Latin American History

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I88o

"uNcrn Saftrts Nsw cr-ass rN r,,r Anr oF SELF-G.VERNA ICE.,' This cartorn exem- plifies thc neoc.lonial notion that nnry peoprc .l !r-;.; !".i*g"".""ra g"r.*themselves well. Two black Cutran indc:penrl"nce fighterl ,;;;ir;il;qJb[ng like boys, while the great philippine ind.1r..,i.r." fightei Emirio Aguinaldo ilr-*r, *.r* ing a dunce cap' Uncle sam, who has just "libe;;ted', these illllehau".r .hii.l.*, fr.- Spain in.r898.,.secms justificd (according r. rhc carrooni.t) i";h;ir;;; il;;.'i; Harper's Weekly Magtrzine, rll98.

r898 r9oo t9tz r922 Great export

boom underway

US interlenes in Cuba

Rod6 pLrblishes

Ariel

Nicaraguan Pan-American intervention Conference

begins of Wornen

NE OCOLON IA L IS M

Th" lib"r^l 1>lan to rnake l-atin Amcrica rcscnlblc Eur.,e .r thc Unitccl Statcs Pilrtly slrccccclecl. IJLrt Progrcss tttrnecl out

clifll,rcntly in Latin Arncrica.'ltr-re, rnassive changes occurrecl,

changes that affcctccl thc lives of cvcrvone, rich arlcl poor' urltan ar-rcl rr-rral. N,lajor Latir-r Atnericrrn citics lost thcir colonial

coltltlestor-res, rvhitc ltlasterecl \\,itIls, ancl recl-tilccl rotll's. 'I'hcV

bccan]e moclcrn lnetroltoliscs, cornltarlllle to urllan giittrts anv-

u,,hcrc. Strcctcars swityccl, tclcPhones iarrglecl, and silcr-rt mov-

ies {licl<erecl f'rorn N{onteviclco and Sar-rtiago t0 N'Iexico cit,v ancl I Iavana. Ilailroacls multiPliccl rniraculouslv, as dicl cxPortcd

tor-rs of sugar, coffcc, copPer, gratin, nitrate, tin, cacatl, rubbcr,

bananas, bcel', $'ool, and tobrrcctl. N'loclern port ['acilitics rc1>lacccl thc spectacularrly inacleqltatc oncs o[' Bucntls Airc's

llr-rcl clsewhcrc. I-anclor,r,'trcrs trrrcl ttt'ltan n-ricldlc-class peoPlc prtlspcrccl' brrt

thc Iif'c ol [-atir-r Arncricat's rural mujgrit,v irnproyccl littlc, if at all.

lb thcr contrirrv, agrarian capitalisrn Iaicl rvastc to tl.rc countrv- siclc ar-rd clcstroyecl tlaclitional lifcu,avs, ir-npovcrishing thc rr-rral

peoplc spiritLrally atrcl matcrially. Arrcl l)rogrcss brought a nc\\i

t.ar-rcl oi irlpcrialisnr I'r<tm Crcat Britair-r ancl tlrc Unitccl States.

Thc sarnc coirntrics that moclclcd Progress lilr Latin Amcrica helpccl install it thcrc, so to s,eak-and sor-trctimes <lvt,necl it

rlit

r [J2 BonN rn Br,oop AND FrRrl Nuocor-oNraLrsN,r rti3

outright. Foreign influence was so pervasive and por,r,erful that Latin Arncrican l-ristorians call the yeerrs r88o-r93o their neo- colonicrl period.

Despite many transformations, neither Latin America's sub- ordinate relationship to European countries nor its basic social hierarchy-created by colonization-had charrgcd. Hierarchical relations of race ancl class, in which thosc at the top derivc dcci- sive prestige ancl advantage from their outsicle connections, remained the norm. Whcre once Peninsular Spaniards and Por- tuguese had steppccl ashore rvith thcir irritating airs of sr-rperi- ority and their royal appointmcnts firrrly in hand, norv it wals an English-speal<ing rnl.sfcr rvho arrived u,ith sirr-rilar airs ol supc- riority and princcly sums to lend or invcst ir-r banks, railroads, or port fncilities. Whcther in ry9o or rB9o, elitc Latrn Americans reactecl by swullowing hard and throwir-tg a party for their guests. Ultirnately, t[-re "dccent peoples" own statLls and prosperity nas linked to thc outsiders, irnd they lincw it. Ninety perccnt of the,ir rvealth came from r,r,hat thev sold to Iruropcan and US rnar- kets, and their or,vn sclcial pretensions, their orvn airs of supe- riority at homc, camc from their Portr-rguese complexions, their Austrian crystal, their son's thmiliarity with Paris. Neo- colonialism was a relationship between countries but also ern internal phenomcnon-ancl a f'amiliar onc-in Latin Americtt.

TrrE Gneer Exponr Boonr

Elite and miclclle-class Latin Americar-rs had a lot to gain frorn Progress. First ar-rd foremost, thcy stoocl to proftt fror-n the great export boom, over half a centllry o1' rapicl, sustained eco- nomic growth, never cqualed in Latin Arnerica befbre or sincc. l;or examplc, Mexican exports, r.r,hich still inch-rded silver along with sugar, coff'ee, and fibers, doublcd ancl then doubled again in the late rSoos. In fact, thc total value o[ Nlexican trade grerv Iry 9oo percent betwccn fi77 and r9ro. By the early r9oos, Brazil

L,tAvrtrna oe Mayo. Completc<J in [he rggos, thc s1>acious main ave_nuc ol'dou,nrou,n BuenosAires n,as flr.k"r6;i;pressive buildings i, avarictv ol'modern- styres. It ex.mprificd th" t.u.rrib..r.,ation o'ca,itar cit-ies in nc.colonial Latin Americ.. Libr*T oiC;;;rnss, prints and pltoto_graTths Divisiott.

,84 BonN lll Brooo aNo Frns was producing two thirds of the coffee drunk in the entire world' coffee n.w utterly dominated Brazirian exports. cuba depended even more on its single crop, but what a cropl Cuban sugar production reached an astounding five million tons by 1929. Then there was the saga of Chilean mining production_ nitrates, copper, iron-hundreds of millior-rs of dLIIu.r, worrh by 1929. And on and on. The greatest procligy of all was Argentina. Argentina exported twenty-one tons of wheat in fi76 and over one thousand times that much by r9oo. And the countrv,s exports continued to grow rapidly into the r9zos.

F'rom Guatemala (coffee) and Hondu.n, (bu.,u.,us) to Ecua_ dor (cacao) and Bolivia (tin), all the smaller counrries of Latin American had their own versions of the great export boom of fi7o*r93o. The quantity of railroad tr;k i, ih" region_ integral to the boom, because railroads were built primJ.ily to carry exports-went from z,ooo to 59,ooo miles betvveen rBTo and r9oo.

The direct beneficiaries of this export bonanza were the large landowners, whose property ,rlre, soared with the ,pp.ooJt of the railroad tracks. Beneficiaries, too, were the midile_class city dwellers-professionals, merchants, and office workers_ who performed secondary functions in the import/export econ_ omy. For these people, progress opened cultural horizons and brought material enrichment. Still, they constituted onry a tiny fraction of the Latin American population. The middie class grew rapidly between r88o and r93o, but even Argentina,s mid_ dle c]ass, perhaps the largest in the region by ry3o,represented only a quarter to a third of the popJation. Mexicols smaller middle class was more typical of Laiin America. Around r9oo, a million or so middle-class Mexicans were clerking i, offi-."r, riding bicycles, and listening to US ragtime music. A small working class-a third of a milrion .ootr, Iaundresses, shoe- makers, policemen, and so on-comprised the rest of the urban population. Meanwhile, eight million country people, mostly

NEocoLoNraLrsu ru5

of indigenous heritage, lucky to have a single change of clothes, sweated on the sun-drenched land to produce Mexico's agricul- tural products. Thanks to Progress, their lot rvas actually getting worse.

The arrival of the railroad benefited the owners of large Mexi- can estates by raising property values. But it also drove a lot of peasants off the land, allowing the landlords to extend their holdings, make landless peasants their employees, and multlply their profits. Despite the official abolition of communal village property in the rB5os, many indigenous villagcrs had managed to hold on to thcir lands through the r86os and r87os. But now it seemed that wherever the tracks unfolded and opened a way for

the locomotives to pass, hissing steam and belching smoke, peasant villages lost their lands to greedy hacienda owners who could foreclose on a mortgage or bribe a judge. Although Mexico was still a heavily rural country in r9ro, only about 3 percent of the people owned land. Most rural Mexicans lived and worked as peons on large haciendas, some of them vast indeed. To take

an extreme but illustrative example, just three families owned a third of the Mexican state of Colima.

