1.  The Early trials of Nationhood:  Neocolonialism

-WHAT IS NEOCOLONIALISM????????????????????

-The replacement of Spain and Portugal by Great Britain and the U.S. as the economies in which LA countries were dependent which lasted until 1914

-That neocolonialism premised on the concept of "COMPETIVE ADVANTAGE" taken to the extreme--not only concentrate on raw material production, but specific raw materials that you're best at producing==MONOCULTURE

-MONOCULTURE meant LA countries' whole economies depended on the world demand and therefore price of one product

-MONOCULTURE strengthened the landed elites' position and they even expanded the HACIENDA (PLANTATION) system as a result, precluding any possible change that wasn't ever achieved due to Independence

-MONOCULTURE also created an ENCLAVE ECONOMY in each country wherein the export sector therefore accentuated backwardness by draining capital, labor, materials, etc. from other parts of the economy

-Finally, increased foreign investment also contributed to backwardness by building the infrastructure to serve export sector and creating merchant houses, etc. to channel exports and industrial imports
 

TRIUMPH OF NEOCOLONIALISM 

-Mexico, like much of Latin America expected a post-independence economic boom from increased trade due to the newly available markets in Europe outside of Spain and Portugal and to the North in the U.S.

-Latin America also expected a flood of capital investments from abroad.

-However, because of internal (great plantation system, revolutions and rebellions, instability, etc.) as well as external economics (lack of widespread industrialization, etc.) the trade flow did not increase dramatically

-The result was political instability due to the economy, and with political instability came foreign reluctance to invest in LA aggravating the problem.

-Many LA countries with LIBERAL trends tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to reform the economies by creating native capitalism and industry but most failed due to the perceived sanctity of large estates, power in the hands of the oligarchs, etc.

-The result, then was that in many countries the landed elites tried to maintain power and the status quo at all costs, including economic diversification and republican rule--THE CAUDILLOS ruled

-Latin America from 1870 to 1914, however, in terms of its economy and political stability, changed substantially from the immediate post-independence period

-Economies ballooned with expanded raw material trade and capital investments from abroad

-The major factor was European and North American industrialization and a resulting increase in world trade and demand for raw materials and excess capital flowing toward Latin America due to the increased political stability brought by economic growth and prosperity.

-Increasingly, therefore, Latin America began to be reintegrated into the world economic system controlled by Great Britain and the U.S.

-As a response to the extremely profitable expanded trade, foreign investment, and influx of industrial products, most of LA established free trade and abandoned any efforts at industrialization, agricultural diversification, or the expansion of native capitalism

-THE RESPONSE WAS "LET'S PROFIT FROM OUR COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE: PRODUCE RAW MATERIALS WHICH IS WHAT WE DO BEST AND CONCENTRATE OUR EFFORTS IN THE RAW MATERIALS THAT WE ARE BEST AT PRODUCING

-A NEW ECONOMIC DEPENDENCY WAS ESTABLISHED: A NEOCOLONIALISM

2.  Economic and Political Contours

-EXPANSION OF HACIENDAS, FOREIGN CONTROL, MAKING THE POLITICAL SYSTEM SAFE FOR NEW ECONOMY=THE IDEOLOGY OF ORDER AND PROGRESS

-Land prices increased and new land was required to establish larger and more widespread plantations--Any remaining COMMUNITY LANDS, usually held by Indians, were converted into private property and purchased by elites

-Church estates were seized by governments and sold to individuals

-Expanded railroad construction financed by foreign capital made even more land available and sold in huge estates

-A reaction was the establishment by peasants of small landholdings farmed with primitive techniques--more underdevelopment

-debt peonage increased since laborers were rarely paid on an all cash basis and usually in a mixture of cash and coupons to be used in purchasing products at "COMPANY STORES" which precluded independent businessmen and tied workers to owners

-brutal law enforcement and destruction of rebellions or protest due to ideology of ORDER AND PROGRESS

-Reinforcement of slavery in Cuba ( ended 1886) and Brazil (ended 1888)

-Importation of laborers, Chinese, Japanese, Europeans in low labor supply areas

-By the turn of the century, investment included corporations that owned mining, real estate, plantations, etc. further reinforcing the NEOCOLONIAL order to serve the foreign countries

-Foreign economic control also led to foreign intervention in politics to ensure stability--The US in the Caribbean meant more than 20 military interventions or invasions between 1898-1920

-THE CARIBBEAN BECAME AN AMERICAN LAKE MOST COUNTRIES ECONOMIES AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS DEPENDED WHOLLY ON THE US

-Liberal attempts at reforming land tenure after independence were discarded as they joined conservatives to promote the new economy

-Social Darwinism was used to justify the elite claims of the inferiority of non whites and the supremacy of WHITE ELITE RULE

-New parties were created which now encompassed "RADICAL" elements of disenfranchised immigrants, peasants, entrepreneurial class, etc. to combat the merging of the liberal and conservatives into the ELITE ORDER AND PROGRESS PEOPLE REPRESENTED BY THEIR "PROGRESSIVE CAUDILLOS"

-These new groups would begin to challenge the NEOCOLONIALISM

3.  Mexican 19th Century Society

-How different was 19th century society from pre-independece days?

-Old landed aristocrats were preeminent

-Benito Juarez in Mexico--INDIAN PRESIDENT and other Indians and Mulattoes, through independece rose through social and economic ranks a bit--BUT WHAT WAS THE POSITION OF INDIANS????

--MACHISMO increased with 19th century legislation given total control of women to men (Fathers, Husbands, etc.)
-much of those laws originated in the French Rev, especially the Napoleonic Code

-many origins in catholic traditions of the "virgin Mary"

-taught to be submissive

-men encouraged to have affairs and girlfriends, women to stay at home

-VENEZUELA TODAY--NATIONAL CULTURE IS THAT FRIDAY NIGHT IS GIRLFRIEND NIGHT OUT AND SATURDAY WIFE NIGHT

--LIBERALS TRIED TO IMPROVE THE CONDITION, AND WOMEN QUIETLY REBELLED

-Liberals challenged the church with increased exposure to other countries--US, Great Britain, etc.

-Positivism--which glorified SCIENCE as the way to find truth and discarded THEOLOGY

-However, the Church remained a strong part of non-elite life

-European Social and Philosophical ideas filtered into Latin Am--ORDER AND PROGRESS

-Literature was, after independece and up to around 1900 centered on politics, political theory, law, etc.--based on Classical Spain and the US

-Mixing of Romanticism--French and British--with Indian and slave culture and spanish, especially in places like Mexico