Latin America

Latin America is a large region that covers all the territory in the Western Hemisphere south of the United States. It consists of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean Islands. The region is divided into 52 political units, including 33 independent countries and 19 dependencies. Brazil is by far the largest country in Latin America, both in area and in population. It occupies about two-fifths of the region’s land area and has about a third of its population.

Before the first Europeans arrived in Latin America in the late 1400’s, the region had been inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous (native) people. Such Indigenous groups as the Aztec, Inca, and Maya had developed the first advanced civilizations in Latin America and established the first cities and empires there.

During the 1500’s and 1600’s, Europeans conquered most of the Indigenous people and established colonies. Soon after the Europeans arrived, they began to bring in Black Africans and enslave them, especially in the Caribbean Islands and some mainland coastal areas. European rule of Latin America lasted about 300 years. The human and environmental costs of colonization were high. European governments took Latin America’s natural resources, and European colonizers forced the Indigenous people, and later enslaved Africans, to work for them.

Latin America has a rich cultural heritage that blends many influences. Unlike Europe and the United States, Latin America developed from the 1400’s as a mixed society of Indigenous, European, and African peoples living side by side. Despite their differences, Latin America’s various peoples succeeded in living and working together for hundreds of years. Over the centuries, Indigenous, white, and Black people intermarried. In the 1800’s and 1900’s, Arab, Asian, French, German, Italian, and Jewish immigrants contributed their own cultural traditions to Latin America. Today, most Latin Americans are of mixed ancestry. They are chiefly of Indigenous and European descent, or of Black and European descent.

The people of Latin America share many traditions and values that spring from their common colonial heritage. The majority of Latin Americans speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French, each of which developed from Latin. English or Dutch is the official language in several areas that were colonized by England or the Netherlands. Scholars disagree about whether such areas should be considered part of Latin America. This article includes these areas in its discussion of the region.

The name Latin America originated in the mid-1800’s, when Europe and the United States were expanding their influence in other parts of the world. It was used to distinguish the part of the Americas originally settled by Europeans who spoke Romance languages, which developed from Latin, from the part of the Americas settled by Anglo-Saxon Europeans, who spoke English. Romance languages include Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Government in Latin America has changed since the 1800’s. During the early 1800’s, many Latin American colonies gained their independence and became republics. These republics endorsed democratic ideals, but, in reality, they tended to re-create the old colonial systems in new forms. The leaders of the new republics lacked the experience necessary to deal with serious social and economic problems. In some Latin American countries, military dictators seized control of the government. Other nations were ruled by a few powerful families who used their positions to increase their personal wealth. During the early and middle 1900’s, anti-government protests and violent revolutions occurred throughout Latin America. Civilian and military leaders tried to bring political stability to the region. But in the process, many of these leaders restricted the civil rights of the Latin American people. By the early 2000’s, however, most Latin American countries had established democratic governments.

Ways of life in Latin America have also changed. Until the mid-1900’s, the majority of Latin Americans lived in rural areas. Today, about 80 percent of the people live in urban areas. The hardships of rural life as well as the hope of expanded job opportunities in urban areas have led millions of rural people to move to the cities. However, many of these people are uneducated and unskilled, and the jobs they hoped for have not been easy to find. Widespread poverty, overpopulation, and patterns of economic change contribute to political and social unrest.

This article discusses the people, ways of life, arts, and history of Latin America. For more information about the region, see the World Book articles on each of the countries of Latin America. See also Caribbean Islands, Central America, North America, and South America.

People

Population.

Latin America has a population of more than 660 million. Since 1950, the population has more than quadrupled. Experts estimate that it could reach 800 million by 2050. Because of improvements in health care and a declining death rate, the rate of population growth is rising. Rapid growth has put new pressures on areas undergoing development, especially the Amazon basin.

Latin America’s population is distributed unevenly over the land, which covers 8 million square miles (21 million square kilometers). Vast areas of the interior have relatively few people, while many coastal areas are densely populated. Such Caribbean islands as Barbados and Puerto Rico are extremely crowded.

In South America, colonial development centered around such coastal cities as Lima, Peru, and São Paulo, Brazil, from which goods could be exported. South America’s mountains and jungles served as regions of refuge for Indigenous people and enslaved people who had escaped. Today, highland areas in Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru support large populations, as they did before Europeans arrived.

Since about 1970, many Latin Americans have migrated to Europe and the United States. A large number of families from Mexico and the Caribbean region, in particular, have relatives in the United States. Remittances, money sent home by family members working abroad, are a major source of income for some people in Latin American countries.

Ancestry.

The people of Latin America are predominantly of Indigenous, European, African, and mixed ancestry. There are also significant populations of Asian and Arab descent.

Indigenous people

lived in Latin America thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. They descended from people who migrated from Asia. The Europeans conquered most of the Indigenous people and forced them to work in mines or on large farms called haciendas. Millions of Indigenous people died of harsh treatment, in warfare, or of diseases brought by the Europeans. In some areas, such as the Caribbean Islands, the Indigenous population almost completely disappeared. To survive, many Indigenous people moved to highland areas or remote forest regions.

Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America) and the Andes region of South America have the largest Indigenous populations. Indigenous people make up a large percentage of the population in Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and El Salvador have smaller Indigenous populations.

White Latin Americans.

Most white Latin Americans are of European descent. At first, nearly all the white settlers came from Spain or Portugal. The Portuguese settled primarily in Brazil. The English, French, and Dutch established colonies in the Caribbean Islands. Since the early 1800’s, many people from France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom have settled in Latin America. A region called the Southern Cone has the largest European American population. The Southern Cone consists of the southernmost countries of South America, including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Brazil.

Black Latin Americans.

European colonists established plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean Islands in the late 1500’s and 1600’s, creating a great demand for labor. From the 1500’s to the 1800’s, Europeans brought millions of Africans to Latin America and enslaved them. Today, descendants of enslaved Africans live throughout Latin America. Northern Brazil and the Caribbean Islands have large Black populations and strong African traditions.

People of mixed ancestry.

Through the centuries, many Indigenous, white, and Black people in Latin America have intermarried. As a result, most Latin Americans are of mixed ancestry. The term mestizo is used to describe people with both Indigenous and European ancestors, or of mixed ancestry in general. The term mulatto historically has been used to describe individuals with both African and European ancestors. Many other terms exist in various countries and languages to describe people of mixed descent. All of these terms can have a favorable, neutral, or unfavorable meaning, depending on the context in which they are used.

Mestizos make up a majority of the population in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Venezuela. People with both African and European ancestors are numerous in Brazil, Panama, and the Caribbean Islands.

Other groups.

Latin America also has Asian and Middle Eastern populations. Parts of the Caribbean Islands and nearby coastal areas, such as Guyana, have large South Asian populations. In South America, Brazil has a large population of Japanese people. Middle Easterners, including many Lebanese, live throughout Latin America. People of Jewish ancestry make up another significant population group.

Attitudes toward race.

Latin Americans take pride in the region’s mixed heritage of peoples and cultures, but racial and social prejudice are persistent problems. Racial prejudice often takes the form of preferential treatment for light-skinned individuals. People of European descent dominate the highest levels of society in many Latin American countries.

Since the early 1900’s, attitudes toward race have changed. Indigenous, Black, and mestizo peoples have become increasingly vocal in expressing their cultural pride and demanding equal treatment for all groups. Latin American intellectuals began to celebrate their nations’ mixed heritage. The upper and middle classes in such countries as Mexico and Peru began to view their countries’ roots with pride after archaeologists discovered the remains of ancient civilizations. In 1925, the Mexican author Jose Vasconcelos discussed the complex racial and cultural makeup of the Latin American in his book La Raza Cosmica (The Cosmic Race). In Brazil, where about half the population had African ancestors, intellectuals credited their country’s greatness to its mixture of African, Indigenous, and European peoples and cultures.

Many racial categories are based on social standing. For example, people of the same social class may be viewed as belonging to the same race, even if their ancestry differs. Likewise, individuals of different social classes may be viewed as belonging to different races, even if their ancestry is similar.