The indigenous people of the Andes, too, lost their village lands in the neocolonial period. In general, the landless coun- try people of Latin America, who for centuries had grown their own food and supplied their other needs as subsistence farm- ers, now had nowhere to plant their potatoes, manioc, corn, and beans. As export profits beckoned, the owners of hacien- das and plantations acquired more and more land. They bought land that had been public property and evicted the families who had dwelled there without legal title, sometimes for gen- erations. Because they worked their resident laborers harder and planted more of their acreage in export crops, the estate owners left their workers less time and space to grow their own food. Workers often got wages too small to support a family. To make ends meet, women and children rvho had formerly stayed

[]<tnx rrv I]r,ooo aNlr lrlnr o( or_oNt,\1.t5\l

tlosc to hornc, cooking an(l nrcnciing irncl tcncling the thrlilv's t:hiclicrrs ar.rcl girlclen. Itrxt ltircl to ioir.r the Iiclcl gangs rlh<r rrorl.cc[ ur.rclcr thc u'atclrl'Lrl evc ol'iltt ovL'rsccr. ,\ttcl just lirr uoocl rnczrsr-u'c, lirlror-hr-rngrv lancl<lu'irrcrs l)rctssccl lilr itrrcl rr'<trt '\'ilsrancv lart's to har,tss pcoplc u'hrl got alortg u'ithrltt \\'ilgcs corirpletelr'. 'l'lrtrs clicl tl'rc grcat exl)ort bttotr.t ctrriclr litttcktrvttcrs

rit thc' crpct.tsc ol the rltritl poor. ln /\rgentinir, lursc nuntlrcrs ol' ltirliirn itlrtnigritt.tts ltcrlbrrttccl

nrirrrclcs ol u'hcat proclttctirltr, btrt orrlv itt crcclttittttal citscs nrrrrrirsccl to rrcrluirc thcir ou n Irrncl. \\1hat irtcctttivc clicl thc o\\ n('rs havc to scll? Sonrc o[ t].re irnrrrisrttltts rctttrttccl t<t Itrrlt, litrt nrost \\,cnt to thc cil.ics, cspcciitllr' IJltctrtls l\ircs. [:ltlrvtlt', r.ootlc'ss gauchos itlsti vittrishccl fronr thc c<ltttttrrsiclc its u'ilc llnccs irnrl liurcr l-nglish brcc'cls <11'cattlt' ancl sl.rce 1t transfortttr-'cl thr'opcrr l)anrl)ir. ln r87(r. thc first rcl'rigct"at<ir shilt to<tli r\rscrt- tirrc'lrccl to [',Lrropc.'lht'trirclc in chillccl becf'u'irs vitsl[\'tlrorc pr'oIitirblc tlran thc olclcr trircle in bccl'icrl'v o[' prclclrigcratittr.r clirr's. llt rgoo re['rigcrator shilrs nutrrbcrccl ir-r thc hLrrtclrccls.

(lolrlic lroonrccl in tlrc tropics, crcittitrg scvcritl l.ittcls ttl'ttcrl- cokrnitrl lanclscupcs. In thc clccp lccl soils of Si1o I)irr-r lo, llrazil, Itirliirn in.rr.nigrirnts tc'nclcrl colf'cc al'tt'r irbolitiort l>ccar-rsc ll'cccl slrrrcs rvantccl nothing to tlo u itl.r plirrrtirtiorrs.

'lir irttrirct LLrrrl'

Pcirrr inrn-rigrarlts to it job rcccntly Pcrlil:mccl lry slavcs, Ihc plirr.rtirtior-r o\\ ncrs hatl to Ilttlie s1'rcciitl cot-tccssitttts, st-tclr lts irlklrr ing uorlicrs to ctrltivrrtc thcir tlrvtr crrll>s itr thc sllact's lrctu'ccr.r thc rou's o['collcc bltshcs. ltrrliitn agricLrlttrritl rvrlrl.ct's irr Siro l)ar-tlo prot,ecl urtrttstrtrlly strcccssl'Lrl at I'r.rirliirrg thc cxlltlrt Iroonr irorli lol thcrn. l)rLrt, likc thc irtrrtrigritttt litrtrtu'ttrlicrs irr ;\r'gcntin:r. thcv tcnclccl to movc to thc citr clcrtlLtitllr. (l<ll'l'cc

irlso gr"cu, in thc tropicitl slttr atrcl crislt tttortutain irir ol'Cloltlmllirr

ancl Vcnczuclir. (lcntrrrl i\rrcrica ,rncl thc Claril>l>can. In Cttittc- rnirlir, El Sah'ittlor. rncl soLrthcrn i\lcrico, incligcrtotts pc<lplc lx'can-rc uorlicrs or-r coltfcc pllntati<tt-ts <tftcu tl,r nc'cl ltt' tbrcigrt- crs, cspeciallv Ccrt.t-t'tn*. r\lthough Lrstrallv a ltlirntatior-r crrllt

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ccntunr Lit,ran ,,f c,,,,s,:,^,,,'pi.iu,, u,,,t ph,tosnrptts

rB8 BonN rru Brooo eNrp Frns (always bad news for agricultural rvorkers), coffee could also be grown profitably on family farms. It contributed to the growth of a rural middle class in highland areas of Colombia, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico. "ltrbacco-like coff'ee, a delicate crop that thrives in small-scale production-benefited small pro- ducers in Brazil and Cuba.

Sugar production and mining, in contrast, were always mas- sive, industrialized opcrations that divided societies ruthlessly into rich and poor. By the late r8oos, great gleaming sugar refin- erics, with their high smokestacks and rail depots, stood like indr,rstrial n'rousters amid the cane fields of northeastern Brazil, on thc Peruvian coast, and in the Caribbean. The owners o[ the sugar refincries, lil<c the llrazilian ser-rhores de engenho of the l6oos, uttcrly dominated the rural ecor"lomy, and for the same rcason. Immediate, reliable milling is crucial tcl thc sugar har- vest. T'he refineries set their price, and growers had no choice but to accept it. Factories in the fields turned cane cutters into indr-rstrial rvorkers.

-l'heir rvages rvere low, and they earned them

only part of the year. Cane cLltters spent part of cach year unemployecl-what Cubans callcd "the dead rime." Mining in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile constituted a similarly capital- intensive activity, carried out by powerflrl companies employing thousancls of workers who had little bargaining power. Because of high capital requirements, installations such as refineries for Cuban sugar, oil wells pumping Nlexican and Venezuelan crude, and derep-shaft mines in the high Andes were usually fbrcign- owned. In Peru, the massive, state-of'-the-art mining complex of the US Ccrro de Pasco Copper Corporation squatred at twelve thousand f'eet amid a cluster of tiny earth-colored huts where the indigenous miners lived-something Iike a twentieth- centllry version ol Potosi.

In the rain forc.sts of Amazonia, neocolonialism brought a rubber boom. The latex sap of the rubber tree was a rarw mate- rial consumed especially in the United States fbr tires. Rubher

NrocoLoruIaLIsu

harvesters lived isolated along riverbanks deep in the Amazon

basin, tapping sap from rubber trees. In Brazil, the tappers were

mainly refugees from droughts of the arid sertlt-r lands o[ north-

eastern Bra't,il. In the Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian areas of the Amazon basin, lrlany were semisedentary indige-

nr:us people, terrorized into wage labor they neither needed nor

rvantcd. Rubber workers earned tiny wages, barely enougl-r to

pay lbr the fbod and supplies sold tl-rem by the rr-rbber company'

Meanu,hile, tl-re rubber trade produced vast prtlfits for interna-

tional traders and firr the companies whose steamboats outfit-

ted thc workers ar-rd collected their rubber in periodic visits' []y r9ro, rubber accounted fbr a quarter of Brazilian export earnings. Rubber barons could litcrally find no way to spend

all their moncy. (So why not send shirts to Paris to be properly

laundered?) [n Manaus, the one Brazilian city a thousand rnilcs upriver, in the middlc of the impenetrable forcst, the n-rbber barons built ar-r opera housc and attractcd touring opcra

performers-though not, ils myth would have it, the immortal tenor Enrico Carusrt. Meanwhile, the rubber boom ravagcd

indigenous people, their tribes decimated by alcohol and dis-

ease. 'l'hen, by the rgzos, rubber from N{alaysia definitively undercr-rt the price of Amazonian rubber. The rubber barons

steamecl away dorvnriver, never to return, and the rubber tap-

pcrs looked for anothcr way to survive. Only the Manaus opera

house stood as a silcnt reminder of Progress.

