Colonial Features of Latin America

Colonial Latin America had many issues. Being conquered by the Spaniards did not make life easier for Latin Americans. In fact, for most of them it made life much harder. The indigenous people struggled in various economical ways, focusing much on new labor systems. They also had more problems to because of the crown and corruption. From a social standpoint Latin Americans were not seen as equal. There was a caste system put in place, which was hard to move out of, and women had almost no status. The colonial Latin American features all intertwined due to its economic, political, and social issues.

Economic issues impacted the indigenous people greatly. Physical labor for the benefit of the Spaniards was a way of life for Latin Americans. Once the Spanish conquered Latin America, labor systems were put into place to satisfy the Spaniards. They satisfied their greed by subjecting the Latin Americans to a life of servitude; exploiting them without limit.1The indigenous peoples were expected to go and mine gold and silver for the Spaniards. They were treated unfairly in a social and economical standpoint. They were expected to do as they were told and forced into labor. The system of encomienda was a forced labor system that was used to develop the gold mines and killed many of the indigenous peoples.2

Forced labor wasn’t the only economical downfall the Latin Americans encountered. They were also forced to give their properties and homes to the Spanish. They handed over their land and were removed from their own villages in order to go and work in the mines.3This was considered a form of slave labor. They Spanish had complete control over the labor of all Latin Americans. Even the women were forced into labor work. They were forced to sew, weave, and make ceramics for the colonial society.4The Latin American people were basically seen as slaves to the conquerors of the area. The economical problems brought onto Latin Americans were also in part due to the politics of the region.

Politics in Colonial Latin America had many problems. There were problems within the crown itself, and also in the officials of the area. This led to a demise of the political system in Latin America. The supreme council of the Indies was formed in 1524.5The goal was to develop a controlled civilization. The crown placed regulations in hopes to ensure honesty within public officials; these regulations included Residencia, and Visita; Visitador.6 However, the regulations and laws put into place did not benefit Latin Americans.

The political laws put into place by the crown only helped the wealthy and the European. Latin Americans were being forced into slave labor and the new laws were making it harder for them to get out ofexploited labor. The slavery was instituted by the justification of positive laws that were put into place.7There was a hierarchy that was not easily changed. The ways of the Spanish conquerors had a monopoly on the political acts of the crown. The crown’s hierarchy of superordinate and subordinate social groups was accepted because it satisfied the elite.8 The crown also developed the Taslentol, which was a monopoly granted by the crown to a company to trade Black slaves, that helped to keep the slave trade going through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.9The politics of the crown were corrupt and brought tragedy to the indigenous people.

There was a lack of trust that developed through this time period in Latin America. The crown grew, and with that came more changes. These changes placed new restrictions on Latin America. These restrictions included trade, expanded military, and new viceroyalties. 10 The new restrictions and continues need for more income for the crown made trust non-existent for the people. The public officials were corrupt and slave labor was in high demand. The economical and political problems rolled over onto all social aspects of Colonial Latin America.

Although economical and political problems were important, the biggest challenge for Colonial Latin America was the social problems. These problems were focused around the caste system, and the place of women. The Spaniards took over the land and set up new laws that made it very hard to move up in life. Like most caste systems, the system revolves around how wealthy an individual, or family is. It is also extremely hard to move up in the caste system. Once you are born into a family, your type of life is already decided for you.

The caste system in Latin America was built on the structures of European models, and the oppression of Indian societies. 11The system is built as a way to keep the wealthy on top, and the poor on bottom. It is also based on the color of one’s skin. The lighter your skin the higher up you are perceived. The European models that the Latin American caste system followed, were religiously intolerant, increasingly racist, and manual labor was looked at as low class.12 Once again, due to the political and economical struggles of the indigenous peoples, the caste system automatically put them in the lower class. Once in a class it is very difficult to climb up the caste system.

The caste system is set up so that once you are born; you already know how your life will go. Much like social stratification, if your parents were in a low class, it was going to be difficult for you do become middle class. However, if one wanted to move up a caste, there were a few ways it could be done. These include wealth, marrying up, and achieving success.13The most interesting thing about the class and caste system is that wealth can move you up regardless of skin color. Although the system was designed to be increasingly racist, wealth was the one thing that could overlook the racial stigma of the system. However, unless one achieved great success, it was likely that class was due to the family’s wealth.

The class and caste system was one social way that Latin Americans were held back, but the treatment of women was even worse. Women were not looked at as equals; in fact, they were looked at as sexual property. There is plenty of literature from this time period that reflects how negatively women were treated. One of the more famous women authors of the time was Sor Juana. She was a Mexican woman who became a nun to escape sexual exploitation of women, as well as the pursuit of academic interests. It was common for women to use the convent as an escape from sexual exploitation.14Women were the subordinates of males, and they were not granted the same access as them. They were not allowed to be as learned as men, and they had far less independence. For this reason Sor Juana had to hide it from her mother that she was being taught how to read and write, and she also proposed that she be able to dress in men’s clothing so she could attend a University.15Although Sor Juana was not the typical woman in Colonial Latin America, she portrays the hardships and unfair treatment of the women of the time.

