BORN Ni Bloodanb,FIRE

L .r ::—, : BORN ni BLOOD anb,FIRE BOOKS BY JOHN CHARLES CHASTEEN: A Concise HStOT of Heroes on Horsebk. A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos Latin America National Rhythfns, African Roots: The Deep History of Latin American Popular Dance SECOND EDITION TRANSLATIONS BY JOHN CHARLES CHASTEEN: The Contemporary History of Latin A,nerica by Tulio Halperin Donghi Th.e Lettered City by Angel Rama The Mystery of Samba: Popi4aMusic and National Identity in Brazil jobn Cbar[es Cbasteen by Hermano Vianna UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL VOLUMES EDITED BY JOHN CHARLES CHASTEEN: Beyiid Imagined Comnzunities: Reading and Writing the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America with Sara Castro-Kiarén Problems in Modern Latin American History: Sources and Interpretations with James A. Wood W. W. NORTON & COMPANY New YOT1 LOnaofl ‘: -.: . L : 4 . Time Lii’ie BRAZIL ARGENTINA MEXICO The semisedentary Tupi people of the Brazilian The nonsedentary, plains-dwelling Pampas peo who built the fully sedentarY Mexicas, forests were destroyed and their labor replaced pie were eventually wiped out. Much later, ENcoUNTER The and their Aztec Empire, were conquered by African slaves whom the Portuguese European immigrants took their place on the I492_1600 Spaniards, but empire taken over by the brought to grow sugarcane. land. Mexican veins. Mexican blood still runs in Profitable sugar plantations the population made northeast- Most of Argentina remained on the fringe of Because of its dense indigenous em coast a core area of Portuguese colonization, Spanish colonization until 1776, when Buenos Aires CRUCIBLE Mexico (or much of COLONIAL and its rich silver mines, but much of Brazil remained a poorer fringe. became the capital of a new Spanish viceroyalty. 810 Spanish colonization i 6oo—i it) became a core area of The Portuguese royal family’s presence kept Without massive populations of oppressed led by 1-lidalgo and The large peasant uprisings Brazil relatively quiet as war raged elsewhere. indigenous people or slaves to fear, Buenos Aires INDEPENDENCE Creoles into a Morelos frightened Mexican Prince Pedro declared Brazilian independence Creoles quickly embraced the May Revolution independence, which i8io—1825 conservative stance on himself in 1822. (i8io). they embraced only in 1821. The (1822—1831) frequently over stormy reign of Pedro 1 was The conservative dictator Rosas dominated The national government was followed by the even stormier Regency Buenos Aires (and therefore, much of Argentina) poSTCOLONI BLUES conservatives struggled thrown as liberals and (1831—1840). But the Brazilian Empire gained for most of these years, exiling the liberal oppo 18251850 the caudillo Santa for control. The career of stability in the 184os as coffee exports rose. sition. Anna represents the turmoil. Pedro II (184o—1889) cautiously promoted Liberals took over after the fall of Rosas (1852), of the i8os provoked great liberal Reform liberal-style progress while maintaining a but not until the i86os The foreign prince, did they manage to unite PROGRESS conservatives to support a strongly hierarchical system. Brazil the juarez, ended all Argentina under one national government. i8o_I880 Maximilian. The liberals, led by slavery only in i888. late i86os. emerged triumphant by the Brazil’s First Republic called the (1889—1930) was a highly Buenos Aires and the surrounding areas under- dictatorship of Porfirio DIaz, decentralized oligarchy The neocoloniabsm built, above all, on cof- went an agricultural and immigration boom of NEOCOLONIALM Porfiñato (1876—1911), embodied fee exports. The leading coffee-growing state, vast proportions. Various regional international investment oligarchies i88o—193° Mexico. Diaz invited São Paulo, became dominant, ruled until the election of 1916. in Mexican state. and used it to consolidate the America’s Cetülio Vargas, president 1930—1935, defined Argentina’s Radical Party was driven by the bal Mexican Revolution led Latin Brazilian nationalism The presidency of in this period. In 1937, lot box. It displaced the landowning oligarchy NATIONALISM nationalist trend in 1910. The Vargas dissolved Congress and formed the marked the high but remained mired in traditional patronage 1950—1945 Lázaro Cárdenas (1934—1940) authoritarian Estado Novo. politics. point of its accomplishments. Populism and the electoral clout of organized Juan and Evita Perón made the working class became more conservative Mexico’s revolution labor (led first by Vargas, then by his heirs) (1946—1955) a leading force in Argentine politics. REVOLUTION the PRI) even as radi arid institutionalized (in energized Brazilian politics after World War II. Perón’s followers remained loyal long after his exile. 