LATIN AMERICA, HISTORY OF

history of the region from the pre-Columbian period and including colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese beginning in the 15th century, the 19th-century wars of independence, and developments to the end of World War II. Latin America is generally understood to consist of the entire continent of South America in addition to Mexico, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean whose inhabitants speak a Romance language. The peoples of this large area shared the experience of conquest and colonization by the Spaniards and Portuguese from the late 15th through the 18th centuries as well as movements of independence from Spain and Portugal in the early 19th century. Even since independence, many of the various nations have experienced similar trends, and they have some awareness of a common heritage. However, there are also enormous differences between them. Not only do the people live in a large number of independent units, but the geography and climate of their countries vary immensely, and their social and cultural characteristics differ according to the different constitution of the inhabitants before the Iberian conquest and the different timing and nature of European occupation. Since the Spanish and Portuguese element looms so large in the history of the region, it is sometimes proposed that Iberoamerica would be a better term than Latin America. Latin seems to suggest an equal importance of the French and Italian contributions, which is far from being the case. Nevertheless, usage has fastened on Latin America, and it is retained here. This article treats the history of Latin America from the first occupation by Europeans to the late 20th century, with an initial consideration of the indigenous and Iberian background. For more detailed coverage of the area prior to European contact, see Pre-Columbian civilizations. For additional information about the European exploration and colonization of Latin America, see colonialism. For information about the individual nations of Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, see specific country articles by namee.g., Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina. The physical and human geography of the continents, with some historical overview, are provided in the articles North America and South America. There is also a separate article Latin-American literature. For discussion of major cities of Latin America and their histories, see specific articles by namee.g., Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Mexico City. Additional reading General works Leslie Bethell (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America (1984 ), is a general reference work with essays by recognized specialists on many aspects of the region's development. Edwin Williamson, The Penguin History of Latin America (1992); and Simon Collier, Harold Blakemore, and Thomas E. Skidmore (eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2nd ed. (1992), offer introductory material. Tulio Halpern Donghi, The Contemporary History of Latin America (1993; originally published in Spanish, 1970), focuses on the region's colonial and neocolonial relations with North Atlantic nations. Early Latin America General An overview is presented in James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (1983), emphasizing analysis over narrative detail and treating all of Latin America as a unit. Spanish America C.H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America (1947, reprinted 1985), is an institutionalist classic. Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, Essays in Population History, 3 vol. (197179), is by the field's most illustrious demographers. A number of works treat 16th-century Spanish American history. Carl Ortwin Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (1966, reissued 1992), is a thoroughly outdated treatment of early Spanish activity in the Caribbean but has yet to be replaced. William Hickling Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, 3 vol. (1843), and History of the Conquest of Peru, 2 vol. (1847), both available in many later printings, contain archaic, invalid interpretations but are famous in the manner of historical novels. Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (1949, reprinted 1965), concentrates on the ideological crusades of fray Bartolom de las Casas. James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 15321560: A Social History, 2nd ed. (1994), surveys Hispanic conquest society in a central area. Ida Altman, Emigrants and Society: Extremadura and America in the Sixteenth Century (1989), follows people across the Atlantic. Robert Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 15231572 (1966; originally published in French, 1933), is a masterpiece of institutionalist historiography but ignores the roles of the indigenous people and the Spanish civil population. George Kubler, Mexican Architecture of the Sixteenth Century, 2 vol. (1948, reissued 1972), attempts to combine mainline history and the history of art. Philip Wayne Powell, Soldiers, Indians & Silver: The Northward Advance of New Spain, 15501600 (1952, reprinted 1975), shows how Spaniards operated in areas of nonsedentary Indians.The mature period in Spanish American history