Chapter 13-4: Economic Imperialism in Latin America

‘Latin America’ is an ambiguous term, with cultural, geographical and historical implications. Thus, before engaging with Latin America - be it on a practical or theoretical level - it is imperative that we outline exactly what we mean when we refer to it. One widely accepted definition (Webster’s New World College Dictionary 2009) would be: ‘the part of the Western Hemisphere, south of the U.S, in Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, and South America, where Spanish, Portuguese and French are the official languages’.

The European conquistadores who, by referring to native peoples collectively as ‘Indians’, imposed an artificial unity on the indigenous peoples of Latin America, paying no heed to their differences. As far as the conquistadores were concerned all ‘Indians’ were darker-skinned and therefore inferior, and thus, rather than initiating dialogue or attempting cooperation, they began a mission to destroy the existing indigenous civilisations. The foundation of the ‘New World’ involved bulldozing everything that had existed before it and single-mindedly imposing European culture.

After a few centuries of European presence in Latin America an autonomous Latin American identity began to emerge. Descendents of Europeans born in Latin America, particularly those of mixed indigenous heritage, of whom there were an ever increasing number, no longer felt Spanish and began to resent colonial rule. These feelings became stronger as time went by and eventually, at the turn of the 19th Century, sparked wide-scale rebellion against the Spanish and colonial authorities, resulting, eventually, in Latin American independence.