HISTORY LATIN AMERICA LECTURE WEEK 1 05-02-2024
Midterm exam: 30% lecture 1-6
Final exam: 30% lecture 7-12
Workgroup grade: 40%
Why learning about the history of Latin America
● to understand the present
● a series of long-term social, political, cultural and economic phenomena,
actors and factors coming from the past that still exert a significant influence
in current events in the regions
● 50 years ago, 1973: military coup in Chile: Dead of President Salvador
Allende → tried to practise socialism by democratic means
- coup by Augusto Pinochet
- 2019: new way of thinking, but still Allende in mind
- 2022: Gabriel Boric is inspired by Allende, is a Chilean leftwing
President since 2022
Multidimensional timeline
● external factors (colonial influences)
● economy (during colonial time, neoliberalism, post-neoliberalism)
● political regime (difference democracy and dictatorship)
● culture / ideology (different cultures in LA, Honduras nothing to do with
Argentina)
● social change (Cuba Change in the 60s)
Historical periodisation
1. 1492-1810: colonial period
2. 1810-1850: independence and nation building → difficult, wars because who
will be president, different ideologies, military
3. 1850-1930: integration world system → ended with the Great Depression
4. 1930-1980: inward-oriented development → reaction to the crisis, wanted to
industrialise
5. 1980-2000: neoliberalism era → liberating the market, privatising companies
6. 2000-2024: post-neoliberalism → wanting to reverse neoliberalism,
renationalising the companies
,Important subjects per lecture
1. Geographic and cultural dimensions of Latin America
2. The Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule: features and legacies
- Los conquistadores en México → mural
3. Nation building during the 19th century
4. Depression and inward-oriented development
5. Development and underdevelopment in Latin America
6. Rural-urban divide in Latin America
7. Women and gender relations in Latin America
- Ethnicity and social classes
8. Military regimes and societal reactions
9. New social movements in Latin America
10. Evolution of the US-Latin America relations
11. Democratisation and neoliberalism in the 1980s
12. Neopopulism and the Pink Tide since the 1990s
What is Latin America
● All the countries in the American continent which has been colonised by Spain
and portugal
- Hence, all the countries in which the Spanish and Portuguese are the
official languages
The American continent
● A geographical concept
- Latin Americans are also ‘Americans’
- Americans is not restricted to the inhabitants of the USA
North America: when geography meets economy (NAFTA)
● First world vs third world
● White America vs Mestizo America (= mixed blood)
● Anglo-Saxon culture vs Latino culture
● Protestantism vs Catholicism
● English vs Spanish
Central America
● The countries between Mexico and Colombia
- The Northern Triangle: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras → most
illegal immigrants, problematic countries for the USA
● Panama in Central America? In geographical terms yes, but in historical terms
not → Panama used to belong to Colombia, so the beginning of
South-America
● Belize in Central America? Geographically yes, but it was a colony of Great
Britain, so mentally and culturally not
,The Caribbean
1. Geographical definition: all the island in the caribbean sea
2. Cultural definition: including the coastline of the countries in the caribbean sea
● (post)colonial fragmentation → no interest in Caribbean
South America
● Geographical concept
- Guyana, French Guyana and Suriname are part of South America, but not
Latin America
● Brazil and ‘the rest’
- Spain vs Portugal
- Spanish vs Portuguese
- Atlantic orientation vs Pacific orientation
- Afro-America vs Mestizo America
- Economic growth vs stagnation
● Gran Colombia 1809-1830: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador
● Viceroyalty of Peru 1542-1824 → Peru-Bolivia Confederation
● Argentina and Uruguay → don’t like each other, but are mostly the same
● The Andean States = only Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia → because
the culture in the highlands
● The Southern Cone = Chile, Argentina and Uruguay
HISTORY LATIN AMERICA LECTURE WEEK 2 12-02-2024
Pre-Columbian America
● Between 50 and 100 million people in the American continent
● Colonisation produced a dramatic reduction of the indigenous population
- One of the main causes were the diseases brought by the Spaniards
as the indigenous people had no natural immunity
- Also the result of welfare, forced removal, ill treatment, famine, labour
exploitation, and enslavement
, The Aztec Empire
● Existed between 1440 and 1521 in Mexico
● Developed an accurate knowledge of astronomy, used for religious and
agriculture purposes
● Capital of the empire = Tenochtitlán → Mexico City
- One of the largest cities in the world at the time
of the conquest
- Conquered, looted and destroyed by the
Spanish in 1521
● The Aztec empire did not survive the Spanish
invasion led by Hernán Cortés
● By 1520, smallpox had reduced the population of Tenochtitlán by 40% in just
one year
The Maya Empire
● 200-900
● Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras
● Monuments: Tikal, Copán, Tazumal
● From around 900, the Maya Empire suffered a political collapse. Major cities
were abandoned. Why is still not clear, but most scholars think that it was a
combination of endemic internecine warfare, overpopulation causing
environmental degradation, and drought
● Maya population today
- Guatemala: 40% of the population
- Belize: 11% of the population
- El Salvador: 1% of the population
- Honduras: 7% of the population
The Inca Empire
● 1438-1533 had about 20 million subjects at its peak
● Stretched for 4500 km
● Centrally led from Cuzco
- With the Spanish conquest of Cuzco and the
execution of the Emperor Atahualpa in 1533,
the empire came to an end
● Monuments: Ingapirca, Machu Pichu, agricultural
