History of Latin America

The idea that a part of the Americas has a cultural or racial affinity with all Romance cultures can be traced back to the 1830s, in particular in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of the Americas were inhabited by people of a "Latin race," and that it could, therefore, ally itself with "Latin Europe" in a struggle with "Teutonic Europe," "Anglo-Saxon America" and "Slavic Europe."[1] The idea was later taken up by Latin American intellectuals and political leaders of the mid- and late-nineteenth century, who no longer looked to Spain or Portugal as cultural models, but rather to France.[2] The actual term "Latin America" was coined in France under Napoleon III and played a role in his campaign to imply cultural kinship with France, transform France into a cultural and political leader of the area and install Maximilian as emperor of Mexico.[3]

In the mid-twentieth century, especially in the United States, there was a trend to occasionally classify all of the territory south of the United States as "Latin America," especially when the discussion focused on its contemporary political and economic relations to the rest of the world, rather than solely on its cultural aspects.[4] Concurrently, there has been a move to avoid this oversimplification by talking about "Latin America and the Caribbean," as in the United Nations geoscheme.

Since, the concept and definitions of Latin American are very modern, going back only to the nineteenth century, it is anachronistic to talk about "a history of Latin America" before the arrival of the Europeans. Nevertheless, the many and varied cultures that did exist in the pre-Columbian period had a strong and direct influence on the societies that emerged as a result of the conquest, and therefore, they cannot be overlooked. They are introduced in the next section.

What is now Latin America has been populated for several millennia, possibly for as long as 30,000 years. There are many models of migration to the New World. Precise dating of many of the early civilizations is difficult because there are few text sources. However, highly developed civilizations flourished at various times and places, such as in the Andes and Mesoamerica.

A 17th-century map of the Americas

Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492. Subsequently, the major sea powers in Europe sent expeditions to the New World to build trade networks and colonies and to convert the native peoples to Christianity. Spain concentrated on building its empire on the central and southern parts of the Americas allotted to it by the Treaty of Tordesillas, because of presence of large, settled societies like the Aztec, the Inca, the Maya and the Muisca, whose human and material resources it could exploit, and large concentrations of silver and gold. The Portuguese built their empire in Brazil, which fell in their sphere of influence owing to the Treaty of Tordesillas, by developing the land for sugar production since there was a lack of a large, complex society or mineral resources. During the European colonization of the western hemisphere, most of the native population died, mainly by disease. In what has come to be known as the Columbian exchange, diseases such as smallpox and measles decimated populations with no immunity.

Because the Spanish were now in power, native culture and religion were forbidden. The Spanish even went as far as burning the Maya Codices (like books). These codices contained information about astrology, religion, Gods, and rituals. There are four codices known to exist today; these are the Dresden Codex, Paris Codex, Madrid Codex, and HI Codex.[5] The Spanish also melted down countless pieces of golden artwork so they could bring the gold back to Spain and destroyed countless pieces of art that they viewed as unchristian. The plunder of the empires of the Americas allowed Spain to finance religious persecution in Europe for over a century. Spanish wars of conquest included laying waste much of the Netherlands and a disastrous attempt to invade England.[6]

In 1568, the Spanish defeated a British fleet under John Hawkins at the Battle of San Juan de Ulúa. In 1595, Francis Drake embarked on a long and disastrous campaign against the Spanish Main, suffering several consecutive defeats. In 1655, the Spanish defeated a British force attempting to capture Santo Domingo. The 1741 Battle of Cartagena de Indias was one of the most decisive Spanish victories against the unsuccessful British attempts to take control of the Spanish Main.

Haiti, a French slave colony, was the first to follow the United States to independence, during the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804). This war involved blacks, mulattos, French, Spanish, and British participants. Ex-slaves led by Toussaint L'ouverture and mulattos led by André Rigaud defeated the British, who withdrew in 1798. A year later Rigaud disputed Toussaint's authority and the two leaders went to war. Toussaint, the victor, ruled the colony as governor and liberated the slaves in Santo Domingo (on the eastern side of the island, which later became the Dominican Republic). In 1802, however, Napoleon sent an army to reconquer Haiti. The French declared a "war of extermination" in which ships were employed as gas chambers for mass killing.[13] Although Toussaint was captured and died in a French prison, Jean-Jacques Dessalines forced the French out and declared the First Haitian Empire in 1804.