Bani.rnas were a ncocolol-rial nightn-rare for the palm-studded

coasts of the Caribbean. US banana companies blossomed thcre

in the r88os and r89os, becoming multinational corporations- among, the first anywhere in the world. By the early l9oos, sev-

eral merged into the United Fruit Company, a banana empire

operating in Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Colon-rbia, and Venezuela. Banana cotnpanies far over-

matched the governments of their small host countries in eco-

nomic power. United Fruit made several Central American

It:tg

r9o Bonru rru Broop aruo Flns nations into "banana republics," where it could keep governors, cabinet ministcrs, cven presidents in its deep corporate pockets. The banana companies acquired millions of o..", for their plan_ tations, rnillions nr.re fbr futurc use, and rnillions rnore simply to hcacl off possible compctition. Sometimes, rairroacr buirclers usecl land along thc tracks (given to the companies as an incen_ tive) to st.rt banana planttrtions. Son-retirnes, banana companics laid their own rails. Either way, f'ast transport of thc- dericate fruit was the sine (llla non of the banarra business.

Banana companies creatcd company towns, inhabitecl by rnanagcrs, enginccrs, and agronomists from the Unitcd State;, along with their firrnilies, with miniature US neigrrburhoods of' screen-porched hr:uses on mcticulously manicurecl lawns, virtu_ ally scalcd off from the country arouncr them. After crerivering bananas to the United States, company ships returned rvith ne\vspal)ers, clothcs, rnovies, vehicles, and food, allowing thesc new colonizers to live as if thcy had nevcr left horne. 'fhese isolated banana e ncla,es contrirruted rittre to the dcveropment of thcir host countries. Companies ril<e Ur-ritc-cl Fruit reserved managcrial positions lbr whitc US pcrsonnel ancl hirecl "nativcs" for the machcte worl<. clovcrrrors ancl ministers bencfitccl from cordial rclations with compa.y officials, ,f c,urse. wh<lever solcr the,banana companies land profited, too. The companies also paid sor-rre taxc.s, on terms invariably lavorable to ihem. And when thcy pullecl out-because of a banana blight or a nc\v cor- porate stratcgy-all that these multinational installations left bchind rvas ex-banana choppcrs with no job, no lzrnd, no edu_ cation, and a lot of missing fingers.

No wonder that rrrral people migratcd to the cities as agrarian capitalism took holcl of thc countryside. This flow *as iot yet a floocl in 19oo. Mcxico City, today one of the biggest cities on the planct, still hacl only abour 35o,ooo inhabfta;; ar thc rurn of the tn'cntieth centrrry. Neither l3ogotii nor Lima hacr many more than a hr-rndrecl thousand. AII of Latin America had a

NsocoLoNrer-IsN4 r9r

comparatively small ancl overwhelmingly rural population of' around sixty-three million at this time. Still, cities were growing stcadily, and those that attracted new inhabitants both from rural areas and from Europe grew spectacularly. At the fall of Rosas in r85z, the city of Buenos Aires had about a hr-rndred thor-rsand inhabitants. By the end of the neocolonial period, arouncl r93o, it had trvo million. In r9oo, it r.r,as already the larg- est city in Latin America at two-thirds of a million inhabitants. Rio clc Janeiro, a magnet lbr Portugucse as well as Italian and Spanish immigrants, was the second biggest city of the region at jr-rst under half a million. Montevideo, Santiag<1, Havana, and Sao Paulo followed at around a quarter million each. By this time, virtually all the capitaI cities of the region boasted elec- tricity, telephor-res, and streetcars. Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Rio were builcling splendid avenues on the Parisian modcl.

Except for the top four or five, Latin America's neocolonial cities were not places of f'actories ancl smokestacks. h-rdustrial- ization would come later to most of the region. Instead, citics and torvns were chiefly commercial, administrative, and service centers. Now they bustled as landowning families spent the profits of the export boom.

Money from crops, livestock, and mines boLrght mansions, pianos, fine furniture, china, artworlis, and eventually cars. All ovc.r Latin America, lanclowning families began the rgoos with an exhilarating sense of new cultural horizons. Their prosperity allowed them gradually to become urban people, leaving the hacienda or plantation uncler the supervision of a hired admin- istrator or a country cousin. They wcnt back only occasionally, for a few days'vacation, to sample rustic delicacics and amaze their faithful servarnts with tales of urban Progress.

Education was increasingly important for the sons and daugh- ters of urbanizcd landowning families. Some studied engineer- ing, architectLlre, agronomy, and medicine, but the favorite degree by far remained law. Indeed, the standarcl image of the

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lrrnclou ncrs son irr tt;oc is that ol thc r'oLtttg clttctor <llrlan, prol>-

ablv boLrncl lirr politics rathcr tl.rar.r lcgal practicc. (.\ll Lllliversit\' gra(llratcs \\ crc ilclclr('ssccl rcsllcctfullt' its lrtlrtr.) l:.cltrcation ar-rcl citv lifc \\'cnt tog('thcr. llttreh'coLtlcl att cclttc;tLiott, cvell r llli- nrarv c(llrcirtiorr. bc gottctr itr thc ctltttltl'),siclc'.'l'llirs, Argcntirla and UrLrgLlirv, tlte tltost trrltartizccl coLllltrics in l,atirl ,'\tncrica, \\crc also thc rtrost litcrirtc. 81' rgoo' il lllil.iol-it\/ tht'r'c crlirl<l lcacl. \\/cil ovcr hirll thc poptrlirtiort itr tt'tost cotttttt'ics \\'ils still illitci- rltc, ho\\c\,cr'. In Illrrzil, ir hcrrr ilr rrtt'al cortrttr\ that hacl alnlost no rLrral sclro<,1s, lto tttorc tltittt tuo I)col)lc irl tcrl corrlcl rcircl.

l)r-rrinq thcsc \citrs, tirlcntccl pctiplc ttl ttrirc'cl lrtciitl llcrititgc continuecl crir(lLIirllv to inliltrrttc thc u hitc rtticltllc clitss. []ecar-rsc cclLrcati<lt-t \\'as sLr('lr ir scilt'cc, ltrt'stigiotrs ctltl'tt-t'locl it1', nor-rclilc

[-rrtin 1\nrcricuns rirrclv got it-but u'lrcn tht'r, cl icl , it oltcrrcil cklors.

Occasionirllr,. thc 1lc'r'sr)rr \\itll(ittg throLrgh thc'cloor uas a litcnrrv gclriLrs, likc nor't'list JoarlLrirtr \lirriir \litchit(lo clc r\ssis. still ctinsirlcrctl tlrc'srcirtcst []raziliart rrorclist. \\'hirtci'cl'tl'rcir irttituclc tourrt'rl his c'rr/iic'oirr-1citc ("cttl li't' ri ith rllilli") ctlnrplcr- ion, clitc l:]razilirrns crl>rcssccl ltnrcscn'ccl invt' lirr his ntitsterv of tlrc u rittcrr rvoltl. \lrrclrittlrl clc r\ssis's tttrltltc'r-hacl ltccrr a litlttr- clrcss. Ilc rvrlrl.c'tl lris u'rrv Lrl) as a tvl)cscttcr, tltt'tt it.jotrnlalist. lrr r8c;7, N,lacllrrlo clc l\ssis bccanrc prcsitlcrtt ol'thc' prcstigious

llrazilian i\clclcrrry ol' l.cltcrs. ir'hct'c hc prcsiclctl rlvcr it clistit't- gLr ishccl (itnrl vcr-r'rr'hitc) crou'cl ttl ltocts, stiltcsllrcll, rrrlcl schol- rrrs. l:lLrbin l)irrfo. it clitrl. tttcstizo chilcl procl igt'l'rot.t-t a smrrll t<lrr r-r ir-r Nicitritgttit, rtirs rtlrothcr Lirtin r\rtrc'r'icall to rcceivc ttni- rcrsal tlibr-rtc lirr lris litcrart gcnilts. lrrcrt irrrticl thc'gcrlcrallv rrrcist ncocolonirtl clitttitlc, [,irtirt ,\trcricatl rcsl)('cI lilr art, cspc- ciallv litcraturc. conli'rrt'rl on tlct-t likc I)arfo artcl l\litchacltl clc l\ssis a stittus tltcrr tt rtctltr,rlccl ltt''ttr)'l)('rsolr tl{'crllrlr in thc Unitercl Statcs. [)irrio l>c'citrttc oltc o1'thc rttost irrIlucntiitl llocts clcr to u'ritc in tlrc Sprtrrish lattettagc. lior thc [irst tirner cvcr,

lrc<rlrlc throLrslrortt thc Spirrrish-spc-al'ing uorltl, irrcIulitrySpuirt.