Languages.

Most Latin Americans speak the language of the European country that colonized their nation. French, Portuguese, and Spanish are the three main European languages spoken in Latin America. Most Latin Americans speak Spanish. Portuguese is the official language of Brazil, and many people in the Caribbean Islands speak French. Other languages spoken in the Caribbean Islands include English, Dutch, and Creole, which combines elements of African and European languages. There are also small groups of German speakers in Brazil and Japanese speakers in Peru.

Millions of Latin Americans speak hundreds of Indigenous languages. However, the number of such languages has decreased through the years. Indigenous languages spoken by large populations include Quechua, Aymara, and Maya languages. Quechua is spoken in the northern and central Andes Mountains, and Aymara is a language of the southern Andes. Speakers of Maya languages live mainly in Guatemala and southern Mexico. There are also hundreds of smaller language groups in Latin America. They include the Zapotec people in Mexico, the Guaraní in Paraguay, and the Mapuche of Argentina.

Way of life

Ways of life vary widely in Latin America. About 80 percent of the population lives in large cities. Four Latin American cities and their suburbs rank among the largest urban centers in the world. They are Mexico City; São Paulo, Brazil; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. About 20 percent of Latin Americans live in small towns and villages, on farms and plantations, in mining camps, or on the outskirts of archaeological sites and beach resorts where they work.

City life.

Large cities in Latin America resemble those in the United States and Canada. Steel and glass skyscrapers rise in busy commercial and financial districts. Tall apartment buildings line broad boulevards. Elegant shops, restaurants, bars, and night clubs attract large numbers of customers. Cars and trucks jam wide expressways at rush hours. Modern bus and subway systems carry millions of people to and from work.

In the old sections of many Latin American cities, Spanish-style buildings stand crowded together along narrow cobblestone streets. The buildings are made of stone or adobe, and many have decorative iron grillwork over the windows.

In general, wealthy city dwellers live outside the city centers in areas that have upscale shopping malls, private clubs, and elegant restaurants. Poor migrants from rural areas have created vast new neighborhoods of improvised housing with few or no city services and high rates of theft and violence. Despite their problems, these immigrant communities brim with cultural, economic, and political vitality.

Since the 1990’s, urban violence has risen sharply throughout Latin America. In Honduras and other countries, violence has become a prominent issue in election campaigns. Thousands of residents of Buenos Aires, Argentina, publicly protested rising violence in 2004. Security has become a valuable asset that only the wealthy can afford. In poorer areas, it has become increasingly common for citizens to punish criminals on their own.

Rural life.

Until the late 1900’s, many Latin Americans lived and worked on small family farms in isolated areas. They often operated these farms with little or no modern equipment or chemical fertilizers. Traditional methods, which depend upon hand tools and animal labor, enabled them to make a living from lands that would be too difficult to cultivate with more modern methods. Since the late 1900’s, many small farmers have left rural areas, and rural traditions have faded.

Plantations, which originated in colonial times, continue to be important today. These large estates are found mainly in Brazil and the Caribbean Islands, as well as in coastal areas throughout Latin America. Plantations produce such crops as coffee, flowers, spices, and sugar for export. They are efficient and highly profitable.

Most rural houses in Latin America have one or two rooms. In tropical areas, the houses may have walls of wood or dried mud and sticks, dirt floors, and thatch or tin roofs. In mountain villages, most houses are built of stone or adobe and have red tile roofs. Wealthy landowners have luxurious mansions on their estates. However, many landowners hire managers to run their farms and spend most of their time in cities.

Some rural communities consist of only a few houses. Larger settlements have a church, shops, and government buildings arranged around a public square called a plaza. People gather in the plaza for socializing, entertainment, and ceremonies. Many villages also have an open-air market, where people gather to buy or sell food or handmade goods and to exchange news.

Some rural Latin Americans work in the mining and tourism industries. Others work on cattle ranches, catch fish, or raise llamas and other animals. Some Indigenous communities continue to follow precolonial ways of life in such remote areas as Brazil’s Amazon rain forest.

Family life

is extremely important in Latin America. Strong feelings of loyalty and cooperation bind not only parents and children, but also grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. Such feelings may extend to people of the same ethnicity, language group, geographical region, or social class.

Family dynamics vary among different groups. For example, Roman Catholic and Protestant families tend to place authority in the male head of the household. Among many Indigenous groups, such as the Aymara, Maya, and Quechua, the idea that men and women should balance one another results in a more equal distribution of authority within the family.

Traditionally, in areas of Latin America with a strong European influence, only men were expected to work outside the home. Women stayed at home to care for their families. Since the mid-1900’s, however, attitudes have changed and increasing educational and career opportunities have become available to women. As a result, a growing number of women, particularly in urban areas, now work outside the home as wage laborers or professionals. Some take an active role in politics, and several women have held high government posts in Latin American countries. These women include Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, elected president of Nicaragua in 1990; Mireya Moscoso, who became Panama‘s first woman president in 1999; and Michelle Bachelet, elected president of Chile in 2006.

Most Latin American societies place great importance upon motherhood. Mothers provide emotional support for their families. They often handle the family finances. It is also common for adults to retain strong ties to both of their parents long after they have formed their own families. In many cases, allegiance to parents and siblings is stronger than allegiance to a spouse.

Ideas about marriage also vary in Latin America. Among wealthy families and in rural areas, marriage is considered an important social institution. But in poor urban areas, many women choose not to marry or have marriages of short duration. Since the late 1900’s, the gay rights movement—now generally called the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights movement—has brought attention to individuals who choose not to marry because of their sexual orientation. However, this movement is fairly small and quite controversial in Latin American society.

Clothing

styles in Latin America vary from region to region, depending on climate and custom. Many city people and young people wear clothing like that worn in the United States and Canada. International brands of clothing are widely available. However, many villagers prefer traditional styles or a combination of modern and traditional styles. On holidays and other special occasions, many Latin Americans wear traditional costumes, which commonly feature bright colors and bold patterns.

Rural Latin Americans who live in tropical climates prefer lightweight cotton clothing. Men usually wear loose-fitting shirts. The lightweight guayabera shirt, also known as the “Mexican wedding shirt,” is especially popular in Cuba and Mexico. Popularized in the 1800’s, it has four front pockets, panels of vertical pleating and embroidery, and a straight hem. Most women dress in long skirts and blouses. People in mountain villages need heavier clothing for protection against the cold. Both men and women wear ponchos (blankets with a slit in the middle for the head). Women also dress in full skirts and long-sleeved blouses. They commonly drape brightly colored shawls around their shoulders. In the highlands, men wear coarse handwoven shirts and baggy pants. Farmers wear straw or felt hats for protection against the sun while working in the fields. Rural people generally go barefoot or wear sandals, many of which have soles made from old automobile tires.

Some parts of Latin America have distinctive clothing styles. For example, Indigenous women in the highlands of Bolivia wear felt derby hats. The gauchos (cowboys) of Argentina and Uruguay dress in ponchos, baggy trousers tucked into low boots, and wide-brimmed hats. Both of these styles originated in Europe, as did styles in other parts of Latin America. For example, the multilayered skirts and fringed shawls worn by women in parts of Ecuador originated in Spain. Traditional clothing styles in Brazil and other parts of Latin America came from west Africa.

Many Indigenous groups wear brightly colored clothing with traditional patterns. Each village has its own special colors and designs, which have been used for hundreds of years. Many Indigenous women and men wear woven sashes around their waists. They often use the sashes as headbands to hold bundles that they carry on their heads. Since the late 1900’s, Indigenous pride and political movements for Indigenous rights have made traditional clothing styles more popular.

Food and drink.

Prior to European colonization, Latin Americans had three main types of diets. In a large region centered around Mexico, the people ate mainly beans, maize (corn), and squash. In highland areas of South America, potatoes and other root vegetables, a high-protein grain called quinoa, and meat from such animals as llamas and guinea pigs were the main foods. Maize was also important in this region. People in lowland jungle areas ate a great deal of yucca, which they supplemented with wild and cultivated fruits and vegetables, as well as meat.