is addressed in the following works. Studies of indigenous society include Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 15191880 (1964), a large work based mainly on Spanish sources; William B. Taylor, Drinking, Homicide & Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (1979), showing the relative normality of indigenous behaviour in central areas after the arrival of the Spaniards; Nancy M. Farriss, Maya Society Under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival (1984, reissued with corrections, 1992), a broad treatment combining historical and anthropological techniques; James Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries (1992), based largely on sources in Nahuatl; and Karen Spalding, Huarochir: An Andean Society Under Inca and Spanish Rule (1984), which begins to bring the level of Peruvian ethnohistory up to that of its counterpart for Mexico. Frederick P. Bowser, The African Slave in Colonial Peru, 15241650 (1974), thoroughly investigates the role of Africans in a Spanish American area. P.J. Bakewell, Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 15461700 (1971), broadly treats a major silver mining centre. Louisa Schell Hoberman, Mexico's Merchant Elite, 15901660 (1991), describes changes in the commercial world after the conquest period. Sabine MacCormack, Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru (1991), analyzes intellectual developments with a strong awareness of the European background. Murdo J. MacLeod, Spanish Central America: A Socioeconomic History, 15201720 (1973, reprinted 1984), is the cornerstone of early Guatemalan historiography. Robert J. Ferry, The Colonial Elite of Early Caracas: Formation & Crisis, 15671767 (1989), investigates society in a fringe area. Asuncin Lavrin (ed.), Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America (1989), is an anthology of interesting primary research.The following are among the more notable works on Spanish American history during the late period. Christon I. Archer, The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 17601810 (1977), is a social-institutional study. D.A. Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 17631810 (1971), is a massive social and economic study of Mexico's late-colonial international economy and government, and Haciendas and Ranchos in the Mexican Bajo: Len, 17001860 (1978), shows the rationality and market orientation of the agricultural sector. John K. Chance, Race and Class in Colonial Oaxaca (1978), studies urban demography. John E. Kicza, Colonial Entrepreneurs: Families and Business in Bourbon Mexico City (1983 ), broadly surveys urban society. Enrique Tandeter, Coercion and Market: Silver Mining in Colonial Potos, 16921826 (1993; originally published in Spanish, 1992), facilitates comparison between the Mexican and Peruvian silver industries. Eric Van Young, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of the Gudalajara Region, 16751820 (1981), links the growth of agrarian estates to the size and nature of urban populations. Mark A. Burkholder and D.S. Chandler, From Impotence to Authority: The Spanish Crown and the American Audiencias, 16871808 (1977), is a mainly statistical study of the membership of high courts in all Spanish America. Jacques A. Barbier, Reform and Politics in Bourbon Chile, 17551796 (1980), views all the governmental institutions of a single region as an interlocking unit, including their socioeconomic dimension. Susan Migden Socolow, The Merchants of Buenos Aires, 17781810: Family and Commerce (1978), is a prosopographical study. Brazil Alexander Marchant, From Barter to Slavery: The Economic Relations of Portuguese and Indians in the Settlement of Brazil, 15001580 (1942, reissued 1966), though badly outdated in its ethnohistorical aspect, shows typical European economic procedures in a fringe area. C.R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 16241654 (1957, reprinted 1973), and The Golden Age of Brazil, 16951750 (1962, reissued 1995), extract a maximum of social, economic, and general information from institutional-narrative materials. Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves (Casa-Grande & Senzala): A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization, 2nd ed., rev. (1946, reissued 1986; originally published in Portuguese, 4th ed., 2 vol., 1943), concerns the society of northeastern Brazil in the time of sugar production; most scholars today can credit very little of it, but it is read because it changed the direction of Brazilian historiography. A.J.R. Russell-Wood, Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casa da Misericrdia of Bahia, 15501755 (1968), though nominally institutional, is tantamount to a study of northeastern urban society and partly updates Freyre. Stuart B. Schwartz, Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil: The High Court of Bahia and Its Judges, 16091751 (1973), combines social and institutional approaches, and his Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 15501835 (1985), embraces many methods, materials, and topics. Dauril Alden, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil, with Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradrio, Viceroy, 17691779 (1968), is broader than its title implies, dealing also with