Reference no: EM133402775

Assignment:

For each reading you will need to create 3 annotations that add an insight (connect to another idea in the course or greater society, topic, another students comment, etc. ) or ask a question.

1. Most Latin American nations became independent in the decade and a half aft er 1810, about forty years aft er the United States did. Although a nation formally begins to exist at independence, its institutions must then be constructed over a long process. Many of the noble sentiments in the US Declaration of Independence were not achieved until much later: the ending of slavery in the Civil War, the vote for women in 1920, and the vote for African Americans in the South in the 1960s. The history of Latin American nations from independence to the present is likewise a story of confronting problems of development and of their own identity. This chapter outlines events of the fi rst century and a half of independent life in Latin America.

As noted at the end of the previous chapter, the native born elites had been chafing at control by the Spanish-born officials sent to administer the colonies, and were inspired by the examples of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions. The immediate trigger for independence was the overthrow of both the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies by the emperor Napoleon in 1808. Refusing to recognize French rule, local elites began to conspire and attack Spanish forces with militias. Even after the Iberian monarchies were restored by 1814, these movements had gathered momentum that would prove diffi cult to stop. The independence struggle unfolded over the better part of a generation. Schematically, the various processes can be summarized as follows:

2. Throughout the nineteenth century, the new Latin American nations were in pursuit of "order and progress," the words enshrined on the Brazilian flag in the late nineteenth century. "Order" meant a minimum of stability, particularly after decades of rival caudillos fighting for power. "Progress" was assumed to be modernity , identified with what the elites could see in Europe and later in the United States.

Formally, the new nations were constitutional republics, in contrast to Europe  where the prevailing form of governance remained monarchy. The constitutions were generally modeled after that of the United States; some lasted for decades, but most were periodically replaced. It was taken for granted that the constitutions were ground rules for disputes among elites. Politics was divided along liberal and conservative lines; in fact, in many countries the major political parties bore those names.

Liberals stood for "progress," implementing Enlightenment ideas, especially for developing trade and exports, and placed strong emphasis on individual achievement and merit. Conservatives defended established tradition and privilege, including that of the Catholic Church, and tended to observe more Spanish models. The heroes of the independence era were largely liberals like Bolívar, but into the mid-nineteenth  century, the caudillo age, most governments were conservative.

3. Brazil followed a different course. After the proclamation of independence in 1822, Pedro I, the son of the Portuguese king João, ruled as emperor of Brazil until 1831 when he returned to Portugal. His son, Pedro II, took the throne while still a child, and after a regency period, he ruled Brazil as emperor until 1889, when he was finally deposed. At the local level, power was largely in the hand of landholders and  regional power brokers. Brazil remained united and enjoyed relative stability into the twentieth century.