LATIN AMERICA
21. Tupac Amaru: The Indians Lead the Way A
22. The Liberators, San Martin and Bolivar C
23. Splitting Into Banana Republics B
24. Dom Pedro I and Dom Pedro II B
25. The Three Black Emperors of Haiti C
26. The United States Plays at Empire Building C
27. The Other American Literature B
28. Communist Experimenters--Castro, Guevara, Allende, Ortega D
29. Additional Topics
a. The Last Colonies D
b. William Walker A
c. Marti and Hostos D
d. The Christ of the Andes A
Key:
A Additional information very hard to find
B A moderate amount of additional information should be available
C Plenty of stuff available--an easy job
D Too much information available--this will require a lot of sorting
NAMES--People
with Spanish names often add their mother's maiden name to their own.
So what looks like a middle name is actually the person's
family name.
Remember this when trying to find Latin American names in
any
alphabetical listing.
21. TUPAC AMARU:
THE INDIANS LEAD THE WAY
The surprising thing about Latin America is its age.
A visitor will see Baroque and even Renaissance buildings.
In Baroque times, Lima, Peru was one of the world's great
cities.
The Spaniards chopped off the head of the last Inca
emperor back in 1571.
For the next two hundred years, the Indians suffered from
exploitation.
Laws came from Spain to protect the natives, but no one in
America paid
much attention. Then
in the late
1700s, the Inca’s great-great-great-grandson took on the name
or his famous
ancestor: Tupac Amaru (TOO-pahk a-MAH-roo).
He was a college-educated young man who dressed in the
fashion of the
time--three-cornered hat, velvet coat, and silk stockings.
But instead of a powdered wig, he let his glossy black
hair grow down to
his waist.
Tupac Amaru set about getting the old laws enforced.
He claimed and won the title of Marquis of Oroposa, which
Spain had once
granted to the Inca and his descendants.
He
revived much of the Inca culture--particularly plays like Ollantay.
(See Vol. I, Chapter 67).
[CHECK]
Again and again, he protested about the way corrupt
Spanish tax
collectors overcharged the natives.
For
years, Tupac Amaru paid the bloated taxes of those who could not afford
them.
But official protests brought no results, so In 1780 he
took direct
action. He seized
the most corrupt
tax collector and made him give back thousands of dollars he had stolen
from the
Indians. Then he
melted down the extra tax gold and condemned the tax
collector to death by drinking it.
Thousands upon thousands of Indians rose to join Tupac
Amaru.
There had been other Indian uprisings before, but this one
became
national. It swept
through most of
Peru. Tupac
Amaru held back
his followers, asking for reforms rather than war.
The government promised to correct the abuses of power. But the officials only
meant to stall while waiting for
reinforcements. They
then ordered
Tupac Amaru to surrender, promising that he would die with less pain
than if he
resisted. The
Indian leader had no
choice; he now switched from law enforcement to rebellion against the
Spanish
government.
The Spanish surprised and captured Tupac Amaru and his
family.
The officials condemned him to watch his son and wife
being strangled.
Then they cut out his tongue and tied him between four
horses to be
pulled apart in different directions.
Soldiers
hacked up his body and nailed a different part on a pole In each of the
villages
which had rebelled. This
unnecessary cruelty infuriated the Indians.
They went on a raging massacre which lasted two years and
killed
thousands.
Tupac Amaru’s cousin took over the leadership.
The government promised full pardons to the new leader and
his family If
they would surrender. They
surrendered. The
government pardoned them, then charged them with
ridiculous crimes, tortured and killed them.
They scattered more than ninety other relatives of Tupac
Amaru into
different prisons all over Spain for the rest of their lives. Some of these were
children.
The government outlawed Inca dramas, histories, costumes,
paintings, and
musical instruments. Another
Indian
leader claimed to be Tupac Amaru risen from the dead.
But not many people believed him, and the first big Latin
American revolution fizzled out.
Some historians think that Tupac Amaru delayed the cause
of revolution by
frightening the white settlers into thinking they needed Spanish
protection.
But other historians say he led the way.
When the big revolution came thirty years later, the white
heroes followed in the daring footsteps of Tupac Amaru.
22.