demographic and economic matters. Alida C. Metcalf, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaba, 15801822 (1992), illuminates fringe-area society. James Lockhart Independence to 1910 General works David Bushnell and Neill Macauley, The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (1994), focuses particularly on politics in the middle decades of the century. E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (1980), creatively argues that modernization hurt the majority of Latin Americans. Spanish America John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 17501940 (1986), reviews rural rebels' motives from the wars preceding independence to those of the Mexican Revolution. John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 18081826, 2nd ed. (1986), is the best account of the political and military events of the wars for independence. Verena Martinez-Alier (Verena Stolcke), Marriage, Class, and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society, 2nd ed. (1989), links race, gender, and class factors. Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 18601899 (1985), portrays the abolition of slavery in Cuba as the result of social, political, and economic factors. Paul Gootenberg, Between Silver and Guano: Commercial Policy and the State in Postindependence Peru (1989), examines the complicated social contests through which integration into global economic relations emerged after independence. Jonathan C. Brown, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 17761860 (1979), challenges assumptions about Latin America's economic dependence on North Atlantic powers. Florencia E. Mallon, The Defense of Community in Peru's Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 18601940 (1983), details the social and political aspects of a period of economic overhaul. Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 18211853 (1968), provides a model of intellectual history. John Charles Chasteen, Heroes on Horseback: A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos (1995), is an exciting, highly readable study of two caudillo brothers and their divergent legacies in Brazil and Uruguay. Brazil Emlia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (1985; originally published in Portuguese, 1977), collects well-written essays on liberalism, slavery, the end of the empire, and other major topics. C.H. Haring, Empire in Brazil: A New World Experiment with Monarchy (1958, reissued 1968), is a somewhat dated but still useful political history. Warren Dean, Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System, 18201920 (1976), examines changing labour arrangements during the growth and demise of slavery. Joo Jos Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (1993; originally published in Portuguese, 1986), weighs African cultural contributions and other factors in analyzing one of the century's most influential revolts. Stanley J. Stein, Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County, 18501900: The Roles of Planter and Slave in a Plantation Society (1985), studies the rise and decline of a traditional coffee zone. Linda Lewin, Politics and Parentela in Paraba: A Case Study of Family-Based Oligarchy in Brazil (1987), analyzes in detail the patronage system that defined politics in late 19th- and early 20th-century Brazil. Joseph L. Love, Rio Grande do Sul and Brazilian Regionalism, 18821930 (1971), presents a strong regional history of politics. Thomas H. Holloway, Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in So Paulo, 18861934 (1980), analyzes how two million European immigrants worked and lived. Roger A. Kittleson Twentieth-century Latin America General works Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America, 4th ed. (1997); and Peter Calvert and Susan Calvert, Latin America in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (1993), are good introductions to the period. Political developments Now somewhat dated in interpretation but extremely influential when it appeared is John J. Johnson, Political Change in Latin America: The Emergence of the Middle Sectors (1958, reissued 1965). Regional treatments of political topics include A.E. Van Niekerk, Populism and Political Development in Latin America (1974; originally published in Dutch, 1972); Edward J. Williams, Latin American Christian Democratic Parties (1967); and John A. Peeler, Latin American Democracies: Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela (1985), assessing variants of liberal democracy. The impact of the Cuban Revolution and associated leftist currents is explored in Jorge G. Castaeda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War (1993), by a frustrated sympathizer; and William E. Ratliff, Castroism and Communism in Latin America, 19591976: The Varieties of Marxist-Leninist Experience (1976), a conservative perspective. Frederick M. Nunn, The Time of the Generals: Latin American Professional Militarism in World Perspective (1992), discusses the political role of the military. Economics Victor Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence (1994), provides the best overall treatment. Labour issues are examined in Hobart A. Spalding, Jr., Organized Labor in Latin America: Historical Case Studies of Workers in Dependent Societies (1977), a