Latin American History What were the main external and internal threats facing the Spanish Empire in the Americas from the 16th -19th centuries? The Spanish Empire, by virtue of the timing of the discovery and placement of colonies in the New World, was the first global empire. Spain, however, was very dependent upon the resources it could export in order to battle England and France for hegemony on the seas and in the New World. Essentially, the Empire was too large to manage effectively and Spain was engaged almost continually in multi-front wars for control over territory without the resources to adequately hold those territories. During the Habsburg Golden Age, roughly 1516-1643, Spain controlled the Holy Roman Empire and, from the political capital of Seville, ruled the world. Rather than a more modern approach to investment, the wealthy of Spain invested in public debt rather than in production, manufacturing and agriculture. They were conservative in nature and wanted to hold on to a Medieval economic structure. This prevented as much internal investment that would result in the Industrial Revolution in other countries. There were also religious conflicts in Europe, Catholic vs. Protestant, that bled needed resources. By the mid-1600s, Spain had lost control over the Low Countries, much of Italy and France, and with the Great Plague of Seville in 1647, lost 25 per cent of its population...
Most scholars characterize these as wars of independence and national liberation that resulted in a chain of newly independent countries that were located from Argentina and Chile in the South to Mexico in the North. In fact, after the death of Spain's King Ferdinand VII in 1833, only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule; both of which would be lost to the United States control during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The major causes of the movements were economic. Span, in the Bourbon Reforms, appointed outsiders to rule the various offices in the Empire, causing the loss of power for the Spanish Americans holding office or influence. Second, more taxes and resources were being asked for by Spain and removed from the local area. Third, Enlightenment thinking (Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, even Jefferson) set the stage for social and economic reform. Most of the agricultural elite in Latin America had been there for generations, thus resenting continual Spanish control and excessive movement of capital out of the country.
While this may not sound controversial now, at the time it was, as Brazilian scientists and doctors would typically attempt to conform to whatever had recently been discovered in Western Europe without trying to generate any of their own original contributions to their fields. The Escola Tropicalista Bahiana, on the other hand, would attempt to merge tropical medicine with the latest European advances, in an effort to producing medical
Latin American History For the first two generations of Latin America's radicals, liberals and democrats, the legacy of the colonial past was a terrible burden that their countries had to overcome in order to achieve progress and social and economic development. That legacy included absolutism, arbitrary rule, aristocracy, feudalism, slavery, oppression of the indigenous peoples, lack of public education and the overwhelming power of the Catholic Church, backed by the state.
Latin America Revolutions Except for the glaring exception of Brazil, the Latin American revolutions established republics from Mexico to Argentina, although the new governments were never particularly liberal or democratic. They certainly did not grant equal citizenship to, much less social and economic equality, while women, slaves, servants, and indigenous peoples mostly remained under traditional patriarchal controls. Some revolutionaries like Jose Morelos in Mexico and Batista Campos in Brazil did demand
American History Final Exam Stages of the American Empire Starting in the colonial period and continuing up through the Manifest Destiny phase of the American Empire in the 19th Century, the main goal of imperialism was to obtain land for white farmers and slaveholders. This type of expansionism existed long before modern capitalism or the urban, industrial economy, which did not require colonies and territory so much as markets, cheap labor and
Latin American Politics United States-Latin American relations have under went many changes during the 20th century, a time of intense U.S. involvement in the region. Describe the shifts as evidence by Gunboat Diplomacy, Good Neighbor Policy, Alliance for Progress, and The Reagan Doctrine. Explain the reasons behind each shift and also the underlying consistencies of U.S. Policy. Because of its geographic proximity to the United States, Latin America has been a key
Latin American Music Music Industry The music industry is undergoing a global technological revolution which has been induced by the introduction of Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing services, and the proliferation of recordable CD equipment which his now within the financial reach of the average consumer. Any one of these three influences alone could have been absorbed by the recording industry. The presence of a P2P service which was limited only
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