When European colonists met the local Indigenous peoples, an exchange of foods began. Europeans and enslaved Africans became accustomed to such local foods as chili peppers, maize, and tomatoes. The Europeans imported bananas and other tropical foods from Africa to Latin America and exported maize, peanuts, and yucca to Europe. The Europeans also brought rice and sugar cane, two plants from Asia, to Latin America. Today, people worldwide enjoy foods that originated in Latin America, including chocolate, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and yucca. The cuisines we know as Central and South American, Mexican, and Caribbean incorporate many foods from Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Many people in Mexico and Central America serve tortillas (flat bread made from corn or wheat flour) at most meals. Beans and rice form a major part of the diet of most people in the Caribbean. People in the mountainous areas of South America commonly eat potatoes. People in tropical areas eat a starchy root called cassava. In Argentina and Uruguay, people eat many foods made from wheat.

In the cattle-raising countries of Argentina and Uruguay, people eat a great deal of beef. In coastal areas and along rivers, fish and shellfish are popular foods. In some regions, dishes are highly seasoned with onions and hot peppers. In tropical areas, the people enjoy such fruits as bananas, mangoes, oranges, and pineapples. Latin Americans drink coffee and a variety of fruit juices. In South America, a kind of tea called mate is popular. Favorite alcoholic beverages include beer, rum, wine, and aguardiente, a brandylike drink made from sugar cane.

In highland regions of the Andes Mountains, the Indigenous people commonly chew the leaves of the coca shrub. Coca contains a substance that fights off hunger, fatigue, and the harmful effects of high altitude. There is evidence that Indigenous peoples used coca as long ago as 2100 B.C. The Inca considered the plant to be sacred. Today, the Aymara and Quechua people use coca in religious rituals.

Coca is also used to make cocaine, an illegal drug. Since the 1980’s, the United States has provided funding to South American countries, especially Colombia, to wipe out coca crops and encourage coca farmers to grow other crops. But Indigenous cocaleros (coca growers) have become a significant political force in such countries as Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru.

Recreation.

Soccer is the most beloved sport in Latin America. For many people, loyalty to a soccer team reflects civic or national pride and inspires great passion.

Volleyball is another popular sport in Latin America. Many people in the Caribbean Islands play baseball, and cricket is common in countries with a British heritage, such as the Bahamas and Jamaica. Wealthy Latin Americans enjoy such activities as boating and horse racing. In many poor neighborhoods, illegal cockfighting is popular.

Fiestas (festivals) are another popular form of recreation. Latin Americans have held festivals since precolonial times. Today, many fiestas mark saints’ days from the Roman Catholic calendar and such civic events as the establishment of a town. They usually include costumes, dancing, music, and elaborate floats. There may also be beauty pageants, bullfights, and other contests. Certain festivals express the identity of a region or country. For example, the annual carnival of Oruro, Bolivia, features dancers dressed as devils to represent Supay, an Indigenous god of the underworld. The dancers perform a dance called the diablada, which tells part of a traditional story about good and evil.

Día de los muertos (Day of the Dead) is a holiday that honors the dead. On November 2, All Souls’ Day on the Catholic calendar, Latin Americans visit the graves of deceased family members. In Mexico, this holiday combines a sense of playfulness with mourning. Shops sell sugar sculptures in the form of skulls and skeletons. Families build temporary altars to the dead and decorate them with candles, flowers, food, paper cutouts, and photographs. This tradition helps keep alive the memory of ancestors for future generations.

Religion.

Most Latin Americans are Christians. The majority are Roman Catholics, but a growing number belong to Protestant churches. Some Latin Americans follow folk religions that combine elements of Catholicism with traditional African or Indigenous beliefs. The laws of all Latin American countries guarantee freedom of worship, though some countries officially support the Catholic Church. Other religious groups in Latin America include Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs.

Roman Catholicism.

The early Spanish and Portuguese explorers brought the Roman Catholic religion to much of Latin America and converted many Indigenous people to Catholicism. Today, more than 70 percent of the people consider themselves to be Roman Catholic. However, the percentage of Catholics who actively practice their religion varies from country to country.

During European rule, the Roman Catholic Church exercised great political power throughout Latin America. The church also dominated education and owned huge estates and other property. During the early 1800’s, many Latin American colonies won their freedom. After independence, many Latin American governments took steps to decrease the Catholic Church’s power. They seized much of its property and limited its control of education, hospitals, cemeteries, and public charities.

During the early 1900’s, the church became closely linked to military leaders and wealthy landowners who controlled many Latin American governments. Beginning in the late 1960’s, the church became increasingly active in the fight for civil and human rights and social justice. Today, the church still has considerable social and political influence, and its officials have great public visibility. See Roman Catholic Church (In Latin America).

Protestantism

is a small but rapidly growing segment of Latin American religion. More than 10 percent of Latin Americans consider themselves Protestant. Latin American Protestants include Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Pentecostals, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons). Pentecostals and Mormons are by far the fastest growing religious groups. They emphasize individual salvation through hard work and prayer. See Pentecostal churches.

Folk religions

began to develop in Latin America during the colonial period, when African and Indigenous converts to Roman Catholicism combined elements of their new religion with traditional beliefs. For example, enslaved Africans in Brazil and the Caribbean Islands constructed altars at which they worshiped both Catholic saints and African deities (gods and goddesses). Missionaries sometimes built churches at the sites of Indigenous temples. By doing so, they unintentionally encouraged the Indigenous people to associate the Catholic saints with Indigenous deities.

Over time, these combinations of spiritual traditions led to the creation of new religions. Cuban Santería, Brazilian Candomblé, and Haitian Vodou (also known as Voodoo) are three folk religions that combine Roman Catholicism with traditional African spirituality. Many folk religions include a belief in faith healing and possession by spirits.

Education

in Latin America improved greatly during the middle to late 1900’s. In most Latin American countries today, more than 90 percent of the people can read and write. Some exceptions are Guatemala and Haiti, where the literacy rate is lower. Every country in Latin America has a public school system.

Latin America has a number of excellent public and private universities. Five universities date from the 1500’s. The Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, was founded in 1538 and ranks as the oldest institution of higher education in the Western Hemisphere. Enrollment in Latin American colleges and universities increased greatly during the 1900’s. However, many well-to-do families prefer to send their children to colleges and universities in Europe and the United States.

The arts

The artistic traditions of Latin America date back thousands of years to the region’s Indigenous cultures. The ruins of magnificent temples and other structures still stand in such countries as Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Indigenous civilizations also produced beautiful ceramics, jewelry, and textiles. When Spanish and Portuguese colonists began arriving in the late 1400’s, they brought European artistic traditions with them. European styles dominated Latin American art for hundreds of years. Enslaved Africans brought to Latin America by the European colonists introduced African music and dance to the region. During the 1800’s, the arts in Latin America began to develop a strong regional character. In the 1900’s, modern Latin American artists and writers gained international recognition for their distinctive work.

Architecture.

Latin America has impressive examples of precolonial architecture. These include a gracefully proportioned Maya convent at Uxmal, Mexico, and stone walls built by the Inca in Cusco, Peru. The stones of the walls fit so closely together that they required no mortar, yet could withstand earthquakes. Such Mexican sites as Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) were built according to a grid plan. In contrast, the Inca constructed their cities to reflect the natural contours of the Andes. Throughout Latin America, ancient architects built enormous pyramids facing open plazas. They also combined architecture with painting and sculpture to create beautifully decorated buildings. See Architecture (Pre-Columbian architecture).

The first major European structures in Latin America were religious and government buildings. Some of the finest were Roman Catholic cathedrals and monasteries. Beginning in the late 1600’s, many cathedrals, mansions, and palaces were built in the Baroque style, which featured elaborately carved columns, ornate sculptures, and a generous use of colored tile, gold, and silver. One of the most beautiful examples of Baroque style is the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus in Quito, Ecuador. This Catholic church was completed in the 1700’s.

In the 1900’s, Latin American architects were among the leading supporters of Modernist design, which featured bold geometric forms and dramatic lines. The Mexican architect Luis Barragán combined Modernist principles with elements of traditional Mexican architecture, such as strong colors and plain, unadorned walls.