I ,l

r94 BoRN rn Brooo eNp I-'rRt

rccognizecl a Spanish American poet as the great rnaster tvhclse vision and st1,lc clefinecl the ftighe st artistic expression olt thcir civilization.

'l'hcse u,ritcrs wcrc exceptional men u,hose stories arc not typical. Still, as part of a slow, stcaclv proccss happcr-ring all across [,atin An-rerica, talcntecl mcstizos \vcrc joinins the rnidclle c lasses olr Latin Amcrican coLr ntries, f i nclir-rg lnore opportr-rnities ancl n'reeting less prcjrrclice than clid sociallv ascer-rdant black per4rlc in tl"re United Statcs. By the turn of'tl're ccr-rtury, the N,{cxican miclcllc class had become notably mestizo, and nrany othcr countries wcrc not lilr bchincl.

Only in thc mid-r9oos rvoulcl most countrics of thc rcgior.r bccomc predriminarntly urban. Until r93o, thc balancc of popu- Iation ancl power restccl in thc cour-rtrysiclc, whcrc landorvners controllecl not on11, the nationul n,eatlt.h, br-rt also thc clectoral svstem. This phenorncnon-l)y lvhich a lanclorvncr in Chilc or Ilrazil or practically anvrvhcre in Lertin Arnerica took his cli- ents to the polls on clcction clay to "ye1g them"-was t[-rc bacl<- bonc of erzcry strong govcmnrent in thc rcgion. Sr-rch "manargecl

elcctions" wcre esscntial to thc political systcm of r"reocolonial- isnr. Or.r tl'ris point, thc rr-rling Iibcrals truly clid not clescrvc thcir name.

Au't'sonllanrAN IIuLE : OlrcnRcurEs AND I)IC,I.A.|ORSHIPS

A ['r,rnnv tl'rir-rg happenccl to thc liberals of Latin Arnerica clr-rr- ing thcir big comebacli of the rB(ros and r87os. Once in control, thcy fbrgot abor-rt thc political frecclorls thcy hacl dcmanclccl r-rncler tl-rc conscrvative cauclillos. Democracy nou, tclok a distant seconcl place, in thc.ir thinking, to the ntatcrial Progress associ- atecl witl'r export grorvtli. Economic growth rccluirecl railroacls ar-rcl exprrrt crops, ancl to gct thene, you neeclcd lar,v ancl ordcr: firm, qualifiecl governnrcnt, not mass politics but "scientific" rr-rle

NlocoLotlt,tttsM IC)5

lrv thc nattior-r's supposedly "bcst atrd brightcst," rn'hich amountecl,

in most cascs, to its richcst and u'hitest. Thc philosoph.v that

tustificci their ruric rvas iro.siti?i.srr, a Irrcnch social cloctrinc that

;tr.cscribecl ar-rthoritarian rr-rcclicinc t<t trchicvc orclcr atrd Progress

itnc[ m,rcle [iuropeun nornls into univcrsal star-rcliircls. 'i'he ncr','

llrazilian republic pr-rt the positivist slogan "Orcler ancl Progress"

on thc r-ratior-ral flag in the r89os. (lovcrnancc clicl become trt<lrc tlrclcrlv. As thc pro{its of the

cxJ)ort boom rose, govelnlllcnt rcvcllLlcs fror-n import/cxport

taxcs rosc, too. Natirtntrl arr.nies ar-rcl policc fbrccs reccitecl tl-rocl-

ern \\,Cit])or1s ancl a new lcvel olttririning, as CoLlntrv altcr cottt-t-

try invitecl liurroltean nrilitary aclvisors. Norv uationnl prcsiclcnts

colnmanclecl lar r.,urc tircltrirvcr tIi,t lrnV rcgi<tnill cauclillo. Railr-oacls ar-rcl telcgraphs spccclccl tl'rc clcplovntcnt o| trooPs to

qLrell rcltcllions. C']ivil $,ars becarrc less l'rec1r-rent as elitc filmi-

lics ltusiecl tl-rernselvcs rvitl'r the cxl)ort ltoom. lligher govcrll-

r-Ilent revenlrcs afl orclccl rn iclcllc-class peoplc ncu' cn.rplgy6cr-rt

oltltortunities in t[rc cxpancling lturcaucrtrcies ancl scho<lls. Cretatcr staltility apcl prgspcrity attr2ctecl ['rrrtficr i'tvcstment

fror-t-r abr.acl, inte'sil'ying traclc, and thc cyclc rc[)e]atcd itsc[1.

In most l-atir-r Arncricarn coLtntrics, f'r"cclgcnt rcvollltions [cclin-re

a thing of tl're ltast bv abollt r90o. h'rsteacl, stablc rriltltoritariurt

governrncnts charaicterize the ncocolor-rial pcriocl.

What about tl-rosc-thc hr-rgc rnaioritv-lcl't out ol tl'rc eupho-

ria? Progress held littlc a;rpeal fiir tl-rem-oftcn hurt thcm, in

firr:t-so u,hy rvoulcl thcy go altl-rg? llor the most Pelrt, the major-

ity hacl littlc say in thc matter. Ihc political in{lr-rcnce o1'thc rural rnajority urirs limitccl by incomc ar-rd litcracy requiremcnts

lbr votirrg, and limitccl evcn lrore bv thc practice ol managccl clcctior-rs.'fhe authoritarrian govcrnmcnts o1' neocolonial l-atir-r

Au-rerictr rnaclc clectoral tnirntrgement it-tto an art lorm'

N,'lanagecl elcctions cor-rstituted a tug-ot:rvatr bctu'ccn ril'al

patronagc t'tctw'orks, a test of strength at lnany levcls' At thc national erclministrativc levcl, those in Po\ lcr nelmecl electoral

ry6 Bonru rru Blooo aNo Frns officials favoring their party. That practice radically tilted the election from the outset. At the locallevel, an election was still a no-holds-barred contest among factions who tried to cast as many ballots as possible-per person-while preventing the other side from doing the same. The countryside, rvhere great landowners controlled the votes and the fighting power of many clients, was the managed election's natural habitat. As long as the great export boom lasted, most neocolonial governments had the landowners' solid sqrport, delivering reliable electoral majorities. The judges and local authorities who administered the process also influenced the final tally. T'hey l<cpt the voter registration rolls and could disquality their opponent's clients ("1'm sorry, sir, your name just isn't on the list") while allowing even dubious votes for the "right" canclidate.

Everybody knew about the flraud. Opposition newspapers and reprcsentatives frequently clenounced it. But many Latin American electoral systcms had been subtly modified to facili- tate "managernent" from above, so it was very hard to thwart. Mostly, pcople just endured the fraud and learned to live with it, coming to see managed elcctions as the normal way olt the world.