helpful introduction; and Charles Bergquist, Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia (1986). Alain De Janvry, The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America (1981), covers the history of agrarian reform. International relations Bill Albert and Paul Henderson, South America and the First World War: The Impact of the War on Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Chile (1988); and R.A. Humphreys, Latin America and the Second World War, 2 vol. (198182), examine the repercussions of foreign conflicts. Good examples from the vast literature examining the role of the United States are Bryce Wood, The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy (1985), covering a broad spectrum of 20th-century issues; Lester D. Langley, The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century, 4th ed. (1989), treating a critically important theatre; Barbara Stallings, Banker to the Third World: U.S. Portfolio Investment in Latin America, 19001986 (1987); and Fredrick B. Pike, FDR's Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Years of Generally Gentle Chaos (1995). Culture and society Jean Franco, The Modern Culture of Latin America: Society and the Artist, rev. ed. (1970), covers cultural history. Francesca Miller, Latin American Women and the Search for Social Justice (1991), discusses the changing role of women and women's movements. David Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? The Politics of Evangelical Growth (1990), treats the rise of Protestantism and, less directly, changes in the Roman Catholic church. David Bushnell Early Latin America Spanish America The Spaniards were not only the first of the Europeans to reach the Americas in early modern times, but they also quickly located and occupied the areas of greatest indigenous population and mineral resources. They immigrated in force and created a far-flung, permanent network of new settlements. The Caribbean phase The islands of the Caribbean would soon become a backwater, but during the first years of Spanish occupation they were the arena of the development of many practices and structures that would long be central to Spanish-American life. When Columbus returned to Spain from his voyage of 1492, having hit upon the island of Hispaniola (now divided between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) as his base, his concept of what should be done thereafter was in the Italian-Portuguese maritime tradition. He wanted to explore further for trading partners, and he considered all who came along with him to be employees of an enterprise headed by himself. The Spaniards, however, immediately started moving in the direction of their own traditions. The expedition that returned to Hispaniola in 1493 was far more elaborate than it needed to have been for Columbus' purposes, containing a large number and variety of people, animals, and equipment for a large-scale, permanent occupation of the island. A conflict of purpose between the Spaniards on the one hand and Columbus with his Italian relatives and associates on the other soon ensued. By 1499 the royal government was intervening directly, naming Spaniards to the governorship and sending further large parties of settlers. Spanish ways soon gained the upper hand. Santo Domingo, founded on the southeastern coast of Hispaniola in 1496, became a real city, with a rash of ephemeral secondary Spanish cities spread over the island. These were oriented to gold-mining sites, which were soon at the base of the Spanish economy. Indigenous demographic loss in this hot, humid area was quick and catastrophic, and the placer mines also soon began to run out. In the second decade of the 16th century the Spaniards pushed on to the other large islands, where the cycle began to repeat itself, although more quickly; around the same time, expeditions to the mainland began, partly to seek for new assets and partly to try to replace the lost population on the islands. Latin America since the mid-20th century The postwar world, 194580 In Latin America as elsewhere, the close of World War II was accompanied by expectations, only partly fulfilled, of steady economic development and democratic consolidation. Economies grew, but at a slower rate than in most of Europe or East Asia, so that Latin America's relative share of world production and trade declined and the gap in personal income per capita separating it from the leading industrial democracies increased. Popular education also increased, as did exposure to the mass media and mass culturewhich in light of the economic lag served to feed dissatisfaction. Military dictatorships and Marxist revolution were among the solutions put forward, but none were truly successful. Economic agenda and patterns of growth The economic shocks delivered by the depression and two world wars, in combination with the strength of nationalism, tilted economic policy after 1945 strongly toward internal development as against the outward orientation that had predominated since independence. The outward policy had been partially undermined by the trade controls and industrial promotion schemes adopted essentially as defensive measures in the aftermath of the depression and during World War II. Now, however, a reorientation of policy was explicitly