europe and the occupation of the US Midwest by millions of
immigrants. Staples like sugar, coffee, cocoa, rum, cereals, and dried beef contin-
ued to enjoy high prices for the rest of the century. Huge amounts of guano from
Peru and nitrates from Chile fertilized the farms of Europe and the East Coast of
the United States. Meanwhile, industries in the north consumed growing inputs of
hardwood, nonprecious metal ores, cotton, hides, and nitrates.
Downturns in the Atlantic economies stifled demand for Latin American
products in the 1870s and again in the 1890s, but the overall trend line sloped
sharply upward. Argentina and Uruguay experienced a veritable revolution on
the pampas, with the advent of meatpacking plants, grain exports, and wool pro-
duction. Steam threshers and harvesters multiplied the land under cultivation.
To the north, no matter how fast Brazilians expanded coffee plantings, they
could not satisfy world demand until the 1890s. European companies built rail-
roads across South America, while US firms did so in Mexico. Port facilities were
improved to accommodate a new generation of iron-hulled transatlantic steam-
ers. Millions of Europeans flocked to South America, especially Argentina and
Brazil, to participate in the agricultural revolution under way. So despite down
cycles, the golden age of the export economies in Latin America did not really
end until the 1920s.
Although exports of raw materials and food commodities dominated Latin
America’s economies during this period, considerable industrial expansion also
took place. Food and beverage processing led the way, followed by clothing and
textiles, building materials, and consumer goods. Many of these manufacturing
firms were owned by European and US immigrants, who joined the national elites
through partnerships and marriages. In some advanced economies—Mexico,
Brazil, and Argentina especially—capital was increasingly transferred from primary
production to industry as a way to hedge against declines in prices and demand.

Moreover, some primary exports were processed before shipping (e.g., refined
sugar, cured tobacco leaf, rum, rope fibers, semirefined metal ore, dried and cured
cacao, and nitrates).
New and exotic products joined the flood of exports around the turn of the
twentieth century. Bananas grown in Jamaica and later Central America were
shipped under refrigeration for ripening in foreign markets. Rubber from the
Amazon became a ubiquitous material in the age of electric appliances, bicycles,
and automobiles. Copra from coconut palms cultivated on tropical beaches ren-
dered comestible oil for northern food industries. Chicle from southern Mexico
became chewing gum. Herbs, spices, and flavorings from tropical regions delighted
the palates of northern consumers.
By the 1920s most of Latin America was fully integrated into global trade and
production systems. European and US investors underwrote much of the heavy in-
dustrial growth, while native capital financed light industry. The technology and
immigrants also came from abroad. Between 1880 and 1930, some 20 million for-
eigners moved to Latin America, literally changing the complexion of whole cities
and regions.
94 MICHAEL CONNIFF
World War I tentatively cut Latin America off from capital and markets, and the
Great Depression did so more definitively. By 1945 the region’s economies had
changed in remarkable ways due to two world wars and the worst depression in
modern times. Banking and finance had developed to the point that the economies
no longer relied on foreign investment as before. From their earliest efforts in the
1860s and 1870s, native and immigrant families developed banks and insurance
firms capable of managing most local business. In the larger countries, manufactur-
ers supplied a large proportion of the consumer goods and considerable amount of
capital goods required. In some instances, immigrants actually developed new tech-
nologies in their shops and labs. Perhaps most strikingly, Latin Americans’ willing-
ness to believe orthodox economic theory from Europe virtually ended.
Throughout the nineteenth century, two theories to guide economic behavior
prevailed, traditional Spanish capitalism and classic liberalism derived from En-
lightenment writers like David Ricardo and Adam Smith. The former valued cap-
ital in the form of land, machinery, animals, buildings, and cash that could be
made to produce goods through the application of labor. Ownership of fixed assets
and the ability to coerce labor were critical in the traditional economy. So too was
the power to protect capital, create legislation, secure markets, and provide an or-
derly setting for business. Most successful nineteenth-century businesses followed
this traditional family-based pattern.
The newer ideas of liberalism found adherents from the generation of the pre-
cursors onward, until it became broadly accepted by the autocratic modernizers. In
this view, the factors of production (land, labor, and capital—which came bundled
with technology) had to be brought together in creative ways for profitable busi-
ness. The government should do as little as possible to restrict the entrepreneurial
efforts of its citizens, a policy known as laissez-faire capitalism. Liberalism also held
that each country should pursue its competitive advantage in world markets, the
so-called international division of labor. If Europe produced cheap and reliable
manufactures, Latin America ought to focus on tropical agriculture and mining.
The terms of trade would reward both sides in their transactions.