The wars of independence in Spanish America were triggered by another failed British attempt to seize Spanish American territory, this time in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1806. The viceroy retreated hastily to the hills when defeated by a small British force. However when the criollos thrashed the now reinforced British force in 1807 and, with the example of the North American revolutionaries very much in their minds, they quickly set about the business of winning their own independence and inspiring independence movements elsewhere in America. A long period of wars began which led to the independence of Paraguay (1811) and Uruguay (1815 but subsequently ruled by Brazil until 1828). José de San Martín campaigned for freedom in Argentina (1816), Chile (1818) and Peru (1821). Further north Simon Bolivar led forces that won independence for the area that is currently Venezuela, Colombia (included Panama until 1903), Ecuador, and Bolivia by 1825. In 1810 a free thinking priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, declared Mexican independence, which was won by 1821. Central America declared its independence in 1821 and was joined to Mexico for a brief time (1822–23). Brazil's quest for independence was unique in this period of Latin American history because it occurred without violent upheavals or widespread bloodshed.[14]

Spain made several attempts to reconquer Mexico (1821–29), and, while they failed, they succeeded in destabilizing the Mexican government and economy. Spain's most spectacular attempt to revive its imperial glory came in 1861 when it annexed Santo Domingo, allegedly to protect the Dominicans from potential invasion from Haiti.[15] Spain soon faced guerrilla resistance and later open rebellion under José Antonio Salcedo. Dominican general Pedro Santana, who had been given the title of Marquess of Las Carreras by Queen Isabella II, took command of Spain's largely mercenary army but, after he died, the rebels soon prevailed.[16] Spain annulled the annexation in 1865 and withdrew from Santo Domingo.

In February 1895, the Cuban War of Independence broke out. Spain sent General Valeriano Weyler together with 220,285 troops to Cuba, the largest army ever to cross the Atlantic until the Second World War.[17] Weyler established concentration camps throughout the island, surrounding the towns with barbed wire and trenches. A total of 10% of the Cuban population died under inhumane conditions in Spanish concentration camps.[18][19] As the Spanish army increasingly resorted to atrocious acts of violence to put down the rebellion, the United States was brought into the conflict, eventually leading to the Spanish–American War and Cuban independence.

Countries in Latin America by date of independence

Following the model of the American and French revolutions, most of Latin America achieved its independence by 1825. Independence destroyed the single market that existed under the Spanish Empire after the Bourbon Reforms and created an increased dependence on the financial investment provided by nations which had already begun to industrialize; therefore, Western European powers, in particular Great Britain and France, and the United States began to play major roles, since the region became economically dependent on these nations. Independence also created a new, self-consciously "Latin American" ruling class and intelligentsia which at times avoided Spanish and Portuguese models in their quest to reshape their societies. This elite looked towards other Catholic European models—in particular France—for a new Latin American culture, but did not seek input from indigenous peoples.

The failed efforts in Spanish America to keep together most of the initial large states that emerged from independence— Gran Colombia, the Federal Republic of Central America[20] and the United Provinces of South America—resulted a number of domestic and interstate conflicts, which plagued the new countries. Brazil, in contrast to its Hispanic neighbors, remained a united monarchy and avoided the problem of civil and interstate wars. Domestic wars were often fights between federalists and centrists who ended up asserted themselves through the military repression of their opponents at the expense of civilian political life. The new nations inherited the cultural diversity of the colonial era and strived to create a new identity based around the shared European (Spanish or Portuguese) language and culture. Within each country, however, there were cultural and class divisions that created tension and hurt national unity.

