World History Chapter 13 Section 4 Outline

Economic Imperialism in Latin America
Lingering Political Problems
1. Simon Bolivar had hoped to create strong ties among the nations of Latin America
2. But feuds among leaders, geographic barriers, and local nationalism shattered that dream of unity.
3. 20 separate nations emerged
4. These new nations wrote constitutions modeled on that of the United States
5. They set up republics with elected legislature.
6. True democracy failed to take hold
The Colonial Legacy
1. The existing social and political hierarchy barely changed.
2. Creoles simply replaced peninsulares as the ruling class.
3. The roman catholic church kept its privileged position and still controlled huge amounts of land
4. For most people- mestizos, mulattoes, blacks, and Indians- life did not improve after independence.
5. The new constitutions guaranteed equality before the law, but deep-rooted inequalities remained.
6. Voting rights were limited
7. Many people felt the effects of racial prejudice.
The Search for stability
1. With few roads and no tradition of unity, regionalism, or loyalty to a local area, weakened the new nations.
2. Local strongmen, called caudillos, assembled private armies
3. At times, popular caudillos, occasionally former military leaders, gained national power.
4. Power struggles led to frequent revolts that changed little except the name of the leaders.
5. Liberals backed laissez-faire economics, religious toleration, and greater access to education, and freedom of the press.
Mexico’s Struggle for Stability
1. During the 1800s, each Latin American nation followed its own course
2. Mexico provides an example of the challenges facing many Latin American nations
3. Large Landowners, army leaders, and the Catholic Church dominated Mexican politics.
4. Bitter battles between conservatives and liberals led to revolts and the rise of dictators
5. Deep social divisions separated wealthy creoles from mestizos and Indians who lived in poverty
Santa Anna and War with the United States
1. Between 1833 and 1855, an ambitious and cunning caudillo, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, gained and lost power many times.
2. He reversed his stand and crushed efforts at reform
3. In Mexico’s northern territory of Texas, discontent grew.
4. In 1835, settlers who had moved to Texas from the United States and other places revolted.
5. After a brief struggle with Santa Anna’s forces, the settlers gained independence from Mexico.
6. In 1845 the United Sates annexed Texas.
La Reforma Changed Mexico
1. In 1855, Benito Juarez, a liberal reformer of Zapotec Indian heritage, and other liberals gained power and opened an era of reform known as La Reforma.
2. He and his fellow reformers revised the Mexican constitution to strip the military of power and end the special privileges of the church.
3. They ordered the Church to sell unused lands to peasants.
4. Conservatives resisted La Reforma and began a civil war.
5. Still, Juarez was elected president in 1861 and expanded his reforms
6. His opponents turned to Europe for help, 1863 Napoleon
7. 111 sent troops to Mexico and set up Austrian archduke Maximilian as emperor.
Growth and Oppression Under Diaz
1. After Juarez died, General Porfirio Diaz, a hero of the war against the French, staged a military coup and gained power.
2. From 1876 to 1880 and 1884 to 1911, he ruled as a dictator.
3. The rich prospered, but most Mexican remained poor.
4. Many Indian and mestivos fell into Peonage to their employers.
5. Many children died in infancy
6. Children worked 12-hours days and never learned to read or write.
The economics of Dependence
The cycle of economic dependence
1. After independence, this pattern changed very little
2. The new Latin American republics did adopt free trade, welcoming all comers.
3. Britain and United States rushed into the new markets, replacing Spain as Latin America’s chief trading partners.
Foreign Influence Mounts
1. In the 1800s, foreign goods flooded Latin America, creating large profits for foreigners and for a handful of local business people.
2. Foreign investment, which could yield enormous profits, was often accompanied by local interference.
3. Investors from Britain, the United States, and other nations pressured their own governments to take action if political events or reform movements in a Latin American country seemed to threaten their interest.
Some Economic Growth
1. After 1850, some Latin American economies did grow.
2. With a foreign capital, they were able to develop mining and agriculture.
3. Brazil exported the cash crops coffee, and sugar, as well as rubber.
4. Venezuela and Mexico were developing important and lucrative oil industries.
5. Foreign invested in modern ports and railroads to carry goods from the interior to coastal cities.
6. Thanks to trade, investment, technology, and migration, Latin American nations moved into the world economy.
7. Yet internal development was limited.
The Influence of the United States
The Monroe Doctrine
1. In the 1820s, Spain plotted to recover its American Colonies.
2. Britain opposed any move that might close the door to trade with Latin America.
3. British leaders asked American President James Monroe to join them in a statement opposing any new colonization of the Americas.
4. Monroe wanted to avoid any entanglement alliance with Britain.
5. Acting alone, he issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
6. The United States lacked the military power to enforce to doctrine.
7. But with the support of Britain’s strong navy, the doctrine discouraged European interference.
The United States expands into Latin America
1. As a result of the war with Mexico, in 1848 the United States acquired the thinly populated regions of northern Mexico, gaining all or part of the present-day states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
2. United states controlled much of North America and was becoming involved in overseas conflicts
3. Cuban patriots had battled to free their island from Spanish rule.
4. The United States joined their cause, declaring war on Spain in 1898.
5. In 1901, the United States forced Cubans to add the Platt Amendment to their constitution.
The United Sates Interferes
1. American investment in Latin America grew in the early 1900s.
2. Citing the need to protect those investments, in 1904 the United States issued the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
3. Under this policy, the United States claimed “international police power”
4. Under the Roosevelt Corollary and then President William Howard Taft’s policy of Dollar Diplomacy.
Building the Panama Canal
5. From the late 1800s, the United States had wanted to build a canal across Central America.
6. Panama was a proposed site
7. Panama belonged to Colombia, which refused to sell the United States land for the Canal.
8. The Panamanians quickly won independence and manians against Columbia
9. Construction began in 1904
10. The Panama Cana opened in 1914
11. The Canal cut the distance of a sea journey between such cities as New York and San Francisco by thousands of miles.
12. To people in Latin America, however, the canal was another example of Yankee imperialism.
13. Nationalist feeling in the hemisphere was often expressed as Anti-Americanism.
14. Panama did not gain complete control over the canal until 2000.
15. Its now forms a vital part of the Panamanian economy.