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| Etymology and definitions | |
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The idea that a part of the Americas has a cultural affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of the Americas was 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".[7] 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.[8] The term was first used in Paris in an 1856 conference by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao[9] and the same year by the Colombian writer José María Torres Caicedo in his poem "Two Americas.[10] The term Latin America was supported by the French Empire of Napoleon III during the French invasion of Mexico, as a way to include France among countries with influence in America and to exclude Anglophone countries, and played a role in his campaign to imply cultural kinship of the region with France, transform France into a cultural and political leader of the area, and install Maximilian of Habsburg as emperor of the Second Mexican Empire.[11]
In contemporary usage:
In one sense, Latin America refers to territories in America where the Spanish or Portuguese languages prevail: Mexico, most of Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico — in summary, Hispanic America and Brazil. Latin America is, therefore, defined as all those parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.[12] By this definition, Latin America is coterminous with Iberoamerica ("Iberian America").[13]
Particularly in the United States, the term more broadly refers to all of the Americas south of the United States, thus including: English-speaking countries such as Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Bahamas; French-speaking Haiti and Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana; and the Dutch-speaking Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Suriname. (In the former Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Papiamento – a predominantly Iberian-derived creole language – is spoken by the majority of the population.) This definition emphasizes a similar socioeconomic history of the region, which was characterized by formal or informal colonialism, rather than cultural aspects. (See, for example, dependency theory.)[14] As such, some sources avoid this oversimplification by using the phrase "Latin America and the Caribbean" instead, as in the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas.[15][16][17]
In a more literal definition, which remains faithful to the original usage, Latin America designates all of those countries and territories in the Americas where a Romance language (i.e., languages derived from Latin, and hence the name of the region) is spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and the creole languages based upon these. Although French-influenced areas of the Americas would include Quebec, this region is rarely considered to be part of Latin America, since its history, distinctive culture and economy, and British-inspired political institutions are generally deemed too closely intertwined with the rest of Canada.[18]
The distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance-language and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Neither area is culturally or linguistically homogeneous; in substantial portions of Latin America (e.g., highland Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Paraguay), American Indian cultures and, to a lesser extent, Amerindian languages, are predominant, and in other areas, the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g., the Caribbean basin—including parts of Colombia and Venezuela)—and the coastal areas of Ecuador and Brazil.[citation needed]
[edit] Tags:American,Spanish,Portuguese,French,Americas,Saint-simonian,Michel Chevalier,Latin Europe,Teutonic Europe,Anglo-saxon America,Slavic Europe,France,Francisco Bilbao,Napoleon Iii,French Invasion Of Mexico,Anglophone Countries,Maximilian Of Habsburg,Second Mexican Empire,Cuba,Dominican Republic,Puerto Rico,Hispanic America,Iberoamerica,English-speaking Countries,Belize,Jamaica,Barbados,Trinidad And Tobago,Guyana,Antigua And Barbuda,St. Lucia,Dominica,Grenada,St. Vincent And The Grenadines,The Bahamas,Haiti,Martinique,Guadeloupe,French Guiana,Netherlands Antilles,Aruba,Suriname,Socioeconomic,Informal Colonialism,Dependency Theory,United Nations Geoscheme For The Americas,Romance Language,Latin,Creole Languages,Quebec,Rest Of Canada,Anglo-america,Peru,Bolivia,Guatemala,Paraguay,American Indian,Colombia,Venezuela,Caribbean,South America,Ad,Ce,Ecuador,Mexico,Institutions,Napoleon, | |
| Subdivisions | |
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Common subregions in Latin America
Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, demographics and culture. The basic geographical subregions are North America, Central America, the Caribbean and South America;[19] the latter contains further politico-geographical subdivisions such as the Southern Cone and the Andean states. It may be subdivided on linguistic grounds into Hispanic America and Portuguese America.
[edit] Tags:North America,Central America,Southern Cone,Andean States,Portuguese America, | |
| History | |
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Main article: History of Latin America
See also: History of North America, History of South America, History of Central America, and History of the Caribbean
[edit] Tags:History Of North America,History Of South America,History Of The Caribbean, | |
| Pre-Columbian history | |
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Main articles: Settlement of the Americas, Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, and Pre-Columbian era
Parque Nacional Tikal in Peten, Guatemala.
The Americas were thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now known as the Bering strait, from northeast Asia into Alaska well over 10,000 years ago. The earliest known settlement, however, was identified at Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt in Southern Chile. Its occupation dates to some 14,000 years ago and there is some disputed evidence of even earlier occupation. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continents. By the first millennium AD/CE, South America's vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. The earliest settlements in the Americas are of the Las Vegas Culture[20] from about 8000 BC and 4600 BC, a sedentary group from the coast of Ecuador, the forefathers of the more known Valdivia culture, of the same era. Some groups formed more permanent settlements such as the Chibchas (or "Muiscas" or "Muyscas") and the Tairona groups. These groups are in the circum Caribbean region. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas and Aymaras of Bolivia and Perú were the three indigenous groups that settled most permanently.