The great majority of the women lived under the rule of men. Whether the man is her husband, or a man that wanted to use her as his own. This caused a lot of trouble for women. Women’s submissions to males lead to the violation of their bodies, which they had no control over.16Women were taken and used sexually no matter who they were. It was not up to them to say no, or to choose whom they wished to be sexual with. If any woman tried to resist, they would have to face the consequences. Women needed to be vulnerable to men so they, and their children would not suffer for long periods of time, and they must remain silent to protect their lives.17The Latin American women were used by the conquerors and then forgotten about.

The women of the defeated Latin America were used sexually, but never taken as a wife. They were famous for interracial unions between a European man and an indigenous woman, but rarely taken, as the European man’s wife.18 The commonness of interracial unions between the indigenous women and European men ended up hurting the culture of Latin Americans. It produced castas (mixed groups) and became the fasted growing group of people.19The extremely poor treatment of women during this time period is one of the reasons many of them looked to God and became nuns. That way they were able to escape from the normalcy of abuse. There were not many other ways for women to escape from the harsh realities of their lives. Men were looked at as superior, and wealth was one way to get whatever they wanted. It also made their sins less looked down upon. Wealth could get you whatever you wanted.

In conclusion, the Colonial Latin America had many problems due to economical issues, politics, and social inequalities. The Spaniards made it impossible for the indigenous people to make a living. They were forced into slave labor, and the Spanish used them to satisfy their greed. The Latin Americans were forced out of their villages and into the mines, almost ensuring the distinction of their people. The crown was the hierarchy of the time. The crown tried to put into place laws and regulations that would help to keep public officials honest and efficient. However, the growing crown became corrupt and concluded in the loss of trust from the people. Economics and Politics impacted the social status of the Latin American people. The laws put into place formed a caste system. The system was based on an individual’s wealth, color, and religion. Once born, it was already known what class and caste one would be in for the rest of their lives. It was very difficult to move up classes. Women were looked at as property and were not treated as equals. They were taken and used by men. The treatment of women forced many of them into the convent. It was common for women to seek out becoming a nun in order to avoid being used. Overall, the economical, political, and social issues of colonial Latin America did everything but help the indigenous people.

Challenges to Latin America After Independence

There were many developments as well as challenges after the Spanish American independence. Majority of the developments were tried as a way to integrate Latin America into the trade market, and to develop a striving economy. However, these developments also became challenges. Although Latin America was now independent, they did not have an easy road ahead of them. In fact, they would struggle with key problems in post-colonial periods, problems with progress, neo-colonialism, U.S. response problems, and neoliberal economic problems. However, they did try to address all of these problems with the liberation theory they developed. This paper will explore all of the challenges faced by Latin America after its independence.

In the post-colonial period of Latin America people were hopeful. They had just won their independence and believed things would change. However, that would not be the case. There were two main problems that Latin America faced. These were economic dependency and political leadership. Latin America was economically dependent and relied on decisions made elsewhere.20This lead to many problems that Latin America did not anticipate. Due to the fact that decisions were being made for them, they were not able to run their own programs, they ran into economic and political instability, and foreign interference and intervention was often.21The second key problem was with the political leadership. Although they were now independent from control, they were not in much of a different situation with leadership. The leadership was authoritarian, and the leaders typically had strong personalities without strong ideals.22This made life hard on all Latin Americans. The leaders lacked the ability to compromise and they had little experience in what they were doing. However, there were more problems than just these.

Progress was the goal of the independence of Latin America. Having independence meant that there could be new laws put into place and there could be changes made to better the economy. There were two key ideas that they wanted to change. They wanted to change the trade monopoly, and capital accumulation. Overall, they wanted to fix their economy. The first problem arose with the progress of trade. Before its independence Latin America was deprived of the chance to buy and sell.23The creation of all the separate republics that became independent lead to a larger diversity of trade. The economical problem then arose because imports were extremely cheap and readily available elsewhere.

The second problem with progress was with the task of capital accumulation. There was hope for change and new economical structures. However, the civil war and political upheaval resulted in the drain of finance capital of Latin America.24 The only physical capital that Latin America still had were the mines. However, the mines were not maintained and many haciendas were run down.25The problems with the mines made it difficult to pay back the debt that Latin America owed. Most of this debt was to be repaid to the church, and this non-repayment crippled the domestic capital market.26The next area that encountered problems were due to neo-colonialism.