terraces
Midterm exam: 30% lecture 1-6
Final exam: 30% lecture 7-12
Workgroup grade: 40%
Why learning about the history of Latin America
● to understand the present
● a series of long-term social, political, cultural and economic phenomena,
actors and factors coming from the past that still exert a significant influence
in current events in the regions
● 50 years ago, 1973: military coup in Chile: Dead of President Salvador
Allende → tried to practise socialism by democratic means
- coup by Augusto Pinochet
- 2019: new way of thinking, but still Allende in mind
- 2022: Gabriel Boric is inspired by Allende, is a Chilean leftwing
President since 2022
Multidimensional timeline
● external factors (colonial influences)
● economy (during colonial time, neoliberalism, post-neoliberalism)
● political regime (difference democracy and dictatorship)
● culture / ideology (different cultures in LA, Honduras nothing to do with
Argentina)
● social change (Cuba Change in the 60s)
Historical periodisation
1. 1492-1810: colonial period
2. 1810-1850: independence and nation building → difficult, wars because who
will be president, different ideologies, military
3. 1850-1930: integration world system → ended with the Great Depression
4. 1930-1980: inward-oriented development → reaction to the crisis, wanted to
industrialise
5. 1980-2000: neoliberalism era → liberating the market, privatising companies
6. 2000-2024: post-neoliberalism → wanting to reverse neoliberalism,
renationalising the companies
,Important subjects per lecture
1. Geographic and cultural dimensions of Latin America
2. The Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule: features and legacies
- Los conquistadores en México → mural
3. Nation building during the 19th century
4. Depression and inward-oriented development
5. Development and underdevelopment in Latin America
6. Rural-urban divide in Latin America
7. Women and gender relations in Latin America
- Ethnicity and social classes
8. Military regimes and societal reactions
9. New social movements in Latin America
10. Evolution of the US-Latin America relations
11. Democratisation and neoliberalism in the 1980s
12. Neopopulism and the Pink Tide since the 1990s
What is Latin America
● All the countries in the American continent which has been colonised by Spain
and portugal
- Hence, all the countries in which the Spanish and Portuguese are the
official languages
The American continent
● A geographical concept
- Latin Americans are also ‘Americans’
- Americans is not restricted to the inhabitants of the USA
North America: when geography meets economy (NAFTA)
● First world vs third world
● White America vs Mestizo America (= mixed blood)
● Anglo-Saxon culture vs Latino culture
● Protestantism vs Catholicism
● English vs Spanish
Central America
● The countries between Mexico and Colombia
- The Northern Triangle: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras → most
illegal immigrants, problematic countries for the USA
● Panama in Central America? In geographical terms yes, but in historical terms
not → Panama used to belong to Colombia, so the beginning of
South-America
● Belize in Central America? Geographically yes, but it was a colony of Great
Britain, so mentally and culturally not
,The Caribbean
1. Geographical definition: all the island in the caribbean sea
2. Cultural definition: including the coastline of the countries in the caribbean sea
● (post)colonial fragmentation → no interest in Caribbean
South America
● Geographical concept
- Guyana, French Guyana and Suriname are part of South America, but not
Latin America
● Brazil and ‘the rest’
- Spain vs Portugal
- Spanish vs Portuguese
- Atlantic orientation vs Pacific orientation
- Afro-America vs Mestizo America
- Economic growth vs stagnation
● Gran Colombia 1809-1830: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador
● Viceroyalty of Peru 1542-1824 → Peru-Bolivia Confederation
● Argentina and Uruguay → don’t like each other, but are mostly the same
● The Andean States = only Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia → because
the culture in the highlands
● The Southern Cone = Chile, Argentina and Uruguay
HISTORY LATIN AMERICA LECTURE WEEK 2 12-02-2024
Pre-Columbian America
● Between 50 and 100 million people in the American continent
● Colonisation produced a dramatic reduction of the indigenous population
- One of the main causes were the diseases brought by the Spaniards
as the indigenous people had no natural immunity
- Also the result of welfare, forced removal, ill treatment, famine, labour
exploitation, and enslavement
, The Aztec Empire
● Existed between 1440 and 1521 in Mexico
● Developed an accurate knowledge of astronomy, used for religious and
agriculture purposes
● Capital of the empire = Tenochtitlán → Mexico City
- One of the largest cities in the world at the time
of the conquest
- Conquered, looted and destroyed by the
Spanish in 1521
● The Aztec empire did not survive the Spanish
invasion led by Hernán Cortés
● By 1520, smallpox had reduced the population of Tenochtitlán by 40% in just
one year
The Maya Empire
● 200-900
● Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras
● Monuments: Tikal, Copán, Tazumal
● From around 900, the Maya Empire suffered a political collapse. Major cities
were abandoned. Why is still not clear, but most scholars think that it was a
combination of endemic internecine warfare, overpopulation causing
environmental degradation, and drought
● Maya population today
- Guatemala: 40% of the population
- Belize: 11% of the population
- El Salvador: 1% of the population
- Honduras: 7% of the population
The Inca Empire
● 1438-1533 had about 20 million subjects at its peak
● Stretched for 4500 km
● Centrally led from Cuzco
- With the Spanish conquest of Cuzco and the
execution of the Emperor Atahualpa in 1533,
the empire came to an end
● Monuments: Ingapirca, Machu Pichu, agricultural
terraces