A view of Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian Inca site in Peru. One of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
The region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the Aztecs, Toltecs, Caribs, Tupi, Maya, and Inca. The golden age of the Maya began about 250, with the last two great civilizations, the Aztecs and Incas, emerging into prominence later on in the early fourteenth century and mid-fifteenth centuries, respectively. The Aztec empire was ultimately the most powerful civilization known throughout the Americas, until its downfall in part by the Spanish invasion.
[edit] Tags:Quechua,Aymara,Settlement Of The Americas,Population History Of Indigenous Peoples Of The Americas,Pre-columbian Era,Parque Nacional Tikal,Peten,Bering Land Bridge,Bering,Strait,Alaska,Las Vegas Culture,Valdivia Culture,Chibchas,Tairona,Quechuas,Aymaras,Perú,Machu Picchu,Inca,New Seven Wonders Of The World,Indigenous Peoples,Aztecs,Toltecs,Caribs,Tupi,Maya,Golden Age, | |
| European colonization | |
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Main articles: European colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonization of the Americas, and Portuguese colonization of the Americas
Archaeological site of Chichén-Itzá in Yucatán, Mexico. One of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
The Colonial city of Granada in Nicaragua, is one of the most visited sites in Central America.
With the arrival of the Europeans following Christopher Columbus's voyages, the indigenous elites, such as the Incas and Aztecs, lost power to the heavy European invasion. Hernándo Cortés seized the Aztec elite's power with the help of local groups who did not favor the Aztec elite, and Francisco Pizarro eliminated the Incan rule in Western South America. The European powers of Spain and Portugal colonized the region, which along with the rest of the uncolonized world, was divided into areas of Spanish and Portuguese control by the line of demarcation in 1493, which gave Spain all areas to the west, and Portugal all areas to the east (the Portuguese lands in South America subsequently becoming Brazil). By the end of the sixteenth century Spain and Portugal had been joined by others, including France, in occupying large areas of North, Central and South America, ultimately extending from Alaska to the southern tips of the Patagonia. European culture, customs and government were introduced, with the Roman Catholic Church becoming the major economic and political power to overrule the traditional ways of the region, eventually becoming the only official religion of the Americas during this period.
Epidemics of diseases brought by the Europeans, such as smallpox and measles, wiped out a large portion of the indigenous population. Historians cannot determine the number of natives who died due to European diseases, but some put the figures as high as 85% and as low as 25%. Due to the lack of written records, specific numbers are hard to verify. Many of the survivors were forced to work in European plantations and mines. Intermixing between the indigenous peoples and the European colonists was very common, and, by the end of the colonial period, people of mixed ancestry (mestizos) formed majorities in several colonies.
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| Independence (1804–1825) | |
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Main articles: Latin American wars of independence, Spanish American wars of independence, and Brazilian Declaration of Independence
Simón Bolívar, one of the independence movement leaders
Haiti among the Latin American nations, was the first to gain independence, in 1804. This followed from a violent slave revolt led by Toussaint L'ouverture on the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The victors abolished slavery. Haitian independence helped inspire independence movements in Spanish America.
By the end of the eighteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese power waned on the global scene as other European powers took their place, notably Britain and France. Resentment grew among the majority of the population in Latin America over the restrictions imposed by the Spanish government, as well as the dominance of native Spaniards (Iberian-born Peninsulares) in the major social and political institutions. Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 marked a turning point, compelling Criollo elites to form juntas that advocated independence. Also, the newly independent Haiti, the second oldest nation in the New World after the United States and the oldest independent nation in Latin America, further fueled the independence movement by inspiring the leaders of the movement, such as Simón Bolívar of Venezuela, José de San Martín of Argentina and Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile, and by providing them with considerable munitions and troops.
Fighting soon broke out between juntas and the Spanish colonial authorities, with initial victories for the advocates of independence. Eventually these early movements were crushed by the royalist troops by 1812, including those of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in Mexico and Francisco de Miranda in Venezuela. Under the leadership of a new generation of leaders, such as Simón Bolívar "The Liberator", José de San Martín of Argentina, Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile, and other Libertadores in South America, the independence movement regained strength, and by 1825, all Spanish America, except for Puerto Rico and Cuba, had gained independence from Spain. Brazil achieved independence with a constitutional monarchy established in 1822. In the same year in Mexico, a military officer, Agustín de Iturbide, led a coalition of conservatives and liberals who created a constitutional monarchy, with Iturbide as emperor. This First Mexican Empire was short-lived, and was followed by the creation of a republic in 1823.
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| Cold War (1946–1990) | |
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)
Military dictators Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina and Augusto Pinochet of Chile.
See also: Operation Condor, Organization of American States, Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, and Alliance for Progress
In the 1950s, the Cold War moved close to the United States, in Latin America. The nations of Latin America faced many critical problems, including widespread poverty and poor health care. The United States saw this threat to their own security and businesses in Latin America, and used the label of Communism to wage terrorist and military operations. Through the Cold War, the United States removed many democratically elected leaders of Latin American countries through covert CIA operations and replaced them with leaders who were more friendly to the United States' interests.