1945_I960 cal change accelerated elsewhere. The Brazilian military overthrew the populist Taking control in 1966, the Argentine military its revolutionary imagery Overall, the PRI used president Goulart ifl 1964 and ruled for twenty won its “dirty war” against Peronist guerrillas but REACTION the Ieft_eXcePt to absorb challenges from years in the name of efficiency and anticom bowed out in 1983 after losing to Britain the 1968 Tlatelolco in the 1960-199° when it used bullets, as in munism. Falkiands war. massacre. II 10 INTRODUCTION Latin America was born in blood and fire, in conquest and slavery So that is whi ]einabriefiriiroduction to Latin American history; cutting straight to the heart of the matter, identifying central conflicts, and not mincing words. It is pre cisely conquest and its sequel, colonization, that created the central conflict of Latin American history Conquest and col onization form the unified starting place of a single story told here with illustrative examples from many countries. Rapid panoramas of twenty national histories would merely produce dizziness. But, before beginning the story we must ask whether so many countries can really share a single history. A stblus,oiEie might doubt it. Consider everything that story would have to encompass. Consider the contrasts and paradoxes of contemporary Latin America. Latin America is young—the average age is in the teens in many countries—with all the innovative dynamism that youth implies. And it is old—a land of ancient ruins, of whitewashed walls and red-tile-roofed hamlets continuously inhabited for a thousand years. Some Latin Americans still grow corn or man Colombian boardinghouse in 1978, when PABLO. Pablo was a little boy who lived at a ioc on small plots hidden among banana trees, carrying on sometimes took a bath in the back patio I lived there, too. On hot afternoons, Pablo women washed the boarders’ clothes fairly traditional rural ways of life. These days, however, most of the house, the patio de ropas, where several on this particular afternoon, as happy as Latin Americans live in noisy, restless cities that make their so by hand. He was having a wonderful time character of our dollar-a-day accornmo any little boy anywhere, despite the modest age of twenty-two. dations. Snapshot taken by the author at the ‘5 INTRODUCTION ‘7 BLOOD AND FIRE i6 BORN IN countries also vast. Argentina and Uruguay have adult literacy rates com urbanized than those of developing cieties far more Paulo, and parable to those in the United States and Canada, whereas Megacities like Buenos Aires, São in Asia or Africa. 30 percent of the adult population in Guatemala cannot read. the ten-million mark, and Mexico City have far outstripped Costa Ricans live to a ripe old average age of seventy-seven, region are not far behind. Latin many other capitals of the Bolivians to only sixty-three. world and also the West, a place America is the developing Now ponder the incredible ethnic complexity of Latin ten people speak a European lan where more than nine out of America. Most Mexicans are descen omindigenous peo religion. Most of the world’s guage and practice a European ple and from the Spanish who colonized Mexico. The Mexican Americans. And Latin America has Roman Catholics are Latin celebration of the Day of the Dead—with its candy skulls, too. Most of the world’s na deep roots in indigenous cultures, inviting people to “eat their own death”—embodies a mood so of the Rio Grande. tive Americans, by far, live south unfamiliar to people from the United States precisely because live and work in circumstances Today many Latin Americans its intimate inspirations are largely non-Western. The capital of of middle-class people in the not so different from those Argentina, on the other hand, is ethnically more European seems to have grown in recent United States. The resemblance than is Washington DC. Not only does a larger percentage of government throughout the region years, as government after the population descend exclusively from European immi facilitating the importation of has liberalized its trade policies, grants, but they also maintain more European contacts, such and fax machines. But the vast cars, videocassette recorders, as dual Argentine-Spanish citizenship and relatives born or still far from being able to afford majority of Latin Americans are cityscape of Buenos car is much better living in Italy or England. The modern things. A family that owns any sort of such access to a Aires is very self-consciously modeled on Paris, and French but the great majority do have some off than most, and movies enjoy a popularity there unheard of in the United a neighbor. So Brazilians TV if only at the house of States. have a car nevertheless Chileans and Colombians who cannot has been central to Latin consumer culture and, The experience of racij.divrsity live thoroughly immersed in Western main destination of commercials tailored American history. Latin America was the after night, watch bright television night middle class. the millions of people enslaved and taken out of Africa to emulate the lifestyle of the US to those able and between 1500 and i8o. Whereas the United States received and not just because of proximity It is for this reason, about 523,000 enslaved immigrants, Cuba alone got more.

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