If a limited number of powerful families or institutions monopolized land, la-
bor, and political power, the vast majority of the population could never aspire to
become productive citizens. In the case of Latin America, liberals saw obstacles to
economic growth in the vast expanses of land held by the state, Amerindian reser-
vations, and the Church; the prevalence of coerced labor (especially African and
Amerindian) unavailable to new businesses; high tariffs; social and religious barri-
ers against immigration; and restrictions on natural resource exploitation. Advo-
cates of removing these obstacles undertook huge reform programs that awakened
the wrath of those whose power was being diminished, especially the army and the
Church. Benito Juárez carried out the boldest changes, collectively known as La
Reforma, but others did so as well: Mariano Gálvez of Guatemala, the so-called
Liberal Oligarchy in Venezuela, and General José Hilario López of Colombia.
These programs provoked opposition and even civil war—known as the War of the
Reform in Mexico—but in the end the liberals prevailed. Without these reforms,
the economic boom that followed would likely not have occurred.
The liberal theories that prevailed after about the 1870s became dogma and
reigned until the Great Depression. They stressed low tariffs, private over public
enterprise, international division of labor, protection of property rights, stable cur-

rencies (preferably tied to gold), borders open to foreign immigration and invest-
ment, and weak labor organization. As noted above, this arrangement did not
prevent Latin Americans from founding important industries in this era, either
with tariff protection or because of costly international freight charges. And in
Mexico and Brazil, government leaders often showed favoritism toward native pro-
ducers while paying lip service to liberal ideals. They did this through subsidized
transport systems, commodity price supports, tax advantages, low-cost credit, and
protectionist tariffs.
The isolation of Latin America from the North Atlantic economies during
World War I, and the sheer horror of death and destruction wrought by the fight-
ing, shook Latin Americans’ faith in European philosophies and models. True, in
the 1920s many countries returned to trading in conventional products with tra-
ditional partners, but now the United States made a bid for economic leadership
in the hemisphere. Communications, shipping, and finance also tended to shift to-
ward the United States.
The Great Depression further eroded faith in the nineteenth-century liberal
economic model. Trading broke down, nations defaulted on loans, businesses
failed, currencies collapsed, and the entire economic system seemed to crumble.
National leaders looked for new ways to do business, like barter deals and carteliza-
tion of commodities. It was a dog-eat-dog situation that might one day lapse into
world war again. John Maynard Keynes had already proposed major revisions to
classic liberalism that promised recovery from the ravages of depression. Franklin
Roosevelt reversed US policy and used federal money for public works and foreign
aid and held bilateral trade talks to promote economic recovery and job creation.
Latin American leaders took unusual and sometimes creative steps to ameliorate
the impact of the Depression in their nations. Mexico sped up the resettlement of
Indians and peasants on communal lands, or ejidos, where they could at least sub-
sist. Brazil experimented with alcohol-fueled engines and withheld coffee from the
world market. Argentina struck a deal with England for preferential trade treatment.
Chile created a national investment bank to promote economic development.
Everywhere in the hemisphere domestic manufacturers moved boldly into con-
sumer markets that had previously been served by imports. It was the end of an era.
After the war Latin Americans increasingly embraced an alternative theory of
economics, with major domestic and external implications. This theory sprang
from research conducted at the newly founded UN Economic Commission for
Latin America (ECLA), based in Santiago, Chile. The basic tenet of this institute
was that since the beginning of the twentieth century primary commodities had
suffered declining terms of trade vis-à-vis manufactured goods. This meant that