Literature.

For a discussion of the region’s rich literary tradition, see Latin American literature.

Painting.

Indigenous artists painted murals and pottery. In Mesoamerica, the Maya painted folding manuscripts called codices. The few codices that remain are written in a kind of hieroglyphics and include information about Maya beliefs and rituals. The Spaniards destroyed many codices in their effort to convert the Maya to Christianity.

From the 1500’s to the 1800’s, Latin American artwork was primarily religious in nature and imitated European styles. It was not until the 1900’s that Latin American painting developed a distinctive character. Painters began to combine elements of Indigenous, colonial, and modern art to create works both regional and international in character. Latin American painters ranked among the most important in the world.

The Mexican painter Diego Rivera created gigantic murals depicting scenes from Mexican and world history. The paintings of Frida Kahlo, Rivera’s wife, explored such subjects as folk religion, the female body, domestic violence, and infidelity. Wilfredo Lam, a Cuban painter, combined the European styles of Cubism and Surrealism with Afro-Caribbean influences, including the writings of the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire and imagery from Afro-Caribbean folk religions.

Sculpture.

Before the Europeans arrived, Indigenous Latin Americans created many beautiful sculptures, ranging from masks and statuettes to huge, elaborately carved panels and monuments. Indigenous sculptors carved a large number of their works from stone, but they also used clay, jade, gold, and wood. Many of their sculptures depicted gods and religious symbols and were used to decorate temples and religious centers. See Sculpture (Indian sculpture of the Americas).

Early colonial sculpture consisted mainly of carved decoration on churches. Much of this decoration was in the plateresque style, a form of stone design that resembled the delicate work of plateros (silversmiths). Since the mid-1800’s, much Latin American sculpture has reflected strong national pride and a growing interest in Indigenous heritage. Revolutionary heroes and leaders of independence movements have also been popular subjects for sculptors.

Music.

Latin America has a great diversity of musical forms and styles, and the region has given the world a wealth of musical innovation. Contemporary global music would be far different without the contributions of Latin American artists. Latin composers have also made contributions to classical and avant-garde music. But it is Latin America’s popular music that has had the greatest impact. Reggae, salsa, and Latin jazz are just a few examples of Latin musical styles.

Some Latin American pop artists have gained worldwide fame. The Brazilian musicians João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos (Tom) Jobim led the bossa nova movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Bob Marley, a Jamaican musician, popularized reggae in the 1960’s. Ricky Martin, from Puerto Rico, became one of the most popular pop singers of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. The Colombian-born singer and songwriter Shakira has sold millions of records worldwide. Her English- and Spanish-language pop songs are influenced by rock music and by her Colombian and Lebanese background. Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso, two popular Brazilian musicians, have won worldwide recognition.

Archaeologists know that music was important to precolonial people, but they know little about how this early music sounded. Such traditional instruments as the panpipes (a kind of flute) have made their way into modern Latin American music. African music also influenced music in Latin America. Calypso from Trinidad and the bossa nova of Brazil are just two of the kinds of music that reflect a strong African influence.

Dance

is a significant part of Latin American culture. The fusion of European and African influence has resulted in such dances as the Brazilian samba, the Cuban conga, and the Argentine tango. These dance forms in turn have influenced international ballroom styles, such as the rumba and the cha-cha-cha.

Today, dance takes a seemingly infinite variety of forms in Latin America. At one end of the spectrum are such formal dance companies as Mexico’s Ballet Folklorico, which combines folk dances of Spanish origin with elements of ballet and modern dance. In contrast, informal dance styles are developing constantly in urban neighborhoods across Latin America.

Motion pictures.

The history of motion pictures in Latin America dates back to the earliest days of the movies internationally. By the early 1900’s, feature-length films were produced throughout the region. Mexico has led Latin America in motion-picture production for generations. The famous Spanish director Luis Buñuel gave the Mexican film industry prestige by making motion pictures there from 1946 to 1960. His most notable Mexican films include Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned, 1950) and The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955). Later, the Mexican actor and director Alfonso Arau made an internationally popular film called Like Water for Chocolate (1992), adapted from a novel by his wife, Laura Esquivel. The Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón directed some popular films in the early 2000’s, including Y tu mamá también (2001) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).

A few prominent directors have made notable films elsewhere in Latin America. Humberto Mauro of Brazil made a classic melodrama called Ganga bruta (1933). More recently, the Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles directed City of God (2002), as well as The Constant Gardener (2005), which won an Academy Award. Leopoldo Torre Nilsson made several highly praised melodramas in Argentina during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Despite government restrictions, Cuba has produced a number of talented directors, including Santiago Alvarez, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and Humberto Solás.

Handicrafts.

Latin Americans have a strong tradition of creating handmade objects that combine artistic beauty with practical utility. Such handicrafts include items for household use, religious objects, and textiles. This kind of art is called arte popular (popular art, or art made by ordinary people). Today, mass-produced goods are readily available, and so Latin Americans make handicrafts mainly for the tourist market or as decorative objects for domestic consumers.

Many handicraft traditions have evolved according to the demands of buyers and new artistic influences. For example, molas (picture panels created by layering, cutting, and sewing fabric) made by the Guna people of Panama may depict modern political slogans or images from billboard advertisements as well as traditional animals and floral motifs. Some handicrafts have crossed the line between folk art and fine art. For example, the modern retablos of Peruvian artist Nicario Jiménez have won international recognition. These retablos are portable boxes filled with figurines depicting everyday, historical, political, and religious events. Yarn “paintings” created by the Mexico’s Huichol people are also highly prized by international collectors.

History

Many people have tried to understand Latin American history by comparing it to the histories of Europe and the United States. However, it is important to realize that Latin American history has developed in a way that has made Latin American countries quite different from those of Europe and North America. For example, Indigenous, European, and African cultures have lived side by side for many centuries. In contrast, in North America, the U.S. government nearly destroyed Indigenous populations in the 1800’s, and then forced the Indigenous people to live on reservations apart from European society. In Latin America, Indigenous, European, and African people were also far more likely to intermarry than they were in the Anglo-American colonies that became the United States.

The Cuban writer José Marti once noted that “No Yankee or European book could furnish the key to the Hispanoamerican enigma.” What he meant was that Latin American nations, like those in other regions of the world, must consider their own unique histories to discover the paths they should follow.

This section traces the broad outlines of Latin American history. For the history of a particular country, see the World Book article on that country. See also the articles listed under “Biographies” and “History” in the “Related articles” at the end of this article.

Early inhabitants.

Scientists think that the ancestors of Latin America’s Indigenous peoples traveled to North America from Asia between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago. Many of them crossed a land bridge that connected Asia and North America across the Bering Strait, which now separates Siberia from Alaska. By 12,500 years ago, they had spread across much of the Americas to the southern tip of South America. Some scientists think that other early peoples may have arrived by boat and spread southward along the western coast of the Americas.

For thousands of years, the Indigenous people lived in small groups, roaming widely in search of animals and edible plants. As people began to settle for longer periods in certain areas, they began to farm. Indigenous people were the first to cultivate cacao, chiles, corn, kidney and lima beans, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and tobacco. Where agriculture became well established, small villages grew into towns and cities, and diverse civilizations arose.

The earliest of these civilizations was probably the Olmec, which thrived in what is now eastern Mexico from about 1200 to 400 B.C. Another civilization, the Maya, reached its peak from about A.D. 250 to 900 in southern Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula, and Guatemala. The Maya produced magnificent architecture, painting, pottery, sculpture, and underground irrigation systems. They developed an accurate calendar and a sophisticated writing system. Their mathematics recognized the concept of zero, and their astronomy was unsurpassed in its day. Scholars think that food crises, population pressures, political turmoil, and warfare caused Maya civilization to collapse and fragment around 900.