called for by some of Latin America's most influential figures, such as the Argentine economist Ral Prebisch, head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America. Prebisch and his followers insisted that the terms of trade and investment in the contemporary world were stacked in favour of the developed industrial nations of the centre as against the developing nations of the periphery. Their strategy therefore included emphasis on economic diversification and import substitution industrialization (ISI) for the sake of greater economic autonomy. They called for economic integration among the Latin-American countries themselves, with a view to attaining economies of scale. And they recommended internal structural reforms to improve the economic performance of their countries, including land reform both to eliminate underutilized latifundios and to lessen the stark inequality of income distribution that was an obstacle to growth of the domestic market. In the small Caribbean and Central American republics and also some of the smaller and poorer South American nations, the prospects for ISI were sorely limited by market size and other constraints, and governments still hesitated to promote manufacturing at the expense of traditional primary commodities. But in countries accounting for a disproportionate share of Latin America's population and gross domestic product (GDP), the new approach received full play through protective tariffs, subsidies, and official preferences. Overvalued exchange rates, which hurt traditional exports, made it easier to import industrial machinery and equipment. Manufacturing costs generally remained high, and factories were overly dependent on imported inputs of all kinds (including foreign capital), but advances were not limited to consumer goods production. In all major countries the output of intermediate and capital goods rose appreciably too. In both Argentina and Colombia the state undertook construction of a steel industry, and in numerous other ways national governments further expanded their economic role. Brazil nationalized its incipient oil industry in 1953, creating the state firm Petrobrs that eventually ranked alongside Mexico's PEMEX (outcome of the 1938 oil expropriation) and Venezuela's PETROVEN (1975) as one of Latin America's three largest economic enterprises, all state-run. Starting in 1960 with agreements fostering economic union, such as the Latin American Free Trade Association and Central American Common Market, and continuing with the Andean Pact of 1969, some progress was made toward regional economic integration, but the commitment to eliminate trade barriers was not as strong as in postwar Europe. Intra-Latin-American trade increased, but probably not much more than would have happened without special agreements. In any case, quantitative economic growth was visible almost everywhere. It was evident even when expressed as per capita GDPthat is, factoring in a population growth that in most countries was accelerating, because death rates had finally begun to fall sharply while birth rates remained high. (In the 1960s in much of Latin America the annual rate of population increase came to exceed 3 percent.) But there were clear differences in economic performance among countries. Brazil, with a diversified economic base and much the largest internal market, and Panama, with its canal-based service economy, posted the best records, their GDP per capita doubling between 1950 and 1970; Mexico and Venezuela did almost as well, as did Costa Rica. But the Argentine economy seemed to stagnate, and few countries scored significant gains. Moreover, the conviction eventually grew in countries where ISI had been vigorously pushed that the easy gains in replacement of imports were coming to an end and that, to maintain adequate growth, it would be necessary to renew emphasis on exports as well. World market conditions were favourable for a revival of export promotion; indeed, international trade had begun a rapid expansion at the very time that inward-directed growth was gaining converts in Latin America. The promotion of industrial exports was slow to appear in Latin America. Brazil was the most successful, selling automobiles and automotive parts mainly to other developing countries but at times even to the industrialized world. A slightly less satisfactory alternative was the setting up of plants to assemble imported parts into consumer goods that were immediately exported, thus taking advantage of Latin America's low labour costs. Such plants proliferated along Mexico's northern border (where they were known as maquiladoras) but sprang up also in Central America and around the Caribbean. In other instances Latin Americans tried to develop new (nontraditional) primary commodity exports. Colombian cut flowers were a highly successful example of the latter, promoted from the late 1960s through special incentives such as tax rebates; Colombia became the world's second leading flower exporter. It also assumed a leading role in the illicit narcotics trade. It enjoyed a brief boom of marijuana exports in the 1970s and in the following decade became the world's leading supplier of cocaine, which was processed in clandestine Colombian laboratories from coca leaf paste mostly