After rBBo, authoritarian govcrnments preserved rcpublican fbrms but acturally functioned as clictatorships or oligarchies. Oligarchies (from Greek, meaning "rule by a few") rcpresented a narrow ruling class. Within oligarchies, elections served to measure the strength of client networks. Even whcn ballots were not frcely cast or fairly counted, they still showed who controlled what, and where-infbrmation thar helped negotiate oligarchic power sharing. Dictatorships, on the other hand, centered on one all-powerful individual. Dictarors might hold elections purely for the aura of legitimacy or to impress their foreign associates. Take landowner support and a good show of institutional legitimacy, add lucrative customs revenues and a dash of modern military technology, and neocolonial govern-

NrocoloruleLlsna 197

ments needed nothing else to rule-except, of course, for good

relations with Europe or the United States or both. This basic power structure f'acilitatcd a half century of eco-

nomic transfbrmation that benefited el quarter of the population

at the expense of cverybody else. Oligarchies and dictatorships

provided stubility, the virtue alrvays most clesired by fbreign inves-

tors. That was the virtue that a frrrmer US secretary of state had

in mind when, in a moment of diplomatic ardor, he called Mexi-

can dictator Porfirio Diaz "one of the greatest men to be hcld r'rp

lbr the hero worship of mankincl." Thc rule of Porfirio Diaz fi876-r9rr), called the Porfiriato,

vr,as the very epitome of neocolonial dictatorships in Latin Americar. Dfaz kcpt up constitutional appearances, but only his

candidatcs ever won elections. Ile also had a circle of techno- cratic advisors stecped in tl"re positivist "science" of government-

the Cientificos, thcy were called' As the value of Mexico's import/export trade expanded by roughly ten times during the

Por{iriato, Diaz r-rscd the nerv rcvenllcs to strengthen thc Mcx-

ican state. Hc curbed regional cauclillos by crushing them or

buying them o[f. He creatcd public jobs for middle-class towns-

people by vastly er-rlarging the bureaucracy. Diaz off'ered just

two alternat ives: lcun o ltalo, mcaning roughly "carrot or stich'"

For example, he subsidized the press to keep it frienclly, then jailed journalists who spoke against him' Nlexico acquired a national rail system and graceful, monument-lined avenues in

its capital city. But as Mexico approached the centennial of Hidalgo's rSto uprising, the Mexico City police had orders to hustle indigenous people away from downtown, so that the for-

eign visitors would not get "the wrong impression" o[ Mexico.

Interestingly, Diaz himself was part Mixtec. He was a man of

the strongly indigenous south, an authentic war hero who rose

in the ranks during the struggle against the French, whom he

famously defeated on Cinco de Mayo (S May t96z), a red-letter

clate in Nlexican history. But, as with Benito Jultez, Diaz''s

rl,l

r98 BoRru rN Brooo ano Frne

indigenous roots added to his popular image as a national Icacler rvithout mal<ing him, in any way, a defer-rdcr of indigenous idcntities.

In the countryside, Diaz fbunded the famous m.rales (mounted national police) to secure an environment for investor confi- clence. He also oversaw a massive sale of public lands, most of which went to speculators and others who already hacl large properties. Almost all the land remaining to indigenous villagers norv passed into the hands of surveying companies. Diaz wel- comed fbreign investment in Mexican land, and foreigners soon owned about a quartcr of it, as well as the silver and oil under- neath. Oil gushed from newly opened wells on Mexico's gulf coast. Champagne gr-rshcd, too, as glasses were raised to toast the exemplary president of neocolonial Mexico with cffusive praise in a variety of fbreign acccnts. Still, Dfaz knew that out- side influence was a mixed blessing. "Poor Mexico," he quippcd, "so far fron-r God, so close to the United States."

Except for the champagne ancl managcd elections, govern- ment in ncocolonial Brazil was a very dl{I'crent aff'air. It was highly clecentralizcd, exemplifying the possibilities of oligarchic- as opposed to dictatorial-rule. With the emperor gone, how could far-flung landowning f'amilies control llrazil's vast terri, tory? The flrst Brazilian Republic (r889-r93o) was a f'edcration of twcnty states with a weak ccntral govcrnment. Its first prin- ciplc, contrasting markedly with the Porfiriato, was locaI auton- omy lor each larndowrring oligarchy. Cattle ranchers, coffee and sugar planters, cacao and rubber barons lrom one end of Brazil to the other managed local elections to their hking. Various regional oligarchies negotiated control of eacl-r Brazilian state. Importantly, the new fcderal strlrcture let each state kecp its own export revenues. ln eff'ect, the country's state governors together deterrnined who would be president. The two most powerful states were the current leading coff'ee producers, SIo Paulo and Minas Gerais, and they traded the presidency bnck ancl forth betrveen thcm.

NEocor-oNreI-Ism 199

Because the S5o Paulo and N{inas Gerais oligarchies u'anted

autonomy above all-and alrcady had it-their f'ederal presi- dents clid very littlc. The republicans opened Brazil for bnsiness,

so to speak, and then stood out of the way' One initiative of

Ilrazilian neocolonial government is an cxception proving the

rulc. In 19o6, the Brazilian f'ederal governmcnt began to buy ancl

stockpile excess coff'ee, millions of tons of it, to Prevent overpro-

cluction from lowering tl-re price. h'r so cloing, tl-re coff'ee plant-

ers who controlled the central government used meagcr f'ederal

resources to bolster privileged intercsts. I{uge stockpiles of cof-

lee were burned rvhen the system finally carme crashing down'

Meanwhile, northeastern Brazil provided several examples

of angry resistance to liberal Progress. ln lB74-75' Peasants ri,teJin marketplaces to defy rhe imposition of metric weights and measures that they were sure would cheat thern' The

excited crowcls then burnecl the of{icial records and archives

that law,yers used to cvict f'amilies without legal tltle to land.

In the r8gos, bandits with Robin Hoocl reputations, backland-

ers of the arid sertAo, becnme popular heroes ancl the subjects

of ballacls in northeastern Brazil. This dirt-poor region of Brazil

also hacl ar tradition of u,andering holy men who fixed broken-

down churches, revived traditionall religious ardor, and occa-

sionally gained f'amc as miracle rvorkers. Betu'een rB93 and r897,

thousands of'fervent bclievers gathered arouncl one Ant6nio

the Counselor, rvho preached against modern materialisn-t ancl the'godless rcpublic." With astonishing speed, Canudos,

the Counsclor's backland base in tl-re Bahian sertSo, became thc

second largcst aigglomeration of people in the state, surpassed

only by the state capital. Horrified by the sPecter of a fanatical

prophet-thc opposite of Progress-the Brazilian federal gov-

Lrnment launchecl one military erpedition after another against

the Counselor's "holy city" of Canudos, annihilating it along with most of its inhabitants, at least ten thousand of them'

Here, accord ingto Tbe Bacldands (r9oz), the famor-rs chronicle

of the cvent by a military engineer ancl brilliant writer, Euclides

2oo BoRn lt Blooo aNro FlRr

da Cunha, was yet another fiery battle between civilization (championed by the modern army, a hotbed of Brazilian positiv- ism) and harbarism (represented by the Counselor and his pious fbllowers).

The self-confident forces of Progress ruthlessly crushed Can- udos just as, during these same years, they finally liquidated the Cruzob people of Yucatdns speaking cross (r9or). To stand in the way o[ Progress and Civilization was madness, thought da Cunha, even as he also admircd the backlanders'spectacu- lar resistance to the repeated onslaughts of the Brazilian ,.-y. Da cunhals bool< became a great classic of Brazilian literature, somewhat reminiscent of Sarmiento's Fctcundo, which told mar- velous stories o{' the gauchos cven while slating them fbr extinction. Progress was destiny, pure ancl simple-a notion da Cunha shared u,ith most other educated Wcsterners around l9oo. Neocolonial thinking, like neocolonial economics, r,vas characterizcd by its links to things outsidc Latin America.

LrNxs wrrH THE Oursrnr Wonlo

Thc influcnce of outside examples was not all bad, of course. The Latin American women who campaigned fbr voting rights in the rgros eind rgzos were clearly inspired by examplcs in Europe and the United States. Modern feminist movements arose in cit- ies where outside influences were strongest. Meanu,hile, in pro- vincial towns and villages, patriarchy and the old honor code remainecl practically unchallenged. Intcrnational influences are evident in thc lives of f'eminist leaders, many o[ whom had non- Spanish, non-Portuguese surnames: Gucovski, Scheiner, Laper- riere, N4oreau-all from Argentina.

Or take Paulina Luisi of Uruguay, the first woman in her country to get a medical degree (rqog). Her Italian name was typical of the heavily immigranr population of Montevideo. In 19o6, still a student, the provocative Luisi was called an anar-

Nrocot-orutet-tsN,{ zot

chist for advocating use of a French sex-education textbook. I)espite the flap, she commanded respect and was soon repre-

scnting Uruguay in international women's conferences and traveling extensively in liurope. In 1919, she began the drive fbr womens voting rights in Uruguay. Her political tact showcd rvhen she was interviewed on that issue and delivered her femi-

rrist perspective rvhile demurely knitting. ln t9zz, shc became an honorary vice president of the Pan-American Conf'erence o[

Women, held in the United States, and adviscd the leading Bra-

zilian feminist, a much younger woman named Berta Lutz.