Map of disputed territories in Latin America

For the next few decades there was a long process to create a sense of national pride. Most of the new national borders were created around the often centuries-old audiencia jurisdictions or the Bourbon intendancies, which had become areas of political identity. In many areas the borders were unstable, since the new states fought wars with each other to gain access to resources, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Paraguayan War (1864–70) pitted Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay, which was defeated. As a result, Paraguay suffered a demographic collapse: the population went from an estimated 525,000 persons in 1864 to 221,000 in 1871 and out of this last population, only around 28,000 were men. In the War of the Pacific (1879–84), Chile defeated the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru. Chile gained control of saltpeter-rich areas, previously controlled by Peru and Bolivia, and Bolivia became a land-locked nation. By mid-century the region also confronted a growing United States, seeking to expand on the North American continent and extend its influence in the hemisphere. After the Mexican–American War (1846–48), Mexico ceded California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and southern Texas to the United States in the "Mexican Cession", a successful conclusion to the American policy of "Manifest destiny". In South America, Brazil consolidated its control of large swaths of the Amazon Basin at the expense of its neighbors. In the 1880s, the United States implemented an aggressive policy to defend and expand its political and economic interests in all of Latin America, which culminated in the creation of the Pan-American Conference, the successful completion of the Panama Canal and the United States intervention in the final Cuban War of Independence.

The export of natural resources provided the basis of most Latin American economies in the nineteenth century, which allowed for the development of wealthy elite. The restructuring of colonial economic and political realities resulted in a sizable gap between rich and poor, with landed elites controlling the vast majority of land and resources. In Brazil, for instance, by 1910 85% of the land belonged to 1% of the population. Gold mining and fruit growing, in particular, were monopolized by these wealthy landowners. These "Great Owners" completely controlled local activity and, furthermore, were the principal employers and the main source of wages. This led to a society of peasants whose connection to larger political realities remained in thrall to farming and mining magnates.

The endemic political instability and the nature of the economy resulted in the emergence of caudillos, military chiefs whose hold on power depended on their military skill and ability to dispense patronage. The political regimes were at least in theory democratic and took the form of either presidential or parliamentary governments. Both were prone to being taken over by a caudillo or an oligarchy. The political landscape was occupied by conservatives, who believed that the preservation of the old social hierarchies served as the best guarantee of national stability and prosperity, and liberals, who sought to bring about progress by freeing up the economy and individual initiative. Popular insurrections were often influential and repressed: 100,000 were killed during the suppression of a Colombian revolt between 1899 and 1902 during the Thousand Days' War. Some states did manage to have some of democracy: Uruguay, and partially Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Colombia. The others were clearly oligarchist or authoritarian, although these oligarchs and caudillos sometimes enjoyed support from a majority in the population. All of these regimes sought to maintain Latin America's lucrative position in the world economy as a provider of raw materials.

1903 political cartoon: President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone.

By the start of the century, the United States continued its interventionist attitude, which aimed to directly defend its interests in the region. This was officially articulated in Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick Doctrine, which modified the old Monroe Doctrine, which had simply aimed to deter European intervention in the hemisphere. At the conclusion of the Spanish–American War the new government of Cuba and the United States signed the Platt Amendment in 1902, which authorized the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs when the United States deemed necessary. In Colombia, United States sought the concession of a territory in Panama to build a much anticipated canal across the isthmus. The Colombian government opposed this, but a Panamanian insurrection provided the United States with an opportunity. The United States backed Panamanian independence and the new nation granted the concession. These were not the only interventions carried out in the region by the United States. In the first decades of the twentieth century, there were several military incursions into Central America and the Caribbean, mostly in defense of commercial interests, which became known as the "Banana Wars."