The Toltec controlled central Mexico from about 900 to 1200. By the early 1400’s, the Aztec had replaced the Toltec as the most powerful people in the area. Both the Toltec and the Aztec built enormous pyramids for ceremonial and religious purposes. During the 1400’s, the Mexica, an Aztec people, dominated Mexico’s central valley, which they called Anahuac. The Mexica created an empire of loosely joined city states, each of which consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside. The Mexica demanded economic tribute from their subjects. They also believed that human sacrifice was necessary to ensure the order of the universe. They captured victims for sacrifice in ritual wars known as Flowery Wars.

In South America, the Inca emerged as the dominant group in the Andes, in what is now Peru. The Inca called their empire Tawantinsuyu. By the 1400’s, the Inca capital at Cusco had a population of 200,000. It stood at the center of a far-flung communications network extending over the Andes, from Quito, Ecuador, south to Argentina. Inca farmers cut terraces into steep hillsides and used irrigation canals to carry water to their crops. The Inca had no written language. They used a sophisticated and highly accurate system of knotted strings, known as quipus, to keep records.

European discovery and exploration.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator in the service of Spain, became the first European to reach Latin America. Columbus sailed west from Spain, hoping to find a short sea route to eastern Asia. He landed at the island of San Salvador, in the Caribbean, and believed he had reached Asia.

After Columbus returned to Spain, news of his discovery created great excitement in Europe. To prevent disputes between Portugal and Spain over the newly discovered lands, Pope Alexander VI drew the Line of Demarcation in 1493. This imaginary north-south line lay west of two island groups in the North Atlantic Ocean—the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands. The pope said Spain would have the right to explore and to claim lands west of the line, and Portugal would have similar rights east of the line. However, the Portuguese soon became dissatisfied because they thought the line gave Spain too much territory. In 1494, Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, which moved the line farther west. As a result, Portugal gained the right to settle the eastern section of what is now Brazil. Portugal took possession of this area in 1500, when a Portuguese navigator named Pedro Álvares Cabral landed on the east coast of Brazil.

Columbus made four voyages to Latin America between 1492 and 1502. During these voyages, he explored many islands in the Caribbean and the coasts of what are now Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela. Years after his voyages, Columbus continued to believe that he had happened upon outlying islands of Asia. Other explorers soon followed Columbus to Latin America. They quickly realized that the region was not Asia, but a land previously unknown to them. Mapmakers called the land America in honor of the Italian-born explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci made several voyages to Latin America in the late 1490’s and early 1500’s for Spain and Portugal. He was one of the first explorers to state that the region was a “New World.” Spaniards continued to refer to the region as the Indies—a term commonly used by Europeans to describe Asia. They called the Indigenous peoples Indians, even after it became clear that the continent was not part of Asia.

In 1513, the Spanish adventurer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed Panama and became the first European to see the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean. His discovery provided additional proof that America was a separate continent between Europe and Asia. In 1520, the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan became the first European to discover the waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the southern tip of South America. Magellan sailed down the east coast of South America and through the strait that now bears his name.

The conquest of the Indigenous people

began soon after the Europeans arrived in Latin America. By the mid-1500’s, Spanish adventurers known as conquistadors (conquerors, spelled conquistadores in Spanish) had conquered the great Indigenous civilizations and given Spain a secure hold on most of Latin America.

The first major conquests of Indigenous groups occurred in Mexico and Central America. The conquistador Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico in 1519. He had heard of a vast and wealthy empire inland. With barely 400 men, Cortés knew he could not defeat an empire rumored to have 250,000 armed men. He approached cautiously, negotiating and fighting with enemies of Montezuma (also spelled Moctezuma) II, emperor of the Aztec people (also known as the Mexica).

A woman whom the Spaniards called Doña Marina, and whom the Indigenous people called Malinche, accompanied Cortés. Marina had been enslaved by the Maya, who had given her to Cortés as a gift. She acted as Cortés’s interpreter, thus enabling him to negotiate with the peoples he encountered.

Cortés ultimately conquered the Aztec by forming alliances with their enemies, who did most of the fighting that toppled the Aztec Empire by 1521. The spread of European diseases, chiefly smallpox, among the Indigenous population also helped Cortés.

The following year, another conquistador, known as Pedrarias, conquered the Indigenous people of what are now Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In 1523, Pedro de Alvarado, one of Cortés’s officers, conquered what are now El Salvador and Guatemala. These conquistadors, together with Balboa in Panama, secured Central America for Spain.

In 1532, the conquistador Francisco Pizarro fought his way into Peru with about 180 men. A civil war had recently weakened the Inca empire there. Pizarro asked to meet the Inca ruler Atahualpa. Although he had promised to make a truce with Atahualpa, Pizarro ambushed the emperor’s soldiers and captured him. Then, after promising to release Atahualpa, he forced him to choose between being burned alive as a non-Christian or being baptized as a Christian and strangled. Atahualpa chose baptism and strangulation. But his death did not seal the Spaniards’ victory in Peru. Inca rebels resisted Spanish rule until the 1570’s. Pizarro founded Lima in 1535. The city became Peru’s capital and the center of Spanish government in South America.

One of the few areas the Spaniards failed to conquer was southern Chile. There the Mapuche people (called Araucanians by the Spaniards) resisted for over 300 years.

Colonial rule.

Even before the military conquest of Latin America was complete, Spanish and Portuguese settlers began pouring into the region. Many of them came in search of adventure and mineral wealth. Others established plantations to grow sugar cane, tobacco, and other crops to export to Europe. During the 1600’s, the Dutch, English, and French established small colonies in Latin America, chiefly in the Caribbean Islands.

The first century of colonial rule brought a catastrophic decline in the Indigenous population. Most historians agree that by the early 1600’s, Latin America’s Indigenous population of over 25 million had decreased by more than 90 percent. Indigenous people died in wars and of overwork, but the main cause of death was European disease, to which the Indigenous population had no natural immunity. Those who survived had to adapt rapidly to a new way of life.

Several groups vied for power in colonial Latin America. They included privileged colonists called encomenderos, Roman Catholic missionaries, representatives of the Spanish monarch known as viceroys, and Indigenous nobles. During the early 1500’s, Spain established the encomienda system. Under this system, the Spanish king granted some conquistadors the right to collect tribute from Indigenous villages and force the Indigenous people to work on farms or in mines. In return, these conquistadors, known as encomenderos, were supposed to protect the Indigenous people and ensure their conversion to Christianity. In practice, the encomenderos often treated the Indigenous people harshly and did little to Christianize them.

In contrast to the encomenderos, Spanish missionaries focused on converting the Indigenous people to Christianity. Many Indigenous people accepted baptism and practiced Roman Catholic rituals. However, they embraced Christianity on their own terms, often blending Catholic saints with ancestral gods and continuing to worship ancient deities secretly. This caused great frustration among missionaries, who viewed traditional religious practices as the devil’s work.

The missionaries argued that overworking the Indigenous people on farms and mines interfered with their efforts at conversion. Several missionaries, especially a Dominican friar named Bartolomé de Las Casas, pleaded for more humane treatment of the people. But millions of Indigenous people died from overwork and harsh treatment. As the Indigenous population of Latin America declined, Europeans began to bring Black Africans to the region and enslave them (see Slavery). From the 1550’s to 1850’s over 10 million enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas. Two-thirds of them, or nearly seven million, were sent to Latin America, especially Brazil, where they worked on farms and in mines.

The chief representatives of the Spanish Crown in Latin America were the viceroys. The viceroys found it difficult to impose their will upon the encomenderos, who were more concerned with their own power and wealth than with obeying orders from Spain. Nor did the viceroys have authority over the missionaries.

A fourth group, Indigenous nobles, continued to govern some Indigenous towns and cities during the 1500’s. These nobles were known as caciques in Mexico and as curacas in Peru. There were too few Spaniards to rule all of the Indigenous people directly. The Indigenous nobles were responsible to the encomenderos for collecting tribute from the local people, most of whom continued to live as they had before the Spaniards arrived.

Protecting the Indigenous people.