Berta Lulz's father was Swiss-Brazilian and her mother English. She liked to explore and catch frogs and became a biologist, something unthinkable for a Brazilian woman of her

mother's day. She grew up in S5o Paulo, Brazil's progrcssive dynamo, but left there as a young woman for seven years' study

in Europe. Returning to Brazil in r9r8, she publishecl a f'eminist call to arms. Brazilian rvomen were "lagging behind" European

and US women, she wrote. Given a chance, they could become "valuable instruments o[ the Progress of Brazil." Lutz, [oo, attended the ryzz Pan-American Confcrencc of Women, and

she made special friends there with the pioneer US f'eminist Carrie Chapman Catt. In [act, it was during a visit with Catt following the Baltimore conference that Lutz sketched the con-

stitution for an organization for the Brazilian Fecleration lbr Feminine Progress. Lutz and her organization deserve credit fbr

Brazilian women's winning the vote in 1932, before Uruguayan, Argentine, and most other Latin American women.

Few today would question the positive influence of interna-

tional f'eminism on Paulina Luisi or Berta Lutz. Indeed, the intense outside influence we now call neocolonialism vr'as rarely

identified as harmful during its heyday. The powerful vogue o[

Progress seemed universal. Liberals believed that Progress was European-oriented only because it started in Europe, then spread to the rest of the world. This idea was hard to sliakc off.

-") 202 BonN rn Broon aNn FrRs

So, in ideology and values, as in trade and finance, neocolo- nialism meant the absorption of Latin America into an inter- national system dominated by Britain and the United States. It is here, in friction with powerfr-rl outsiders, that Latin Ameri- cans began tcr f'ecl the colonial in neocolonialisw.

Until the late rSoos, it was definitely Britain that ruled the international roost in Latin America. British power had loomed over Latin America since the def'cat of Spain and Portugal in the r8zos. Despite the ovenvhelming naval power of Grcat Britain lor almost a century, British military cxploits in I-atin America were rare, howevc,r. Argentina bore thc brunt of them, as durring thc inclcpendcnce era. Only thc British seizure of a fen, cold and lonely South Atlantic islands-the Malvinas in Spar-rish, the Falklancls ir-r English o[ lasting consequence. Britain had little nccd of Latin American colonies. lt controlled tcrrito- ries enough elsewherc: South Af:rica, lndia, Ar-rstralia, Carnada, and Jamaica, to mention only a f'ew of thc areas r-rndcr British rule at the time. British cornn.rercial and financial expansion in Latin America, on the other hand, was relentless. By r9r4, when Latin America's fbreign investment ar-rd clcbt totaled closcr to $ro billion, ovcr half belonged to Great Britain, with US and French investors in distant second and thircl places. Ilritish diplornats were mild-mannered when compared to their Irrench and US counterparts, because llritish pounds stcrling tallied by themsclves.

'fhe ideological sway of:Grcat Britain was also subtle but powcrful. Undeniably, Great Britain was a center of the Prog- ress and Civilizatiorr that so mesmerized Latin American lib- erals. Whereas France remainecl the Latin American idcal of literarv ancl artistic culttrrc, ancl Paris thc fashion Mecca for "cleccnt" women of thc middle and upper classes, Great Britain rvas imitated in economics and politics. Tlie British Parliament's Liberal and Conservative Parties, for example, were the model fbr most Latin Amcrican party systems. And while clegant

N uocol-oNteltstr

.:!.. ,+t"':i' jj

Foreign looestment ". (in mill'nns of dollats

circu 1914)

Neocolonial Investments and

Interventions

,r,

US Military Inter:ventions Puerto Rico. 1898- Panama, 1903

Cuba, 1898-19O2, 1r, 1905-9

l9l7-21 aiti, l9l5-34

Mexico. l9l4,1916-17 .., Nicaragua, 1909, 191225 ', 1927-32 ". bominican ReP., 1916-24

,f::

t9 13

161

. ,,: 59':'i. ii

66fi-', "' a:

i 4ool 11,

'i ,'

197

Nlajor European

Immigration i

1 j

I

I

I "',1 ili

tl

1i

2oq BoRN rN Br-ooo arvo Frnu ladies Iooked to French fashion, "decent" gentlemen adopted British styles. Dark wool suits suitable fbr cool and misty Britain became excruciating in the tropics, l"rut f'ashionablc males rvore them anyway, a measure of their devotion to the Europcan model.

US influence in Latin America began to overtake British influence only in thc r89os. Admittedly, the United States had invaded and dismembered Mexico in the r84os, and various US presidents and secretaries of state had covetcd Caribbean islands. But the capitalist energies of the industrializing, railroad- building, Civil War-fighting, West-vrinning United States hacl been turned mostly inwarcl until, in the r89os, the US lrontier officially closed ancl the country cntered the worst clcpression of its hr-rndrecl-year history, later overshaclowcd only by the Great Depression of the r93os. Accorcling to thc conventional wisclom, US factories had outrun the internal demancl lbr US products, glutting the rnarket. Like Great Ilritain earlier in tl-re r8oos, thc United States would norv havc to export manufactured goods in ordcr to maintain industrial health at home. ]'hc US National Association of Manufacturers was formed to search firr markets abroad, espccially in Latin Amcrica ancl Asia. At the same time, some in the Unitcd Statcs called for military expansion. Crcat Britain, France, and many other European countries, as well as Russia ar-rd Japan, had recently acquirecl colonies in Africa ar-rcl Asia. These colonies provided rarv materi- als and captive markets for our compctitors, warned US impcri- alists, ancl "our backyard" in Latin America wns the natural place for us to acqlrire colonies of our own. AIso in the r89os, US naval strategist Alfred T'hayer Mahan wrotc about the need lbr a powerful navy and a transoceanic canal linking the Atlan- tic and the Pacific. In the US presidential campaign of 1896, the victorious Republican Party callcd for that canal, fbr annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, strategically located halfway across the Pacific, and for intervention in Cuba, where patriots were fight- ing fbr independence against Spain.

NgocoLoNlellsiu 2o5

In rB9B, the United States declared war on Spain and invaded

l)ucrtoRicoandc,rbaarrvellasthePhilippir-relslands'another tpr"ltfl ."f"ny' The war lasted only a few wceks'

in part because

Spain's decrepit lbrces were already weakened by years ?lf'nt1lo*

;"t#ffi;d;il""Jir.," pn,rippines. The cuban rebellion had

been organized by Cub'; "*ii"' it' New York and coincided

;;;h ; p-rotracted circulation battle between two major New

;;;k ;;tnapers' These papers created the term "yellow jour-

nalism" by using sensati;n;l stories of alleged Spanish.atroci-

ties to boost sales' Ui fubllt opinion favored "rescuing" Cuba

from Spanish tyranny' But the outcome of the war benefited

US strategic ancl economic interests' not those of the people

who were "rescued'" The United States scizecl these islands

lrom Spain and tteuted Cuban and Filipino patriots^like ban-

clits. Cuba ,"-ol''"i-u ptot"ttnt't" ol the United States tbr

if-,,rry-g"" years' By a specific proviso.'.the Platt Amendment'

written into the Cub'n^tonstitltion' US Marines could inter-

vene in Cuba whenever the US government thought it neces-

,rry. .I-f-,"

Philippines, viewed as the commcrcial g'ateway to

Asia, were *ou"''-'"J'.dt'"ttly by the United States until the

r94os. T'he Hawaiian Islands' too' wcre annexed to the United

States in rBgB' O'-'ly th"y and Puerto. Rico wcre colonized per-

manently by the U''i*J'Stu'"s' Yet' this "splendid little-war"' as

thesecretaryofstatecalledit,permancntlyprojectedUSmili- tary Power into thc

Caribbean basin'

A future p,"'id"t't of the Unitcd States' Theodore Roosevelt'

enjoyed the war enthusiastically' tlis special cavalry unit' the

"Rough Riders," Uou""a Rno'"'"lt'' political career' An admirer

of Alfred Thayer l;;";' Roo'"'!lt had been secretary of

the navy cluring,ft" 'ggtt' ns president in r9o3' he acquired.a

US base--along *ith iigh" to build and control a canal-in

Panama. But his l"'uuio in doing so offended rnany Latin

Americans sympathetic to the United States' Until then' Pan-

ama had b"",-t po't oi'Colombia' To fulfill Mahan's vision' Roo-

sevelt helped ,"ru'* p^"'-" from Colombia and then bought

2c6 Boniv rru Blo<to aun FIRE

the canal rights fr-onr the nerv panamar . [eu,days h;;. i'h;, sha<ty deal, fb,;#"il-;1"[H:ir:iJ,"? apologized, was conductecl rvith .,o nrtir. panamanians prescnt.Roosevelt did not worrv much about this high-handedness. lo him, Latin Amcricans, whom he customarily describecl as"dagoes," clid not rate the co.,rid".oti,rn orvecl to equals.