All of Latin America’s problems after it’s independence were wrapped into each other. One problem affected every problem. This is also true when it comes to neo-colonialism in Latin America. Up until the emergency of the Liberation Theory, it is argued that Christianity in Latin America was a neo-colonial implementation of foreign powers.27The theory suggests that Europeans continued to control some aspects of Latin America. There was not much change after the post-colonial period. This contributed to the problem of government failure to rehabilitate the mines.28Once again; all of the capital was lost on the mines. There were many providers that were willing to contribute to the project and were left unhappy. There was no progress within the government for this economical opportunity. It was a complete failure. Similar to the problem of trade within progression and independence, neo-colonialism impacted trade. Due to the differences in independence’, trade between Latin America and the countries of the Iberian Peninsula were non-existent. This lead to Spain and Portugal imposing a trade monopoly on Latin America.29 Neo-colonialism lead to some unhelpfulness from the United States.

Although the United States was trying to help Latin America as a response to their nationalism and revolutionary ideology, there were still problems that arose. Now that Latin America was independent, there was new global economical competition, and the U.S. would win.30This would lead to the United States having more power than Latin America would have liked. The U.S. came in and put a foreign policy into place. This became a key challenge for the independent Latin America.

As a response to the revolutionary ideology of the times, the U.S. entered into an interventionist period with Latin America. This was yet another unhelpful response. It prevented Latin America from being able to develop their country the way they saw fit. Because the U.S. was so much more dominate, there was often interference on their part.31The United States had good intentions, but their intentions were not usually met. Overall, the U.S. and their interference with Latin America turned out to be more unhelpful than anticipated.

Even after all of the problems Latin America had gone through after its initial independence there was still more to come. This time it would be in the form of neoliberal economy. The goal of this era was to bring about social and economical change. It began around the 1960s. Latin America was again trying to get themselves out of their economical demise. The problem was when they tried to integrate themselves into world product markets and try for the goal of globalization.32The integration did not go as planned, and once again there was disappointment. Even though the goal was to legitimately integrate them into the product market, the only export that took off was in drug trade.33This was even more of a disappointment for the economical position of Latin America. However, there was one theory that Latin Americans developed to help address the problems at hand.

Liberation theory tried to address problems that Latin Americans faced. The theory arose as a result of all the unresolved problems of poverty, expressions of exploitation, and oppression of the people.34There was much to be fixed in Latin American culture, and this was one way to deal with it. The previous institution of Latin America put men over women, rich over poor, light skin over dark skin, and Catholic religion over all other religions; and the Liberation Theory wanted to change that.35 The Liberation Theory put into place a plan that would allow for all of the previous inequalities to be put to rest. People in Latin America wanted a theology that they could relate to. All of the previous theologies of Latin America had been put into place by those who were either wealthy or were considered elite.

The Liberation Theory was made specifically for those who actually live day to day in the poverty of Latin America after independence. The Liberation Theory has two main factors that make it the first “Latin American Christianity Theology.” First, it emerges from the past of the unresolved mistreatment of the poor and marginalized of the society, instead of the agendas of the elite; Second it does not claim that the theology starts from the objective study of the bible, but rather it starts from the world, goes to the bible, and then to socially transformative action.36Therefore, the theory would seem to best fit the needs of the Latin American people. Which would seem to address the problems from the past. The biggest problems from the past were the elite. The elite did not care about those who had to struggle though life. The Liberation Theory is truly for the people.

In conclusion, even after Latin America gained its independence there were still many challenges they would have to face. These problems all seem to piggy back off of one another. Making it even harder to come to a single resolution for Latin America and its people. The problems started shortly after the post-colonial period. The struggles of this time period revolved around the economy and the leadership. The problem at this time with the economy was that it was dependent on other outside nation to make economical decisions. The leadership was also a problem of the post-colonial period. The leadership was inexperienced, and although they were typically strong men who were rulers; their ideals were not as strong. This kept Latin America down. Nothing seemed like it was going to change.

More problems came about with the promise of progress. Latin America tried to make progress by entering in trade and using the mines as physical capital. However, both of these ideas were failures. The mines were Latin Americas greatest assets, but the leaders would not maintain them. This caused those who were contributing to the cause to pull out in disappointment. Then came the problems of Neo-colonialism. Once again the problem arose with the mines. Foreign participation was disappointed and the project was a complete failure. Causing the loss of all capital. Leading to more economical demise for the country. The U.S. didn’t help either. The U.S. imposed foreign policy that prevented Latin America from being able to run their country how they wanted. They also intervened when they did not need to. Overall, the majority of the problems were economical, and each project seemed to be a failure. However, there was one good thing that came out of all of the challenges of independence. The Liberation Theory was born. It was developed with the thoughts of the oppressed and poverty stricken people of Latin America. It brought many people together in the hard times after Latin America’s independence.

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