During the early and middle 1500’s, religious and political leaders spent much time discussing the fate of the Indigenous people. Las Casas argued that Spain must abolish the encomienda system to prevent total destruction of the Indigenous population. In 1542, the Spanish Crown passed laws limiting the encomenderos’ power. But the encomenderos largely ignored these laws. In 1550, King Charles V suspended the conquest of Latin America until lawyers and religious experts could legally and morally justify Spain’s actions there. At a great debate in Valladolid, Spain, in the early 1550’s, Las Casas argued that missionaries, rather than conquistadors, should carry out the conquest of America because they would do it without violence. Some historians have seen in this argument of Las Casas the first stirrings of the idea of universal human rights.

In the 1550’s, the Spanish Crown began to pass laws to protect Indigenous people from the worst abuses of local officials. In the late 1500’s, Spain created the General Indian Court in Mexico to hear cases of abuse of, and to settle disputes between, Indigenous people. By the late 1600’s, Indigenous Mexicans were using the Spanish legal system to defend their land, liberty, and village autonomy (self-government).

Many colonists and Indigenous nobles who depended on Indigenous labor ignored the new legal protections. The Indigenous people continued to work and pay tribute until the early 1800’s.

Early settlers in Brazil

found themselves in a sparsely populated land. Most were castaways or exiles from Portugal, and all were men. They settled in coastal areas and showed little interest in conquering the Indigenous people, who lived scattered across huge tracts of rough terrain. The settlers traded with the people, especially for brazilwood, which was used for dyeing cloth.

Christian missionaries were slow to arrive in what is now Brazil. The Jesuits were among the first religious orders to convert and protect the Indigenous people. Initially, the Indigenous people seemed to be eager converts. Gradually, it became clear that they viewed the missions as havens from colonists who treated them like enslaved people. By the mid-1500’s, brazilwood was no longer the only profitable product, and Portuguese colonists had begun growing sugar cane.

As elsewhere in Latin America, European diseases killed many Indigenous people of Brazil. Because growing sugar cane required many workers, the colonists began to enslave both Indigenous people and Africans. As a result, African culture had an especially strong influence in Brazil.

Mestizaje.

An important result of the coming together of Indigenous, European, and African peoples was the process of mestizaje, the biological and cultural mixing of people of different backgrounds. In the early decades after conquest, there were few European women in Latin America. European men had Indigenous and African wives and mistresses. The children born from these unions were not fully European, Indigenous, or African. This situation contrasted notably with the settlement of English North America, where interracial unions were exceptional and racial groups generally existed separately. Mestizos played a significant role as interpreters and mediators between different ethnic and racial groups.

Colonial discontent.

During the 1700’s, Spain began to enact policy changes designed to reap greater revenues from Latin America. Spain needed money to defend its large empire from European rivals, especially Britain (now the United Kingdom) and France. Some of these policy changes, known as the Bourbon Reforms, hurt the interests of criollos (people of Spanish ancestry born in Latin America). For example, the new rules excluded criollos from many government and church positions in favor of men born in Spain. The reforms also cracked down on the criollos’ illegal trade with merchants in European countries other than Spain. Many criollo traders lost their livelihood.

The policy changes also put pressure on Indigenous communities. For example, local officials began demanding higher tribute payments from Indigenous villages. Such demands led to rebellions by Indigenous peoples across Spanish America. In 1780, a mestizo called Tupac Amaru launched a famous revolt against Spanish authority in Peru. The Spaniards put down the revolt over the course of three years. About 100,000 people, mostly Indigenous, died in the fighting.

By the late 1700’s, criollos in Spanish America found themselves in a difficult position. They resented Spanish authority in Latin America, as did many upper-class mestizos. They were also aware of world events, including the Revolutionary War in America (1775-1783) and the French Revolution (1789-1799), and many of them supported the ideas of liberty, equality, and brotherhood. However, the criollos feared what would happen if the masses of Indigenous people and lower-class mestizos took these ideas seriously.

Indigenous rebellions against colonial government had increased considerably during the second half of the 1700’s. The criollos worried that without Spain’s might, they might not be able to defend themselves against such rebellions. Rather than demand full independence from Spain, some criollos favored limited self-rule. Others called for representation in the Cortes, the Spanish parliament. But they were denied equal status with the representatives in Spain.

The movement toward independence

in Latin America was triggered by the French General Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (mostly Spain and Portugal) in 1807 and by the removal of King Ferdinand VII from the Spanish throne in 1808. These events disrupted Spanish authority in America. They sparked uprisings among Latin Americans loyal to Spain, those who favored a limited degree of autonomy, and those who desired complete independence from Europe. While the Spanish Crown was preoccupied with events at home, criollos gained control of most of Latin America. Wars of independence broke out throughout the region. From Mexico to Argentina, popular leaders known as caudillos mobilized the peasants who fought the wars. The Spaniards also relied upon caudillos for their troops.

Mexico

began its revolt against Spain in 1810. Two Roman Catholic priests, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José Maria Morelos y Pavón, led an uprising of Indigenous people and poor mestizos. The initial revolt failed, however, and Spanish troops executed both Hidalgo and Morelos. The uprisings that followed did not express the same sense of grievance from Indigenous Mexicans and the poor. They were led chiefly by elite criollos. Mexico won its independence in 1821.

Central America

also gained its independence from Spain in 1821. Central America had little economic importance, and so Spain largely ignored the area. As a result, Central Americans won their independence with little bloodshed. In 1822, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua became part of Mexico. In 1823, however, they broke away from Mexico and formed a political union called the United Provinces of Central America. Bitter regional rivalries undermined this union, and each of the states had become an independent republic by 1841. The territory of Panama was a Colombian province from 1821 until 1903, when it rebelled against Colombia with help from the United States and became an independent country. Belize, formerly known as British Honduras, was a British colony from 1862 to 1981, when it gained independence.

Spanish South America.

The two greatest heroes in the fight for independence in Spanish South America were the Venezuelan general Simón Bolívar and the Argentine general José de San Martín. Bolívar helped win freedom for Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. San Martín fought for the independence of Argentina, Chile, and Peru.

The Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda led an unsuccessful revolt against the Spaniards in 1806. Bolívar, who had been a follower of Miranda’s, launched a new campaign in 1813. His armies fought against the Spanish forces for about 10 years before winning a final, great victory at Ayacucho, Peru, in 1824. The victory assured independence for the Spanish colonies in northern South America.

In the south, landowners in Chile declared their country’s independence in 1810. However, Spanish forces defeated them. Armies led by San Martín and the Chilean hero Bernardo O’Higgins won lasting independence for Chile in 1818. Earlier, in 1816, San Martín had freed Argentina from Spanish rule. During the early 1820’s, the forces of San Martín and Bolívar fought for Peru’s independence. Peru finally became independent in 1826.

Brazil

won its freedom from Portugal without a war. After Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, the Portuguese ruler, Prince John, fled to Brazil. John returned to Portugal 14 years later, after Napoleon’s defeat. He left his son Pedro to govern Brazil, but the Brazilians no longer wanted to be ruled by Europeans. They demanded independence. In 1822, Pedro declared Brazil an empire and took the throne as Emperor Pedro I.

The Caribbean Islands.

In 1791, Toussaint Louverture and others led enslaved Black Africans in Haiti in a revolt against their French rulers. In 1804, Haiti became the first independent nation in Latin America. The Dominican Republic declared its independence in 1844. A revolt broke out against Spanish rule in Cuba in 1895. The United States sided with the Cuban rebels, which led to the Spanish-American War (1898) between Spain and the United States. The United States won the war, and Cuba became a republic in 1902. Under the terms of the peace treaty, Spain also gave up its colony of Puerto Rico to the United States. Most small Caribbean islands remained under British, Dutch, or French control until the mid-1900’s. Since then, most of these islands have become independent. Many of the others have gained more control over their affairs.

Early years of independence.

The mere fact of independence did not bring peace to Latin America. The new nations faced extraordinary difficulties. The wars had been deeply destructive across the region. Factories, farms, and mines had been destroyed, and many Latin Americans had died in the fighting. Spaniards fleeing the wars had taken their money with them, leaving the new countries with scant resources. Across Latin America, upper-class criollos struggled with one another for power. Many of them disliked new laws that abolished forced labor in mines and tribute payments from Indigenous people.