, ..fur werc Tcddy Roosevelt'.s racist attitr-rcles unusual. In fact,US a*itucles ro'varcr the pcopre

"r Lr;;; Amcrica wcre c,rored,y.intersccting

'eins ofrprcjuclice. al US solcliers swcpt asicleindigenous and Mexican crairns to western North America dur-ing the rlioos, rnany in thc Unitecl Stot", saw US triumphs aspreordained by racial and cultural superiority. In the carly rgoos,h,ving assertcd rnirirary po\vcr in ut"^,..o, c;"ntror a..:;L;:;;;

the Caribbean basin ge,rerally, the Unltei States gradually ovcr_thrcw Britains old positior-r of donrinancc in Latin Amcric,r-r tradc- ancl di,lomacy. This cha.gi.g

"l;h; guard was crmplercclb1' w'rld war I (rjr4-rs), wirli its clevastating cosr ro Brirain.Internati,nal US hegcmony spread southr,vard over South Amer-ica in thc rgzos. Distant Argentina rcntaincd, fbr a ferv rJ;r: ,last bastion o[ British influence un ,t" .rl-,,in"nr. US diplomats ancl busincssr-nen, ,n, ,n me.ntion missionar_ies, had a more sanctimoniom upp.uofh than their Britishcountcrp.rts, br-rt their ovcra, ,i.sion was simirar. RuclvarcrKipling, a respecred British wrirer uf rh" .i;r, ;;;;rrlil[:;

the U,ited States to ,,talie up the *n,r., _"r, burclen,,of ,.civi_ lizing" non-Europcans during j,, p";;_;;; expansion. US dip_ fom,ats-s-aw

prccisely rhat rolc"for in"-r"ir", in Latin Amcrica. In. the Unitecl Startes, visirns of a "Manirrest Dcstiny', orrirresist-ible' ir-re,itablc US expernsion into Latin America hacl stirreclsome peoples imaginations frrr gencrations. ,,.fhc lVlexico,,, i, unindigenous- aborigine, ancl he rnrr, s;tlu.""rh" frr" of his race,,,proclaimecl a Us scniltor in tire r'40s. Ideas about .he racialinf'criority of indigen.us, rncstizo, ancl black Latir-r Americans

combinecl u,ith old protestanr prcjudices ergainst Catholic Spain.

NrocoLoutaLlsttt zo7

"'l'his powerful [white US] race, will move down Central and South America," wrote the US Protestant visionary Reverencl

.f osiah Strong, whose ideas of white supremacy were not unusual.

According to Senator Alfred J. Beveridge, a key architcct of US Ibreign policy, "God has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally leacl to the regeneration of the world." Ilritish imperialists haci always been more pragmatic and less preachy.

The overbearing US sense of superiority went double in "our

backyarcl." Since rBz3, the readcr may recall, US diplomats had proclaimed the Western Hcmisphere ofif-limits to powers out- side it. The Monroe Doctrine had remaincd rnostly bluster fbr l-ralf a cerrtury. Still, along with a superior attitude, thc iclea that the Americas, North and Sourth, share a special relertionship became an cnduring arssumpti<-rn of US policy toward Latin America. In r9o5, "fheodore Roosevelt provided the Monroe Doctrine with a corollary. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Mon- roe Doctrinc made the US Marines a sort of hemispheric police fbrce to prevent European military intervention in Latin Amer- ica. European powers hard repeatedly used gunboat diplomacy to extract payment fbr debts. Roosevclt thought that the US government shoulcl no longer tolerate European interventiot-ts. Yct, he belicvcd, incompetent Latin American governments woulc{ occasionally neecl correction "by some civilized nation." During these same years, cartoons in US newspapers often showcd Uncle Sam dealing with Cuba, Pucrto Rico, Nicaragua, and other countries caricatured as naughty "little black Sam- bos." Uncle Sam r.l,as sometimes shown as a stern but benevo- lent teacher, reluctantly whipping these childish pranksters. Likewise, under the Roosevclt Corollary it became US policy to clisciplinc Latin American countries militarily when "required"

by international trade ancl finance. And it was requirecl fairly often. By the close of the neocolonial period in 1929, 40 percent of all US international investments were in Latin America.

BonN rn Blooo aruo Frne Meanwhile, US diplomats had created the pan_AmericanUnion, an organizarion based

".lfr"la*l of free rrade_and *: ;flXl.li t"-":.1":l'r

;;;;i;',-n-o,* counrries rhe c a n a m b a s s, o

".,-, J,ff '

fi lff ';i,'Jj T':r# _. Xl,: T*_spheric body headqua^rlcred _ WJ;;;;on, DC, chairecl by theUS secretary of stare. At periodic prr_air".,.rn

conferences, USsecretaries of state promoted trade while f_rri, a*".i.r;;";sentatives voicecl dismay rt US int".r"nii ,li,;'I"';;;' came to a head r,,;::]:*"r'E:il;I::X ,,r:].rlil"r,,T;!i,,"

American diplomats had rnuch ro proresr.

amaarreacryil;il;:tr'::,L:5::i;::;.!: j,;,,:*j*; (r9rz-33), Haiti (r915_34), and tt-," ljorlri.an Republic (r9r6_z4). Somcrimes, as in the Onri,ri.rn Rcpublic, thcse u,eremosrlv peacefirr crebt-corc.ctir"

";;;;;;"s that incrucrcd some'rmcssy police work" bur also;;iffi;;i;'h u,.,d rrnitrrion proj_ects. Sometimes, as in Nicaragur, ;lr;y w,ere morc violentmilitary intervenrion, By lh! l#,;;;, US N4arincs were in afive-year shooting

",_r, -r,vlrl X,.,or*rr.'iatriot guerrillas. .Iheguerrilla leader, are,,;:r-,,, Cesar Sa]ninJ ,..r."d the UnitedStares of "imperialis;.,,,Fr" u".u* ,;;; r, many Lati, Amer_icans, much rhc wav F,d"l Cust.r l;,";;; prccisely'ecaLrsc hcsto'd up ro thc Uniica s,rr"t .i"r".ri'ud]r,"rvenrions

insraredlcadcrs who becamc fung_,".n..'.tl;tn".,l .I<nown rbr their g.""d ,ni ,il.;J;;.=:"Jll8,,rJ# tyrants, Shocked by rhe US trk"or".

"f.a;;; pue,rro ltico, LatinAmerica's grearesr *.ir:: t "gun

,o;,;"rr. Orfrnrl Dario ragedpoeticatty againsr the ,,Godtesr,, il;;;;"i;. The cuban DoerJos6 Martf bcgan a litcrary ,ou"_"nr",n i"f"nr" ol..,Nuesr*Am6rica" ("Our America',), which a,i'rrrl..fude the UnitedStatcs. Cubas srearest-,,,r.,,,i i".i)'.riL, ,.thc Apostle,, ofCuban indepcndence, Marti U"*rr r"' ff *i, Irnor,rn colon ialism

N uocor-ouralrslt zog irt a young age. He was exiled from Cuba at sixteen and devoted lris lif'c to the cause of"'Cuba Libre." He edited a magazine in i\,lcxico and taught at the University of Guatemala. From rBBr to rti95, he wrote and worked frrr the Cubtrn patriot cause in Nerv York City, while reporting on the United States for Latin Amer- ican ncwspapers as far away as Buenos Aires. Marti knew the United States close up, but the most influential warning against thc United States came from afar-from a Uruguayan essayist, Josd linriqr-re Rod6, whose book Ariel (r9oo) inspired an entire gcneration of Latin American teachers and intellectuals. Like i\larti, Rod6 respected the Unitcd States but fbund its utilitar- itrn values alien. Rod6 accused US culture of crass materialism and challengcd Latin Americans to cultivate finer things- persor-rified by the spirit Ariel. In other words, by the early r9oos, some respectcd voices had actually begun to question the US/ European model of Progress.