originating in Bolivia and Peru. The independence of Latin America After three centuries of colonial rule, independence came rather suddenly to most of Spanish and Portuguese America. Between 1808 and 1826 all of Latin America except the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico slipped out of the hands of the Iberian powers who had ruled the region since the conquest. The rapidity and timing of that dramatic change were the result of a combination of long-building tensions in colonial rule and a series of external events. The reforms imposed by the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century provoked great instability in the relations between the rulers and their colonial subjects in the Americas. Many Creoles (those of Spanish parentage but who were born in America) felt Bourbon policy to be an unfair attack on their wealth, political power, and social status. Others did not suffer during the second half of the 18th century; indeed, the gradual loosening of trade restrictions actually benefited some Creoles in Venezuela and certain areas that had moved from the periphery to the centre during the late colonial era. However, those profits merely whetted those Creoles' appetites for greater free trade than the Bourbons were willing to grant. More generally, Creoles reacted angrily against the crown's preference for peninsulars in administrative positions and its declining support of the caste system. After hundreds of years of proven service to Spain, the American-born elites felt that the Bourbons were now treating them like a recently conquered nation. In cities throughout the region, Creole frustrations increasingly found expression in ideas derived from the Enlightenment. Imperial prohibitions proved unable to stop the flow of potentially subversive English, French, and North American works into the colonies of Latin America. Creole participants in conspiracies against Portugal and Spain at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries showed familiarity with such European Enlightenment thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Enlightenment clearly informed the aims of dissident Creoles and inspired some of the later, great leaders of the independence movements across Latin America. Still, these ideas were not, strictly speaking, causes of independence. Creoles selectively adapted rather than simply embraced the thought that had informed revolutions in North America and France. Leaders in Latin America tended to shy away from the more socially radical European doctrines. Moreover, the influence of those ideologies was sharply restricted; with few exceptions only small circles of educated, urban elites had access to Enlightenment thought. At most, foreign ideas helped foster a more questioning attitude toward traditional institutions and authority. European diplomatic and military events provided the final catalyst that turned Creole discontent into full-fledged movements for Latin-American independence. When the Spanish crown entered into an alliance with France in 1795, it set off a series of developments that opened up economic and political distance between the Iberian countries and their American colonies. By siding with France, Spain pitted itself against England, the dominant sea power of the period, which used its naval forces to reduce and eventually cut communications between Spain and the Americas. Unable to preserve any sort of monopoly on trade, the Spanish crown was forced to loosen the restrictions on its colonies' commerce. Spanish Americans now found themselves able to trade legally with other colonies, as well as with any neutral countries such as the United States. Spain's wartime liberalization of colonial trade sharpened Creoles' desires for greater economic self-determination. Occurrences in Europe in the early 19th century created a deep political divide between Spain and its American colonies. In 1807 the Spanish king, Charles IV, granted passage through Spanish territory to Napoleon, who was on his way to invade Portugal. The immediate effect of that concession was to send the Portuguese ruler, Prince Regent John, fleeing in British ships to Brazil. Arriving in Rio de Janeiro with some 15,000 officials, nobles, and other members of his court, John transformed the Brazilian colony into the administrative centre of his empire. When Napoleon turned on his Spanish allies in 1808, events took a disastrous turn for Spain and its dominion in the Americas. Shortly after Charles had abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand, Napoleon had them both imprisoned. With these figures of legitimate authority in his power, the French ruler tried to shatter Spanish independence. In the process he set off a political crisis that swept across both Spain and its possessions. The Spanish political tradition centred on the figure of the monarch, yet, with Charles and Ferdinand removed from the scene, the hub of all political authority was missing. In 1810 a Cortes (Parliament) emerged in Cdiz to represent both Spain and Spanish America. Two years later it produced a new, liberal constitution that proclaimed Spain's American possessions to be full members of the kingdom and not mere colonies. Yet the Creoles who participated in the new Cortes were