Political climate.

Beginning in the 1820’s, mostly white criollo conservatives and liberals struggled over the shape of governments. Many conservatives preferred to keep things more or less as they had been before independence. Some supported the creation of constitutional monarchies. Others supported the establishment of republics. In general, conservatives agreed that the Catholic Church should remain politically powerful.

Liberals favored policies promoting individual freedoms and equality. In practice, however, they held an unfavorable view of Black, Indigenous, and multiracial people, who made up majorities in many countries. Most liberals sought to reduce the political power of the church, promote private ownership of property, and educate the people. Liberal constitutions that promoted equality, however, actually stripped Indigenous people of the special protections they had under Spanish law. During the 1800’s, it was more difficult for Indigenous people to be heard by governments than it had been prior to independence. In addition, liberal policies often disrupted Indigenous traditions. For example, they broke up collectively owned lands, forced Indigenous people to work for wages instead of living off the land, and discouraged Indigenous people from allowing religion to play a large role in their daily lives.

Many of the new nations formed republics. However, the inexperience of the new leaders led to violent struggles. Ambitious politicians seized power in a number of countries. In other countries, wealthy landowners controlled the government.

Caudillismo.

In some of the new nations, the local popular leaders known as caudillos took control of the government. The caudillos and their rural supporters had fought and sacrificed much in the wars for independence. As a result, they were not willing simply to disarm and let urban elites and intellectuals take over their new countries. Their resistance led to a power struggle between the caudillos and liberal politicians.

In Argentina, a caudillo named Juan Manuel de Rosas assumed control of the government in 1829. Rosas ruled until 1852. Through violence, control over the land, and the granting of favors to supporters, he successfully brought other Argentine caudillos under the authority of a central government in Buenos Aires.

Regional conflicts

broke out between some Latin American nations and their neighbors during the 1800’s. In Mexico, the problems of the post-independence period were compounded by a war with the United States known as the Mexican War (1846-1848). The U.S. government had proclaimed a doctrine called manifest destiny, which claimed that the United States should control all of North America. Under this doctrine, the United States waged an opportunistic war against Mexico, still weak from its war for independence. By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which officially ended the war, the United States took from Mexico the regions of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

In the War of the Triple Alliance, also known as the Paraguayan War (1865-1870), Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay attacked Paraguay. Some historians estimate that Paraguay may have lost about 60 percent of its population in the war. In addition, Argentina and Brazil won about a fourth of Paraguay’s territory.

A dispute over Bolivian deposits of nitrate, a chemical used for fertilizer, led to the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), which involved Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. Chile claimed the Atacama Desert, which contained Bolivia’s rich nitrate fields and provided Bolivia’s only access to the Pacific Ocean. Peru sided with Bolivia.

Liberal reforms.

After 1850, liberal politicians throughout Latin America began to push for government reforms. Programs varied from country to country, but most reformers promoted the liberal ideals of private property, public education, and a reduced political role for the church.

In Mexico, justice minister Benito Juárez, of Zapotec ancestry, passed liberal reforms that reduced the power of the church and the military and forced Indigenous people to sell communal lands. These reforms led to a civil war, between liberals and conservatives, from 1858 to 1860. The liberals won the war, and Juárez was elected president in 1861. Mexican conservatives then persuaded the French to invade Mexico, oust Juárez, and install Austrian Archduke Maximilian as Mexico’s emperor. Juárez and his supporters reclaimed the government in 1867, and Juárez continued to push his liberal agenda. He enjoyed support among the urban middle classes and Indigenous people. Conservatives, especially large landowners and the church, opposed him, as did some Indigenous people who had lost land to his reforms.

International trade.

After about 1870, many Latin American governments pursued policies to broaden their trade with Europe and the United States. At that time, most Latin America countries exported agricultural and mineral products to European countries and the United States, and imported manufactured goods from those countries. This economic exchange led foreign investors and Latin American governments to build railroads and improve ports to facilitate trade. In the early 1900’s, foreign investors, especially from the United States, put large amounts of money into such businesses as fruit companies, mines, and public utilities. The beginning of the 1900’s was also marked by considerable migration from Europe to Latin America.

United States involvement

with Latin American politics increased near the end of the 1800’s. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States supported Cuban independence from Spain. The United States then set up a military government in Cuba. In 1901, the U.S. government insisted that the Cuban Constitution include the Platt Amendment. This amendment allowed the United States to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs when U.S. interests were threatened. As a result of the war, the United States also acquired the island of Puerto Rico from Spain.

Beginning about 1900, U.S. companies also worked to increase their trade with, and investment in, Latin America. These companies introduced new work methods to Latin America and provided products that many local people wanted to buy. At the same time, they challenged established ways of life and created resentment among farmers, landowners, and workers who felt that U.S. companies benefited at their expense.

During the 1920’s and 1930’s, the United States routinely dispatched naval forces to Central America in an effort to protect its business interests there. This practice became known as gunboat diplomacy. The presence of foreign companies, along with such policies as gunboat diplomacy, contributed to a deepening sense of nationalism within Latin America.

Political circumstances in the early to mid-1900’s.

As the second century of Latin American independence dawned, much had changed in the region. Leaders had established national governments, and economies had expanded. Such cities as Buenos Aires, Lima, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro had grown dramatically. These developments contributed to rising social tensions among Latin Americans. Workers in mines and factories and on haciendas wanted higher wages and better working conditions. Urban, middle-class professionals demanded public education and government services. Peasants in the countryside were losing land to railroads and large landowners. And new domestic industries wanted economic protections from foreign competition.

In Mexico,

such tensions came to a head in 1910, when a liberal politician named Francisco Madero declared himself in rebellion against the government of President Porfirio Díaz. In the interest of modernization, Díaz had built foreign-owned railroads, expanded the size of the government, divided Indigenous lands, and invited U.S. companies to operate in Mexico. Although these policies improved the economy, they hurt the interests of many Mexicans. Madero’s rebellion set off what came to be known as the Mexican Revolution.

Two prominent revolutionaries were Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. Zapata led Indigenous people in southern Mexico who wanted to hold communal lands and govern their own communities. Villa led agricultural workers and miners who sought better working conditions, higher wages, and fair treatment from employers, many of which were U.S. companies.

The revolution led to many changes. The Constitution of 1917 recognized the right of Indigenous villages to hold land in common. Villages and towns received a role in government. The Constitution granted the state the power to offer public education and increase government support of domestic industry. A land reform program of the 1930’s gave farms to millions of landless peasants. These policies served to level social differences to some degree. At the same time, the revolution ushered in a long period of strong centralized government. See also Mexico (The dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz); Mexico (The Revolution of 1910).

In South America,

the Great Depression of the 1930’s, a worldwide economic slump, brought unemployment and poverty to many people, especially those in growing cities. In these circumstances, political leaders known as populists took center stage in several countries. They included Juan Perón in Argentina, Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, Victor Haya de la Torre in Peru, and Jorge Gaitán in Colombia. These leaders blended a variety of political ideas, referring to themselves as defenders, fathers, and teachers of the people. They argued that the working and middle classes should have a role in government. They also drew upon a deep sense of resentment among South Americans against foreigners, especially North Americans in the United States.

As had leaders before them, the populists sought to modernize their countries while balancing competing demands. In Argentina, Perón promised workers better wages and working conditions. But he also told employers that he would help them control workers’ organizations, keep them from striking, and promote national industry. Perón urged workers to join government-approved labor unions and repressed Communist workers. In Brazil, Vargas followed similar policies. In Colombia and Peru, Gaitán and Haya de la Torre said they wanted to end political corruption among the wealthy, protect small-property owners, and provide workers with dignity in their jobs.

High-level politicians, conservative business people and landowners, and some members of the middle class opposed the populist movement. They feared they would lose their political, financial, and social standing if the working class became too powerful. City streets became places where supporters and opponents of populism addressed the public and held protests.