THE LIBERATORS: SAN MARTIN AND BOLIVAR
In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and made his brother the
new Spanish
king. This gave
South American
revolutionaries a good excuse. All
through the Spanish colonies, groups refused to accept the new Spanish
government--claiming they remained loyal to the rightful king.
After six years, the legitimate king came back into power.
By this time the revolutionary groups had organized enough
to throw off
their mask and rebel against all Spanish governments.
Jose de San Martin (ho-SAY day SAHN mar-TEEN) of Argentina
was a quiet
young man with lots of military experience in Europe and North Africa.
When Argentina declared independence he hurried back home
to help.
He quickly rose to Commander-in-Chief of the army.
But he realized that Argentina could never rest safely
until all Spanish
armies were driven out of the continent.
San Martin led his army across the Andes Mountains--far
higher than any
mountains crossed by the armies of Hannibal or Napoleon.
In Chile, San Martin worked in partnership with General
Bernardo
O'Higgins. (O'Higgins’
father had
been an Irish peddler who rose to become Viceroy of Peru-one
of the few really
good Spanish rulers.) They
freed
Chile, and young O'Higgins became president.
San Martin led his army on to Peru.
But he refused to capture the capital until the people of
Peru had
decided they really wanted independence.
He
insisted that he came to help--not to conquer.
When the Peruvians did decide for independence, they asked
shy San Martin
to serve as their first president.
Meanwhile, Simon Bolivar (see-MOWN bo-LEE-var) of
Venezuela had freed all of the countries to the north;
Bolivar was a
flashy young aristocrat with a violent temper, wasteful spending, and
scandalous
behavior. By
destroying everyone
above him, Bolivar clawed his way to the top of the revolutionary
movement.
He was not the best military leader; several times he lost
and had to
flee out of the continent. But
he never gave up. He
wrote letters and speeches of great courage, which kept the revolution
alive.
Eventually, he learned to let General Sucre (SOO-kray)
lead the army to
brilliant victory, while he organized the politics of the new nations.
Sucre became the first president of Bolivia.
San Martin and Bolivar had the last of the Spanish forces
trapped between
their two armies. The
two great
liberators met for the only time at Guayaquil, Ecuador, to plan this
final
strategy. South
America had
produced two great men at the same time and the same place; it soon
became
obvious that there was room for only one.
Bolivar
refused to share the glory of the coming victory.
San Martin offered to step down and let Bolivar take
charge, But Bolivar
would not hear of it--perhaps because it would cause embarrassing
questions.
San Martin solved the problem by quietly leaving South
America and
sailing to Europe where he lived the rest of his life.
Bolivar became the great hero; perhaps, by his generosity
San Martin
proved which was the greater man.
23.
SPLITTING INTO BANANA REPUBLICS
"Independence
is the sole benefit we have achieved, and that at the cost of all
others.
Our constitutions are books, our laws papers, our
elections battles, and
life itself a torment. We
shall
arrive at such a state that no foreign nation will condescend to
conquer us, and
we shall be governed by petty tyrants."
So wrote Simon Bolivar in disappointment on his deathbed.
It has remained a pretty accurate description of Latin
America from his
time to today.
Spain had organized its American lands into four nations. Within a few years after
independence, they had splintered
into fifteen weak little countries.
Argentina had never been very organized.
As soon as they won freedom, the various states tried
going their own
ways. The dictator, Rosas, welded them all together except Paraguay and
Uruguay.
Those two small areas played Argentina against its giant
neighbor,
Brazil. The four
countries fought
several wars throughout the 1800s before finally settling the borders.
Chile had been a part of Peru, but it won its independence
a few years
before Peru did. So
it already had
its own government. Bolivia
had
been handed back and forth between Peru and Argentina.
So the Bolivians decided not to depend on either.
Bolivar tried to stop the regions from splitting apart,
but the people
bought his silence by naming their new country after him.
Chile, Peru, and Bolivia also fought boundary wars
throughout the
1800s--especially over mineral rights.
They
even fought one war for huge piles of bird manure on nearby islands.
Bolivar's fondest dream had been to establish the strong
republic of Gran
Columbia (today Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama).