Latin America had to ship increasing amounts of goods to Europe and the United
States to maintain the same level of import consumption. Further, they argued
that adverse terms of trade would always favor the industrial countries, due to
economies of scale, elasticity of demand for manufactures, oligopolistic pricing,
and productivity gains from technological advances. The only way for Latin Amer-
ica to catch up was to industrialize also.
The strategy ECLA proposed was called import substitution industrialization
(ISI). In this model, a country used tariffs to protect new industries until they
96 MICHAEL CONNIFF
could compete against imports. Eventually they would be as efficient as their com-
petitors. Second, ECLA argued that the region’s most valuable assets—land, labor,
capital, natural resources—were tied up in unproductive arrangements, much as
the liberals had claimed in the mid-nineteenth century. Structural reforms were
needed to unleash their potential: land reform, housing, worker education, tax re-
form, health improvements, and so forth. Finally, ECLA proposed unorthodox
ways to finance economic growth, through deficit spending and market-expanding
customs unions. Remarkably, this new theory became an orthodoxy of its own and
even served as the inspiration for John Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress in the
1960s!
Most of the generation of the populists after World War II followed ECLA
strategies to industrialize and gain a degree of economic independence from the in-
dustrialized world. They adopted ISI, carried out land and tax reform, set up pro-
grams for literacy and public health, and invested in education at all levels. Deficit
spending, carried too far, often led to chronic inflation. For a time customs unions
forged ahead (e.g., the Central American Common Market, the Latin American
Free Trade Area, the Andean Pact, the Caribbean CARICOM), but in the long run
they accomplished little.
The military regimes of the 1960s–1980s tended to adopt neoliberal policies as
a way to clean up excesses of the populist era, yet circumstances did not favor their
success. Only in Chile did a frankly laissez-faire approach work, led by economists
associated with the University of Chicago. In Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, early
experiments with neoliberalism gave way to frenzied attempts to promote growth,
deal with balance of payments crises, shore up currencies, and create jobs for the
masses of young people joining the workforce each year. Neoliberalism simply
took too long to produce results. What emerged was called heterodoxy, or a jum-
ble of whatever policies seemed capable of solving the problems of the moment.
Nowhere was heterodoxy so pronounced as in Brazil during the ascendancy of fi-
nance minister Delfim Netto. In the end, failures of economic management con-
tributed heavily to the military’s decision to return to the barracks.

The 1980s found most of Latin America in such financial trouble that it is of-
ten called the “lost decade.” Stagflation and hyperinflation, energy crises, unem-
ployment, debt defaults and serial rollovers, failed protectionism, capital flight,
and general mismanagement plagued the region. Oil-rich countries like Mexico,
Venezuela, and Ecuador found themselves unable to use their resources effectively.
Those without oil resorted to extremes like alcohol fuel, nuclear plants, charcoal,
and huge hydroelectric projects. In the end, the region did not emerge from the
doldrums until the Atlantic economy began its recovery in the early 1990s.
Since that time, neoliberal policies have become the new orthodoxy in much of
the region. Chile was taken as a model for export-led growth in the 1980s. The
US-trained economist-presidents of Mexico, and certainly Vicente Fox, followed
this line, as did the finance ministers of Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. For a time, Ar-
gentina and Brazil pegged their currencies to the US dollar to gain price stability.
El Salvador and Ecuador actually adopted the US dollar as currency, joining
Panama. Even Cuba, which lost its subsidy when the Soviet Union collapsed,
moved to attract investment and the US dollar. The rest of the neoliberal recipe
has been tried out in most countries: tariff reduction, direct foreign investment,
elimination of subsidies and price controls, privatization, ending deficit spending,