Populist leaders vowed to work toward economic growth while maintaining social peace, but political and social tensions persisted. In 1948, Gaitán was shot to death in Bogotá, Colombia, just before a presidential election. Perón’s support began to slip in the early 1950’s, as the Argentine economy slowed. Perón then began to take unpopular measures against his critics, such as closing down a prominent Buenos Aires newspaper in 1951. In 1955, the Argentine military forced Perón to resign.

Democratic reforms.

Throughout Latin America, the period immediately following World War II (1939-1945) was one of hope that democracy and economic development could solve the region’s problems. Guatemala, for example, gave the right to vote to women and people who could not read and write. It also improved working conditions on farms, and distributed unused land belonging to the U.S.-owned United Fruit Company to landless peasants. The U.S. government, concerned about its business interests and the spread of Communism in Latin America, backed a military coup (government take-over) that ousted Guatemala’s reformist president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in 1954. This violated the Good Neighbor Policy of the United States, agreed to in the 1930’s, under which the U.S. government had promised to stay out of other nations’ affairs.

The Cuban Revolution.

By the mid-1950’s, there was a growing sense of frustration across Latin America. Populist leaders had achieved economic growth, but not political peace, in their countries. Reformers, such as President Arbenz Guzman, had met conservative resistance at home and U.S. opposition. Some Latin Americans began to think that perhaps armed struggle was the only way for their countries to progress.

In Cuba, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara led an armed rebellion against President Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar. Batista ruled as a dictator and was widely regarded as a corrupt politician at the service of wealthy Cubans and foreign companies. Castro, a Cuban lawyer, and Guevara, an Argentine physician, led bands of guerrilla fighters against Batista’s government for nearly three years, until they defeated it in 1959.

After overthrowing Batista, the Cuban rebels set up a Communist government, with Castro as its head. The Castro government passed social reforms that heavily favored the poor. It developed close ties with the Communist government of the Soviet Union, then the main rival of the United States in a struggle for international power known as the Cold War. Castro later pledged to aid Communist rebels in other Latin American countries.

In 1961, the United States created the Alliance for Progress to provide economic assistance to Latin American countries. The United States hoped the alliance would help prevent widespread revolution by alleviating financial pressures in Latin America. By the late 1960’s, the alliance had failed, mainly because it spent more time and resources strengthening military forces to stand against Communism than promoting democracy and economic development.

The rise of military regimes.

The Cuban Revolution had an electrifying effect in Latin America. Intellectuals throughout the region began to argue for revolutionary change. By the end of the 1970’s, the growth of Latin American economies slowed, and organized workers began making stronger demands on governments. All these developments caused many Latin Americans to worry that their societies were falling into disorder.

The attitudes of Roman Catholic clergy caused considerable anxiety among conservatives. In 1968, a conference of bishops held in Medellin, Colombia, encouraged governments to address the problem of poverty by giving the poor preferential treatment. In his book A Theology of Liberation (1971), the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez wrote that Christian ideals demanded a commitment to creating a just society that would seek to free individuals from poverty. Many upper- and middle-class Latin Americans worried that the Catholic Church, which had long upheld conservative values, was beginning to align itself with political radicals and the poor.

In these circumstances, some military officers argued that only they could prevent their countries from becoming Communist. In Brazil, military forces overthrew President João Goulart in 1964, ushering in 20 years of military rule. Argentina experienced repeated military coups during the 1960’s and 1970’s. In Chile, a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet toppled popularly elected socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973. The United States supported the coup.

The new leaders believed their countries could not progress economically until they rooted out Communist influences. They enacted conservative policies and suppressed their political opponents, even though the number of Communists in their countries was small. In a number of countries, military governments carried out campaigns of repression known as “dirty wars.” Their political opponents “disappeared” or were tortured or killed in an effort to eliminate political conflict.

Not all military regimes were conservative. In Peru, military leaders seized the government in 1968 and named General Juan Velasco Alvarado president. The new government promised to end Peru’s dependence on foreign investment and sought to find a middle ground between capitalism and Communism. It took over most of Peru’s plantations and turned many of them into cooperatives managed by workers. In the early 1970’s, it began an industrial reform program that gave workers partial control over some industries. Like other military regimes of this period, Peru’s government arrested and exiled some of its political opponents.

Return to civilian government.

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, armed uprisings took place in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. The rebels opposed military dictatorship and wanted representation in government. In Nicaragua, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, led by Daniel Ortega, overthrew the government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979. Ortega’s government enacted reforms similar to those enacted by democratic reformers in the 1950’s.

During this period, the United States became involved in efforts to overthrow several Latin American governments. In Nicaragua, it funded a counterrevolutionary army known as the contras, which aimed to overthrow the Sandinistas. In Guatemala and El Salvador, the United States provided training and equipment to armed counterrevolutionaries who opposed their nations’ military rulers.

By the 1980’s, military rulers faced growing opposition among ordinary citizens. Many Latin Americans disapproved of their governments’ violations of human rights or were impatient with their countries’ slow economic growth. Following an election in 1983, Argentina returned to civilian rule. A civilian president took office in Brazil in 1985. And in 1988, Chile held a plebiscite (vote of the people) on Pinochet’s rule. The vote resulted in Pinochet’s defeat, and he stepped down in 1990.

Neoliberalism.

During the 1990’s, in keeping with global trends and in response to pressures from international financial organizations, many Latin American countries adopted neoliberal theories of economic growth. Neoliberal theories support free-market activity over government regulation of the economy. Neoliberal policies had mixed results. Latin American countries strengthened their banking systems and reduced government inefficiency, but they also cut funding for social services to help the poor. Many countries reduced trade protections for domestic industries and privatized some industries—that is, sold state-controlled industries to private companies.

In 1993, Mexico, the United States, and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect in 1994. This agreement allowed for the freer movement of goods and money across international borders. NAFTA had significant effects in both Mexico and the United States. Some U.S. companies relocated to Mexico, where wages were lower, causing many U.S. workers to lose their jobs. In Mexico, the economy grew and some workers benefited. However, many Mexicans, who had hoped that NAFTA would lead to higher wages and better working conditions, were disappointed. Many migrated to the United States seeking better employment opportunities. The adoption of NAFTA also helped spark a revolt against Mexico’s government by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in January 1994 in Chiapas state (see Mexico (Opposition to the PRI).

In the early 2000’s,

Latin America faced serious economic, political, and social problems. Many people lived in poverty, the gap between rich and poor continued to widen, and rapid population growth put pressure on the region’s resources. In addition, a large illegal drug trade had persisted in a number of countries since the 1970’s.

Latin Americans in several countries elected leftist or reform-oriented presidents in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. These included Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina, and Michelle Bachelet in Chile. Such leaders questioned the ideal of globalization—that is, the extension of culture and commerce across traditional national boundaries. They also favored policies to reduce their countries’ economic dependence on the United States and on international financial organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund.

In 2007, the leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela signed agreements to establish the Bank of the South. The bank was intended to provide loans for economic and social projects in South America. In 2008, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela founded another, similar development bank. At that time, the four countries were members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a left-leaning trade group led by Venezuela.

Also in 2008, the 12 countries of South America created the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to increase economic and political ties among its members. Some member nations withdrew from UNASUR in the late 2010’s. In 2019, the governments of several South American countries established the Forum for the Progress of South America (PROSUR) as a sort of alternative to UNASUR. The creation of the new group coincided with government by more conservative leaders in many of the member nations.

Canada, Mexico, and the United States renegotiated NAFTA in the late 2010’s. The updated trade pact, which the U.S. government called the United States-Mexico­-Canada Agreement (USMCA), replaced NAFTA in 2020. Canada and Mexico had their own names for the pact.

The COVID-19 pandemic (global outbreak of disease) that began in 2020 greatly impacted the public health and economies of Latin America. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus. Efforts to curb the outbreak included limiting travel and social activities, closing schools and businesses, and vaccinating people. But economic, political, and social conditions in some nations made it particularly difficult to curb the outbreak. As of early 2023, Latin Americans had experienced more than 80 million confirmed infections by the coronavirus, and more than 1 ³/₄ million confirmed deaths from COVID-19. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru ranked among the nations of the world with the most confirmed cumulative infections, deaths, or both.