The greatest political upheaval in the second decade of the century took place in Mexico. In 1908, President Porfirio Díaz, who had been in office since 1884, promised that he would step down in 1910. Francisco I. Madero, a moderate liberal whose aim was to modernize the country while preventing a socialist revolution, launched an election campaign in 1910. Díaz, however, changed his mind and ran for office once more. Madero was arrested on election day and Díaz declared the winner. These events provoked uprisings, which became the start of the Mexican Revolution. Revolutionary movements were organized and some key leaders appeared: Pancho Villa in the north, Emiliano Zapata in the south, and Madero in Mexico City. Madero's forces defeated the federal army in early 1911, assumed temporary control of the government and won a second election later on November 6, 1911. Madero undertook moderate reforms to implement greater democracy in the political system but failed to satisfy many of the regional leaders in what had become a revolutionary situation. Madero's failure to address agrarian claims led Zapata to break with Madero and resume the revolution. On February 18, 1913 Victoriano Huerta, a conservative general organized a coup d'état with the support of the United States; Madero was killed four days later. Other revolutionary leaders such as Villa, Zapata, and Venustiano Carranza continued to militarily oppose the federal government, now under Huerta's control. Allies Zapata and Villa took Mexico City in March 1914, but found themselves outside of their elements in the capital and withdrew to their respective bastions. This allowed Carranza to assume control of the central government. He then organized the repression of the rebel armies of Villa and Zapata, led in particular by General Álvaro Obregón. The Mexican Constitution of 1917, still the current constitution, was proclaimed but initially little enforced. The efforts against the other revolutionary leaders continued. Zapata was assassinated on April 10, 1919. Carranza himself was assassinated on May 15, 1920, leaving Obregón in power, who was officially elected president later that year. Finally in 1923 Villa was also assassinated. With the removal of the main rivals Obregón is able to consolidate power and relative peace returned to Mexico. Under the Constitution a liberal government is implemented but some of the aspirations of the working and rural classes remained unfulfilled. (See also, Agrarian land reform in Mexico.)

The prestige of Germany and German culture in Latin America remained high after the war but did not recover to its pre-war levels.[21][22] Indeed, in Chile the war bought an end to a period of scientific and cultural influence writer Eduardo de la Barra scorningly called "the German bewichment" (Spanish: el embrujamiento alemán).[23]

Sports became increasingly popular, drawing enthusiastic fans to large stadia.[24] The International Olympic Committee (IOC) worked to encourage Olympic ideals and participation. Following the 1922 Latin American Games in Rio de Janeiro, the IOC helped to establish national Olympic committees and prepare for future competition. In Brazil, however, sporting and political rivalries slowed progress as opposing factions fought to control of international sport. The 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris and the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam saw greatly increased participation from Latin American athletes.[25] English and Scottish engineers brought futebol (soccer) to Brazil in the late 1800s. The International Committee of the YMCA of North America and the Playground Association of America played major roles in training coaches. .[26]

A mural celebrating Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán and the Guatemalan Revolution

The Great Depression posed a great challenge to the region. The collapse of the world economy meant that the demand for raw materials drastically declined, undermining many of the economies of Latin America. Intellectuals and government leaders in Latin America turned their backs on the older economic policies and turned toward import substitution industrialization. The goal was to create self-sufficient economies, which would have their own industrial sectors and large middle classes and which would be immune to the ups and downs of the global economy. Despite the potential threats to United States commercial interests, the Roosevelt administration (1933–1945) understood that the United States could not wholly oppose import substitution. Roosevelt implemented a Good Neighbor policy and allowed the nationalization of some American companies in Latin America. Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas nationalized American oil companies, out of which he created Pemex. Cárdenas also oversaw the redistribution of a quantity of land, fulfilling the hopes of many since the start of the Mexican Revolution. The Platt Amendment was also repealed, freeing Cuba from legal and official interference of the United States in its politics. The Second World War also brought the United States and most Latin American nations together.[27]

The only international conflicts since World War II have been the Football War between El Salvador and Honduras (1969), the Cenepa War between Ecuador and Peru (1995), along with Argentina's brief war with the United Kingdom in 1982, which saw the first invasion of British territory since World War II.

In the postwar period, the expansion of communism became the greatest political issue for both the United States and governments in the region. The start of the Cold War forced governments to choose between the United States and the Soviet Union. Following the 1948 Costa Rica Civil War, the nation established a new constitution and was recognized as the first legitimate democracy in Latin America[28] However, the new Costa Rican government, which now was constitutionally required to ban the presence of a standing military, did not seek regional influence and was distracted further by conflicts with neighboring Nicaragua.