Gran Colombia existed for eleven years until Bolivar died.
First to break away was Venezuela.
The
Indians there had done most of the fighting for freedom, under their
leader,
General Paez (PAH-ace). Paez
saw
the Indians repeatedly outvoted in the large republic, so he pulled
Venezuela
out and became its dictator, Ecuador broke away shortly after that.
The United States of Central America separated from Mexico
just two years
after independence. For
nearly
twenty years, the states stuck together.
But
the smaller states felt constantly outvoted by the larger ones.
The Catholic church worked to magnify these differences,
hoping for
special treatment. So
each state
went its own way: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and
Costa Rica.
Spain had never allowed its colonies any experience at
self-government.
Bolivar and others wrote democratic constitutions, but the
new
governments rarely obeyed them. Usually
a military dictator ruled until the next revolution replaced him with
another
military dictator.
But amidst all the chaos of Latin American revolutions,
three nations
deserve attention for being normal.
Chile
has enjoyed a long history of parliamentary rule.
In 1891 Chileans fought a civil war to determine whether
the congress or
the president would run the country.
Congress
won.
Uruguay had been torn by political strife all through the
1800s.
But at the beginning of the twentieth century, it suddenly
became the
most progressive country in the continent.
It led the way with an eight-hour work day, national
health insurance,
university education for women, divorce, and separation of church and
state.
Costa Rica also went through turmoil in the 1800s, but in
1889 it held
the first really free election in all Latin America.
Over the next fifty years, the democratic tradition grew
so strong that
people rose in rebellion when a liberal and reforming president refused
to honor
the election of a conservative. Leading
that rebellion was another liberal, Jose Figueras (ho-SAY fee-GAY-rahs).
Figueras and the revolutionaries turned the liberal
promises into
reality: social security, minimum wage, health care, the vote for women.
Figueras even convinced the people that it was not
necessary to fight
neighboring countries, or waste money on weapons.
Costa Rica has had no army since 1949.
With his work done, Figueras then turned the government
over
to the elected conservative. After
that, the grateful people of Costa Rica twice elected him president.
But politics in the rest of Latin America stayed so
turbulent that
between 1809 and 1966 the United States intervened with threats or the
Marines
eighty-six times. That
was on the
average once every two years.
24.
DOM PEDRO I AND DOM PEDRO II
Brazil belonged to Portugal, (See Vol. II, Chapter 12.) But Brazil loomed almost a
hundred times as big as Portugal.
When Napoleon’s soldiers invaded Spain, John VI
of Portugal moved his
whole government across the ocean to Brazil.
It was the only time in history that a colony has ruled
the mother
country. (Actually,
John was not
yet king, but looking after the government for his insane mother.)
John quickly brought Brazil up to European standards by
establishing a
newspaper, a national library, a national bank, a medical university
and many
public parks. In
Europe, Napoleon
got beaten. The old
queen died, and
John became king. Still
he lingered
in Brazil, which he had grown to love.
Finally
the people of Portugal threatened to revolt if he did not come home, He
departed
reluctantly from Brazil after thirteen years.
But John left his twenty-one-year-old son, Dom Pedro, in
Brazil to look
after things there. Revolution
was
sweeping across South America. King
John advised his son that if revolution came to Brazil, he would be
wise to
become its leader. A
year later,
Dom Pedro declared independence from Portugal, and received the crown
as first
emperor of Brazil. It
was a
peaceful revolution.
At first the Brazilians loved their young emperor.
But they always feared
that one day he would become king of
Portugal, and the two countries would be united again.
Their revolution would have been for nothing.
After just five years, King John died, and Dom Pedro did
become king of
Portugal. But he
kept the office just long enough to place his
seven-year-old daughter on the Portugese throne.
Brazilians breathed a little easier.
But after two years, more trouble happened in Portugal,
Dom Pedro*s
daughter was thrown out of power by her uncle, who wanted to undo the
modern
reforms of the last two kings. Dom
Pedro concentrated all his energies on helping his daughter.
Officials in the Brazilian government had tired of his
highhanded ways,
so they suggested he should give up Brazil and go to Europe.
He did exactly that, and helped his daughter win her
kingdom back just
before he died. He
left his
five-year-old son to rule Brazil as Dom Pedro II.
