19th Century Latin Americ

Antonio Barajas
History 8b
Midterm
July 30, 2008

19th Century Latin America (Option 3) Latin America in the latter half of the nineteenth century began to experience a number of obstacles pivotal to their identity and crucial to their development. The first significant obstacle came right after the wars for independence, a challenge and question over who had really achieved independence. The second obstacle was the political conflict between liberals and conservatives and their ideologies of what Latin America should become in the sake of progress and modernity. The third but most significant challenge for all of Latin America was the emergence of a new imperial power, The United States. The Wars of Independence for Latin America happened coincidently in a domino effect; one country after the other gained its independence with the exception of Cuba and Brazil between 1809-1822. The war itself had been fought unitedly by criollos, mestizos, blacks, and indigenous who came together following the nativist liberal ideals of liberty, equality, and America for Americans. Charles Chasteen views the winning of the wars of independence as a sense of belonging and shared purpose between the different racial groups (p.91). But as the aftermath foretold, the political independence of the America’s was simply that, a political detachment from Spain that meant that the social class structure would remain the same throughout. As a result, the criollos had become the only beneficiaries of the war and autonomy of Latin America. Criollos were now the new ruling elite, holding political office positions as well as the majority of the land and wealth. Winning political independence from Spain did not result in a social revolution that would change the caste system. Indigenous and black slaves did not receive their freedom nor did they beneficiate from the war; most of them were still subjugated and repressed by the white elite ruling class. Mr. Seagel then discussed that this independence was in reality for whom? The indigenous, mestizos, blacks, or criollos? Undoubtedly, the criollo became favored and flourished by the Latin American independence creating a great obstacle for Latin American social unity, and an economic inequality. This obstacle of inequality will remain in places like Mexico until the beginning of the twentieth century with the Mexican revolution, were indigenous roots are embraced and the Mexican national identity is found and proclaimed. The patriotic nativist vision of the wars of independence introduced two new big ideals, Liberalism and nationalism, and a new conflict between liberal and conservative criollo elites arose. Liberal thinkers and followers such as Benito Juarez, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Benjamin Mitre, Juan Bautista Alberdi and Porfirio Diaz favored progress over the old tradition, reason over faith, a free market, and the privatization of land. Many of these liberals boast a European heritage and believe that the North Atlantic economic, and political system is the one to follow in Latin America. These liberal elites were influenced by European ideologies rising in the nineteenth century, such as the Enlightment, the ideas of evolution put forth by Charles Darwin, and Positivism. E. Bradford Burns poses Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as one of the most influential exemplars of liberal thought in Latin America. Sarmiento wrote a book Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism in 1845, describing the life of Juan Facundo Quiroja a gaucho who roamed the pampas freely, and was to be labeled barbaric and uncivilized by Sarmiento and other liberal elites of the Generation of 1837. In Facundo, he shows disgust at the gaucho country life and emphasizes that if Argentina ever wants to become civilized, they need to urbanize the countryside and influence northern European migration. So much was his hatred towards the gaucho that in a letter to Mitre he proclaims, “the only thing the gauchos were useful for was to fertilize the Argentine soil with their blood (Prof. Seigel)”. Sarmiento’s literary work had a profound influence in all Latin America. Liberals now proclaim and embrace the idea of modernizing Latin America by transforming its people and cities to imitate those of Western Europe. Liberals defined progression for all Latin America in the adaptaing, and imitating European political, economic, and cultural system. In contrast to liberal thought, stand the nationalist or conservatives that were more grounded and sympathetic to the land and people, including it’s first inhabitants, the indigenous. Conservatives believed in maintaining some old traditions, like the church and government unification to maintain a Catholic monopoly as the states religion, and in maintaining old social arrangements such as the latifundias and fueros. These new conservative believed in maintaining a New World order, because the new world could not relate to the old world history, nor it’s principles and ideologies could be applied to Latin America for progression. One of the most influential individuals that promoted a new order for Latin America was Ernesto Quesada of Argentina; he believed that the progress of Argentina in the last half of the century was possible only because of the firm national foundation Juan Manuel de las Rosas laid (Burns p.69). Quesada points out the very positive and influential contributions conservative caudillos like Rosas left in Argentina, like national unity and stability that prior to him were non-existent. Conservatives perceived that the “new band of progress that liberal elites encouraged was at best cosmetic and at worst another bond further tightening their subordination to Europe (Burns p.52)”. This conflict between liberals and conservatives proved to be one of Latin America’s greatest challenge, the political disorder and chaos in most countries were a result of this struggle of differences between liberals and conservatives and what each of them viewed as progressive for Latin America. The last greatest challenge of Latin America that I also think is the most foundational in the sense that it continues to penetrate till today is the emergence of the neo-colonial power of the United States. U.S. intervention in Latin America in the nineteenth century became rigorous and manipulative, always seeking its best interests. The implementation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 can be seen as the first doctrine imposed as an attempt to legitimize U.S. intervention in Latin American affairs restricting any intervention of Europe. In the 1880’s, the U.S. passed the Big Brother policy, which its main purpose was to open Latin American markets to U.S. traders. In the book a Nation for all by Alejandro de la Fuente, he writes and comments on the Cuban liberator Jose Marti, who Fuentes says, dedicated 74 volumes of his written work to the U.S. and emphasized in those volumes that the U.S. was not a nation to follow, and warned the Cubans not to court U.S. aid after independence because it would endanger Cuba’s sovereignty (p262). Towards the end of the century, in the 1880’s and 1890’s U.S. based banana companies blossomed in Central and South America. The banana company would transform into The United Fruit Company, which became a banana empire operating in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. The company became known as the “pulpo” as it overmatched the economic power of the hosting country. Chasteen notes how this U.S. based company made several nations into “banana republics”, where it could keep governors, cabinet ministries, even presidents in its deep corporate pockets (p.188). This was only the beginning of U.S. intervention towards the end of the nineteenth century; it became a struggle for Latin America to maintaining a democratic political order, an economic stability, and a national infrastructure. The neocolonial rule of the United States in Latin America only helped to debilitate its progress, and exploit and extract its resources. Neocolonialism in Latin America is still seeing today with trading agreements such as NAFTA in 1994. It is an economical dependency challenge that Latin America still waits to surpass.