Cuban soldiers with Soviet helmets

Several socialist and communist insurgencies broke out in Latin America throughout the entire twentieth century, but the most successful one was in Cuba. The Cuban Revolution was led by Fidel Castro against the regime of Fulgencio Batista, who since 1933 was the principal autocrat in Cuba. Since the 1860s the Cuban economy had focused on the cultivation of sugar, of which 82% was sold in the American market by the twentieth century. Despite the repeal of the Platt Amendment, the United States still had considerable influence in Cuba, both in politics and in everyday life. In fact Cuba had a reputation of being the "brothel of the United States," a place where Americans could find all sorts of licit and illicit pleasures, provided they had the cash. Despite having the socially advanced constitution of 1940, Cuba was plagued with corruption and the interruption of constitutional rule by autocrats like Batista. Batista began his final turn as the head of the government in a 1952 coup. The coalition that formed under the revolutionaries hoped to restore the constitution, reestablish a democratic state and free Cuba from the American influence. The revolutionaries succeeded in toppling Batista on January 1, 1959. Castro, who initially declared himself as a non-socialist, initiated a program of agrarian reforms and nationalizations in May 1959, which alienated the Eisenhower administration (1953–61) and resulted in the United States breaking of diplomatic relations, freezing Cuban assets in the United States and placing an embargo on the nation in 1960. The Kennedy administration (1961–1963) authorized the funding and support of an invasion of Cuba by exiles. The invasion failed and radicalized the revolutionary government's position. Cuba officially proclaimed itself socialist and openly became an ally of the Soviet Union. The military collaboration between Cuba and the Soviet Union, which included the placement of intercontinental ballistic missiles in Cuba precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, the closest the world has ever come to total annihilation, before or since.

A new face of Soviet-Cuban military co-operation opened with Castro's decision to send thousands of troops to Angola in 1975–76 to support the pro-Soviet MPLA. In February 1978, 7,000 Cuban troops, supported and led by Soviet and East German officers, helped Ethiopians repel a Somali invasion.[29] In 1982, Cuban construction workers began building an airfield in Grenada. US forces invaded Grenada in 1983, killing more than two dozen Cubans (including two professional soldiers) and expelling the remainder of the Cubans from the island.

Rise of the Latin American left

See also: Anti-Communist League of the Caribbean

A Marine heavy machine gunner monitors activity from a street barricade in Santo Domingo

Castro's revolution was only the first of its kind in Latin America. Leftist governments rose to power across the region (both in Central America and South America), so the United States resorted to backing coups, such as the 1954 overthrow of the popular Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala and the ouster of Juan Bosch in 1965 in the Dominican Republic, the latter of which led to the Dominican Civil War and the US occupation of the republic that year. The United States supported coups that installed dictators in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and other countries, and they set up the School of the Americas to train future dictators like Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and Manuel Noriega of Panama. Some dictators' rules led to civil wars, such as the Nicaraguan Civil War, Salvadoran Civil War, and Guatemalan Civil War in the 1970s-1990s, and the United States backed governments that used death squads to massacre villagers and priests accused of siding with leftists. These civil wars would end with the end of the Cold War, resulting in the communist guerrillas becoming legal political parties, and many of them would proceed to rule over the country, such as the Sandinistas of Nicaragua and FMLN of El Salvador.

Late-20th-century military regimes and revolutions

The military junta of Argentina saw widespread repression against those it deemed to be political dissidents

By the 1970s, leftists had acquired a significant political influence which prompted the right-wing, ecclesiastical authorities and a large portion of each individual country's upper class to support coups d'état to avoid what they perceived as a communist threat. This was further fueled by Cuban and United States intervention which led to a political polarization. Most South American countries were in some periods ruled by military dictatorships that were supported by the United States of America.

Around the 1970s, the regimes of the Southern Cone collaborated in Operation Condor killing many leftist dissidents, including some urban guerrillas.[30] The United Kingdom's defeat of Argentina in the 1982 Falklands War discredited the Argentine regime and forced it to reinstate elective civilian government. A return to overt US intervention assisted in the 1989 overthrow of dictator Manuel Noriega in Panama; the US also helped remove the military regime of Haiti in 1994. Elsewhere, the force of domestic opinion was usually enough to bring about a transition to democracy.[31]

• Historiography#Latin America
• Historiography of Colonial Spanish America
• Genocide of indigenous peoples
• Latin American economy
• Latin America–United Kingdom relations
• Latin America–United States relations
• List of history journals#Latin America and the Caribbean
• Conference on Latin American History
• Latin American studies