and curbing overly generous benefits for public employees. The pace of neoliberal-
ization slowed in the early 2000s due to the recession, and several countries led by
Brazil killed the US drive to create a free trade area in the hemisphere. More and
more Latin American leaders are voicing reluctance to follow the old neoliberal
model, but there is little agreement about what will replace it.
Conclusion
Latin America entered the twenty-first century by confronting global challenges, no
longer using the hemisphere or the West as a frame of reference. These challenges
include trade competition against fierce rivals in Asia, first the so-called Tigers, and
now China. They also include an energy system groaning under the demands of the
First World while trying to accommodate the development needs of the Third
World. The superpower United States conducts business all around the globe, so
Latin Americans need to be aware of developments on that scale. The threat from
international terrorism, world crime and drug networks, war, epidemic diseases,
and the inevitable economic crises must be monitored daily by Latin American
leaders. Hemispheric organizations like the OAS, the School of the Americas (now
renamed WHINSEC), the Inter-American Defense Board, and the Pan American
Health Organization are largely obsolete today. Latin Americans must operate in
the rarefied atmosphere of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and other global entities.
Apart from these political and security challenges, Latin Americans must survive
economically in a multipolar world that becomes more integrated with each passing
year. The region’s best and brightest minds are devising their integration into this
global economy, running some of the biggest companies in the world—petroleum,
aviation, mining, manufacturing, entertainment, food, telecommunications, and
services—gambling that multinational corporate management is here to stay. How
will individual workers and farmers operate in an informed way in this sort of world?
The answer will perhaps dictate the success or failure of the integration process.
Less dramatic yet perhaps just as threatening in the long run will be the chal-
lenges of cultural erosion and the loss of social cohesion under the onslaught of
global media. At the moment the media are dominated by US, European, and
Japanese companies, which project leisure programming to the rest of the world—
cinema, drama, music, games, sports, and news. Whether Latin Americans can do-
mesticate or Latinize this programming remains to be seen. By the same token,
Spanish and Portuguese language media, originating primarily in the United States
but also coming from Mexico, Brazil, and Spain, are a growing presence in US
markets. The future of the arts, family life, spiritual worship, leisure activities, in-
dividual and group creativity, and the very core of Latin American-ness are at stake
in this confrontation of cultures.
References
Bulmer-Thomas, Victor. The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
98 MICHAEL CONNIFF
Bushnell, David, and Neill Macaulay. The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth
Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Clayton, Lawrence, and Michael L. Conniff. A History of Modern Latin America. 2nd ed.
Florence, KY: Thompson-Wadsworth, 2004.
Conniff, Michael L., ed. Populism in Latin America. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press, 1999.
Haber, Stephen, ed. How Latin America Fell Behind. Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1997.

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Conquest and Settlement

Colonial Governments and Economies

5 – Colonial Latin America 79

The first outstanding feature of colonization, therefore, was government. The

But an unqualified charge of exploitation against the Spanish and Portuguese is

5 – Colonial Latin America 81

5 – Colonial Latin America 83

Roman Catholic Evangelism

5 – Colonial Latin America 85

difficulties in building institutions, citizenries, and national identities than their

6 – Latin America Since Independence 87

6 – Latin America Since Independence 89

Caribbean basin were Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, Fulgencio Batista of Cuba,

indefatigable campaigners, tireless speakers. They strove to create the impression of

6 – Latin America Since Independence 91

nation, generate economic development, strengthen international ties, and bring

6 – Latin America Since Independence 93

subsidizing transportation infrastructure. Chilean exports surged with the advent

production to industry as a way to hedge against declines in prices and demand.

The terms of trade would reward both sides in their transactions.

6 – Latin America Since Independence 95

enterprise, international division of labor, protection of property rights, stable cur-

tributed heavily to the military’s decision to return to the barracks.

6 – Latin America Since Independence 97

elimination of subsidies and price controls, privatization, ending deficit spending,

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