Arguably, this interference with the democratic system in these countries created a blowback because many Latin Americans rejected the United States involvement. Many of the leaders who were put into power positions by the United States became dictators and oppressors as well.
By the 1970s, leftists had acquired a significant political influence which prompted the right-wing, ecclesiastical authorities and a large portion of the individual country's upper class to support coup d'états 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.
Many Latin American countries were in some part of the Cold War ruled by dictatorship, either of the left or right. Beginning in the 1980s and by the early 1990s, all countries had restored or achieved democracy except Cuba.
Many right-wing regimes were supported by the United States through the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance in the context of the Cold War. Around the 1970s, these regimes collaborated in Operation Condor killing many leftist dissidents, including some urban guerrillas.[21]
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| Washington Consensus | |
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Main article: Washington Consensus
See also: Free Trade Area of the Americas
The set of specific economic policy prescriptions that were considered the "standard" reform package were promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and the US Treasury Department during the 80s and 90s.
In recent years, several Latin American countries led by socialist or other left wing governments—including Argentina and Venezuela—have campaigned for (and to some degree adopted) policies contrary to the Washington Consensus set of policies. (Other Latin countries with governments of the left, including Brazil, Chile and Peru, have in practice adopted the bulk of the policies). Also critical of the policies as actually promoted by the International Monetary Fund have been some U.S. economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz and Dani Rodrik, who have challenged what are sometimes described as the "fundamentalist" policies of the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury for what Stiglitz calls a "one size fits all" treatment of individual economies.
The term has become associated with neoliberal policies in general and drawn into the broader debate over the expanding role of the free market, constraints upon the state, and US influence on other countries' national sovereignty.
This politico-economical initiative was institutionalized in North America by the 1994 NAFTA, and elsewhere in the Americas through a series of like agreements. The comprehensive Free Trade Area of the Americas project, however, was rejected by most South American countries at the 2005 4th Summit of the Americas.
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| Turn to the left | |
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Left-leaning leaders of Bolivia, Brazil and Chile at the Union of South American Nations summit in 2008.
See also: Pink tide
In most countries, since the 2000s left-wing political parties have risen to power. Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Lula da Silva in Brazil, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Néstor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernández in Argentina, Ollanta Humala in Peru, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, are all part of this wave of left-wing politicians who also often declare themselves socialists, Latin Americanists, or anti-imperialists (often implying opposition to US policies towards the region). There are also some leaders who, although aren't exactly leftist, are closer to the centre-left in the political spectrum. Examples of this are Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica in Uruguay, Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, Laura Chinchilla in Costa Rica, and Mauricio Funes in El Salvador. A development of this has been the creation of the eight-member ALBA alliance, or "The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America" (Spanish: Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América). In the 2010, only three countries in Latin America had right-wing presidents. These were Sebastián Piñera in Chile, Felipe Calderon in Mexico, and Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia.
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| The return of social movements | |
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In 1982, Mexico announced that it could not meet its foreign debt payment obligations, inaugurating a debt crisis that would discredit Latin American economies throughout the decade.[22] This debt crisis would lead to neoliberal reforms that would instigate many social movements in the region. A “reversal of development” reigned over Latin America, seen through negative economic growth, declines in industrial production, and thus, falling living standards for the middle and lower classes.[23] Governments made financial security their primary policy goal over social security, enacting new neoliberal economic policies that implemented privatization of previously national industries and informalization of labor.[22] In an effort to bring more investors to these industries, these governments also embraced globalization through more open interactions with the international economy. Significantly, as democracy spread across much of Latin America, the realm of government more inclusive (a trend that proved conductive to social movements), the economic ventures remained exclusive to a few elite groups within society. Neoliberal restructuring consistently redistributed income upward while denying political responsibility to provide social welfare rights, and though development projects took place throughout the region, both inequality and poverty increased.[22] Feeling excluded from these new projects, the lower classes took ownership of their own democracy through a revitalization of social movements in Latin America.
Argentinazo riots in December 2001.
Both urban and rural populations had serious grievances as a result of the above economic and global trends and have voiced them in mass demonstrations. Some of the largest and most violent of these have been protests against cuts in urban services, such as the Caracazo in Venezuela and the Argentinazo in Argentina.[24] Though seemingly spontaneous, these protests and others like them were culminations of rising tension and anger over the unresolved economic crisis and neoliberal restructuring. In addition, urban housing movements, such as Brazil’s Roofless People's Movement, its sister movement in Paraguay, Movimiento Sin Techo and similar urban housing movements in Mexico City have mobilized thousands in several cities.[24]
Children singing the International Communist Hymn, 20th Aniversary of MST.
Rural movements have made diverse demands related to unequal land distribution, displacement at the hands of development projects and dams, environmental and indigenous concerns, neoliberal agricultural restructuring, and insufficient means of livelihood. These movements have b Tags:Mexico City, | |
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