They had a difficult task, however. The cinema, with its moving pictures that heraldcd a new era, would bind the Latin American imagination to Europe and the Unitecl States more firmly than ever. Moving pictures first arrived in Latin Amer- ica in the rB9os, with little time lag. For example, in r9oz, six years after representatives of the pioneering Lumidre brothers showed Porfirio Diaz their flickering imagcs of Paris, N4exico already had two hundred movie houses. Despite some early innovtrtions, such as the world's first animated f'eature film, pro- ducecl in Argentina, Latin American movie screens soon suc- cumbed to a US cinematic invasion that woulcl last through the r9oos. The main US aclvantage rnas-and would remain-its huge hon-re market. Hollywood had privileged access to half the world's movie screens, located in the United States. Hol- lywood soon dominatecl the lvorld's most expensivc art form because it could afford thc highest production values and the most glamorous stars. Soon l{ollywood began to define what people cxpected in a movie. As in other respects, US influence I

I

il

2Ia

increased while Europe lost grouncJ during World War I. Afterthe war, 95 percent of the l,]ouies Latin American audiences r.l,ere watching came from Hollywood.

By the rgzos, the warnings of Darfo, Marti, and Rocr6 against US influence had sunk in. Latin Ameri.r,r, rviJ"ty admired Sandino in his fight against the US Marines, ancl atide of nationalism rose- in .o.,rt.y after country. Nationalist sentinrenrs did not fit the neocolonial molcl, and ,h";g;;;;_ ated political encrgies capable of breaking it. The Iimitationsof the mold rnere becoming ,nplenra,_,tli

"ria",_rr. ,ttrl.,o'r"gt,

neocoloniarl Latin America hacl gro 7un economically, it hacl deueloped. much less. Export ,g.i.Irtu." had boomccl fbr harf acentury, but indr-rstry r /as still lacking. Landowners, f..;;g; invcstors, and the micldle classes genc.ally n"a p_nr"J, U"rimany ord i nary Lati n A meric.ans,

".rp".irlly .r.rt ^

p",art",' J.,?ifcrecl a decline in their stanclard of iiui,_,g. Governments wercmore stable, but rarely more democraticlland often less so.Many of rhem seemecl torally in thrall, first to Great Britain, then to the Unitecl Srares.

Thcn the neocoloniarl mold was shatterecl totally by an inter_ national event akin, in its impact, to the Napoleonic Wars.

.l.he New York stock markct imploded in ryz9,the internat;;i ;;;:tem of trade and fin, on e,s e a r s, a n d t h e ;",ffi ,Tilil:Tl il?"iil., ;lH i

"".:,.iJ,of Depression and *a.. D"ma,ld for Lrtln American export products plummcted. From Mexico to Brazil to Argentina, theimportation of progress screechecl to a halt. Th"

";".rri;;;_ports of neocolonialism_had disappcared, and its ,rr".r,ut ,ri-ports would soon crumbl", n, noiio,-,alists toppled oligarchies and liberal dicrarors from the Rio Grande io T1".., d"l?.,;g;.'

BoRx ru Brooo aNo Frnn

N*y.,p

The period r87o-r93o saw one part of Latin America totally

transformed by a new kind of immigrzrtion, ror'rghly equivalent,

in size and impact, to the earlier forced irnmigration of enslaved

Africans. Thc new irnmigration was principallv a mass move-

ment of laborers from southern Europe, displaced by economic

Iluenos Aircs convcntillo. Clourlestr rf r\rt hivo Nocionrtl llLtcltos Airt's

Country ol'Origin Italy Spain I)ortrrga I ()ermany

France Russia

BonN rru Blooo AND FrRE

Millions o[ I mnrigrants

-3.o 1.2

o.3

o.-3

(louNrsRcuRntrN'l's 213

cst parts of the old Iberian emPires would become the richest

part of Latin America in the I9oos. Argentina was the main destination' During these years,

over five million European immigrants poured into the f'ertile provinces around Buenos Aires. 'Ihe great city itself became a South American version of Chicago, with half its popula- tion composed of European immigrants in 1914. In that year,

.jo percent of the Argentine population was foreign-born, overwhelmingly ltalian and Spanish but also Irish, Jewish (from Russia and eastern Europe), German, Austrian, French,

English, and Su,iss. Ner+,arrivals in the city often lived in cott-

ventillos, decaying colonial mansions that had been parti- tioned into tiny rooms. These immigrants ternded not to form

US-styte ethnic neighborhoods, s<l Buenos Aires conventillos

l-roused diverse collections of people. A social historian of Argentina clescribes the census information flor a Potosi Street conventillo in the early rgoos:

Tl-re zo7 ilrhabitants of this convcntillo filled thirty rooms and took up the same floor space which one rn'ell-to-do fanrily o[ ten to fifteen members and five to ten servants would havc occupied. Some nuclear {hrnilies lived in individual rooms: a Spanish washerwoman in her sixties with four chilclrcn, thc olclest of u'hom was widowed and lived here with his six-year- old Argentine-born son; an Italian shoemaker with his wife and three children, all born in ltaly; a French mason and his French wil'c (a washerrvoman), and their four children, all born

in Buenos Aircs; a nidowed Spanish washerwoman ancl hcr fir'c

children, the three oldest born in Uruguay and the youngest two

in Buenos Aires. More comlrlon was the group of mcn' some single and others married to wives they had le{i in Europe, who had banded together to forn'r a singlc room.*

*Janrc's R. Scobie, Btrenos t\ires: Pltr:rr ttt Silturb, r87o rgro (Neu krrl' Oxfbrcl Univ. l)rcss, r974), ;r.

\'lrgrrus N,li)rncr, Atlventurcrs uttrl lrroletttrittts:1ht Strtrt,ol Migrunls in l-utin t\rtcricu (Pittsl>urgh: Unir, oI I)irtsburgh p,.,..1,.jX5;, ,o.

changes at home, seeking a better life in the New world. This immigrant flow paralleled similar immigration to the United States, peaking in the years before World War I. The new immigration gave Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil a separate identity as the continent,.s most European_style societies.

The countries of the Southern Cone (those zrlready men_ tioned, plus Chile) got nine-tenths of the European immigrants. Why? Although they usually ended up in cities like Buenos Aires or SAo Paulo, these immigrants generally envisioned themselves farming at first. Unfamiliar tropical environments_ most of Latin America is tropical, after all_did not attract them as fhrmers. The lands of the Southern Cone, on the other hand, would grow European staples like whcat and grapes. Then too, as agricultural workers, the European immigrants had good reason to fear Latin American system, of ,luu".y and debt peonage, and the far south ofthe continent was rela- tively free of these. With no fully sedentary indigenous people and no profitable plantation crop, the sparsely se,ttlecl lands of the Southern Cone had escaped the worst legacies of colonial exploitati<ln. Now, thanks to the new immigrants, these poor_

2r1 BoRn ln Blooo enn Frnr Many of these immigrants had farmed, as renters or share_ croppers, before deciding that metropolitan Buenos Aires offered better opportunities. In the bustling early r9oos, they were becoming Argentine, dancing the tango and inveni_ ing the Italian/Spanish slang called lunfartlo in which tango lyrics came to be written, imparting a special character to the city of Buenos Aires-and to its smaller Uruguayan twin, Montevideo.

Southern Brazil was second to Argentina as an immigrant destination in r87o-r93o. It welcomed Italians aplenty, p"ortu_ guese too, as well as Spanish and German ancl eastern Euro- pean Jewish immigrants. The Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and, above all, Seo Paulo, attracted immigrant flows similar to those arriving in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Distinc_ tive to Seo Paulo, on the other hand, was the arrival of many Japanese. On the coffee plantations of rural Seo paulo, Ital_ ian farmworkers arrived to work as sharecroppers, but, as in Argentina, these immigrants soon headecl for the city. Far_ ther south, however, in the Brazilian states of parand, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul-also in southern Chile_ immigrants were granted land. There, distinct ethnic colonies emerged. Germans, for example, frequently kept apart, speak_ ing German, farming European crops, and building spic-and_ span Iittle settlements that have maintained their cultural distinctness down to the present day. Despite their distinct_ ness, however, these immigrants, too, have gradually inte_ grated themselves into Brazilian and chirean national life.

Other Latin American countries received a sprinkling of immigration. The largest-scale flow outside the Souther., Cor" was Spanish immigration to Cuba, which continued to fill Havana and other Cuban cities with Spanish store clerks, artisans, and laborers even after Cuban independence. Mean- while, people of Middle Easrern ,I"r"".,i (often lumped

(louNrsncuRRENTS 215

together as "turcos," or "Turks," in Latin American slang) owned retail businesses all over the continent. By zooo, three of their descendants had become presidents of Argen- tina, Colombia, and Ecuador. A man of Japanese descent had

become president of Peru.