denied equal representation. Moreover, the Cortes would not concede permanent free trade to the Americans and obstinately insisted on reasserting its control over Creoles. Having had a taste of freedom during their political and economic isolation from the mother country, Spanish Americans did not easily consent to a reduction of their power and autonomy. Two other European developments further dashed the hopes of Creoles, pushing them more decisively toward independence. The year 1814 saw the restoration of Ferdinand to the throne and with it the energetic attempt to reestablish Spanish imperial power in the Americas. Rejecting compromise and reform, Ferdinand resorted to military force to bring wayward Spanish-American regions back into the empire as colonies. The effort only served to harden the position of Creole rebels. In 1820 troops waiting in Cdiz to be sent as part of the crown's military campaigns revolted, forcing Ferdinand to agree to a series of liberal measures. That concession divided and weakened loyalist opposition to independence in the Americas. Many supporters of the crown now had doubts about the monarchy for which they were fighting. The wars of independence, 180826 The final victory of Latin-American patriots over Spain and the fading loyalist factions began in 1808 with the political crisis in Spain. With the Spanish king and his son Ferdinand taken hostage by Napoleon, Creoles and peninsulars began to jockey for power across Spanish America. During 180810 juntas emerged to rule in the name of Ferdinand VII. In Mexico City and Montevideo caretaker governments were the work of loyal peninsular Spaniards eager to head off Creole threats. In Santiago, Caracas, Bogot, and other cities, by contrast, it was Creoles who controlled the provisional juntas. Not all of these governments lasted very long; loyalist troops quickly put down Creole-dominated juntas in La Paz and Quito. By 1810, however, the trend was clear. Without denouncing Ferdinand, Creoles throughout most of the region were moving toward the establishment of their own autonomous governments. Transforming these early initiatives into a break with Spanish control required tremendous sacrifice. Over the next decade and a half, Spanish Americans had to defend with arms their movement toward independence. The new order, 18501910 Political and economic transitions, 185070 The first decades of the second half of the 19th century represented the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the still-young nations of Latin America. At the heart of this transition was a growing orientation of the economies of the region to world markets. As Europe and North America experienced a second wave of industrialization, they began to reevaluate the economic potential of Latin America; the region looked to them increasingly like a vital source of raw materials for the expanding economies of the North Atlantic. To take advantage of the possibilities that this conjuncture opened, elites in Latin America directed their countries ever more toward export economies. That change also entailed a series of social and political developments that, especially from the 1870s on, constituted a new order in Latin America. The 1850s and '60s were merely a transitional period, however, as political conflicts and civil wars broke out in Mexico, Venezuela, and elsewhere, postponing the consolidation of the general shift. The liberal oligarchic age, 18701910 The order that took shape in the last decades of the 19th century is often called neocolonial, as a way of suggesting that the internal and external structures characterizing the region maintained overall similarities to those of the period of Iberian colonial rule. To a great extent this is a useful description. As in the colonial period, the region was tremendously vulnerable to outside events and foreign nations. Although many Latin-American elites profited from the new order, they ceded a degree of control over their countries to the industrializing economies of the North Atlantic. For much of the 19th century Britain was the predominant power in the region, followed by the United States, France, and Germany. By the end of the 18701910 period the United States managed to supplant Britain. As in colonial times, Latin America continued to be largely an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactures. Furthermore, despite some legal changes, social relations had not undergone revolutionary change. Broad hierarchies of race and class continued to define social relations. In the countryside in particular the figure of the patrn (boss or patron) maintained dominance over both physical resources and persons of lower status. The role of such men as patriarchs in their households demonstrates further that the relative positions of men and women had not become noticeably more equal; although not accepted by all, definitions of women as weaker than men and fit primarily for domesticity were still the norm. The patterns of 18701910 were not, however, mere copies or repetitions of colonial trends. Along with the similarities to earlier conditions came profound economic, social, and political changes. In this regard the term neocolonial does not capture the complexity and dynamism of this period in Latin-American history.