Dom Pedro II turned out to be a wise leader who brought
fifty years of
peaceful prosperity. He
encouraged
the building of railroads and made Brazil a truly modern nation. He was a scholarly man
whose friends included some of the
greatest writers and scientists all over the world, He traveled much in
Europe
and the Americas, winning respect wherever he went.
But the problem of slavery was tearing Brazil apart. Slaves had revolted
several times over the centuries.
Through most of the 1600s, escaped slaves even established
their own
kingdom of Palmares deep in the mountains.
Under the leadership of king Ganga-Zumba, several
generations grew up in
freedom. After his
death, the
Portugese governors captured and enslaved the people once more.
By the 1800s, progressive leaders such as Dom Pedro II
hated slavery, but
he tried to change things gradually so that the country would hold
together.
Laws allowed no new slaves to enter the country.
Any more children born to slaves were born free.
All of the remaining slaves could retire into freedom at
age sixty.
The emperor's daughter and heir, Princess Isabella, worked
actively in
the anti-slavery movement. One
time
when her father traveled out of the country, she pushed a law through
congress
which freed the slaves immediately.
The wealthy slave owners howled furiously.
Old Dom Pedro lay in feeble health.
Conservative leaders thought they had better act quickly
before the
strong and forward-minded Isabella got power.
They asked Dom Pedro to resign.
The
tired old man did so, and the Brazilians declared a republic.
25.
THE THREE BLACK EMPERORS OF HAITI
The island of Haiti belonged to France.
But the population was very different from most of Latin
America: 6 %
white slave-owners, 4 % mulatto (mixed race) slave-owners, and 90 %
black
slaves.
When the French Revolution began, the talk of liberty and
equality spread
to Haiti. An aging
slave called
Toussaint l’ouverture (too-SAHNG loo-ver-TYOOR) led the
slaves to freedom.
(See Volume II, Chapter 33.)
The
revolutionary French government recognized the end of slavery, and
Toussaint
became the French governor of Haiti.
The
white and mulatto landowners asked England and Spain to send armies to
recapture
the slaves. But
Toussaint drove out
both countries with the help of his two generals, Jacques Dessalines
(ZHAHK day-sa-LEEN)
and Henri Christophe (on-RAY krees-TOFF).
Toussaint Invited all races to work together, and soon the
plantations
operated profitably again. But
meanwhile, Napoleon had come to power in France, and sent an army to
return
Haiti to slavery. With
the French
army came an educated mulatto from Haiti named Alexandre Petion
(pay-TYONG).
The French pretended to be friendly, and Dessalines and
Christophe both
joined them too. But
Toussaint was not fooled.
He declared Haiti’s independence, and became its
president.
The french invited him to a peace conference, but they
seized him and
sent him to prison in France where he died.
Dessalines, Christophe, and Petion all rebelled and drove
the French out
for good. Dessalines
made himself
emperor of Haiti as Jacques I. He
had been a cruel general. As
emperor, he massacred most of the white people in his land.
He seized the large plantations, and forced all
people--the wealthy and
the lazy poor--to work in a socialist system.
After just two years, Petion started a revolution in the
south.
The emperor ordered his soldiers into action, but they
shot him instead,
Christophe was elected as the next president, but he soon
changed his
title to King Henri I. He
rewarded
other leaders with titles such as the Duke of Marmalade and the Count
of
Lemonade. Christophe
had gained his
military experience by helping in the American Revolution.
Now he organized the laws
of Haiti and used the army to
enforce them. He
completely stamped
out crime. He also
did a lot of
building.
Christophe ruled only the north half of Haiti.
Petion had turned the south into a republic.
But Petion, with a black
mother and a white father, did not
dare to anger the black majority by enforcing the laws.
The north, under the iron hand of Christophe, became
orderly
and prosperous. In
the south,
people felt more free, but crime raged and the economy was a mess.
Still many Haitians moved to the south.
After eleven years, Christophe grew more and more arrogant. Petion had died, and the
mulatto President Boyer (bwa-YAY)
ruled the south. When
a heart
attack paralyzed Christophe from the waist down, politicians invited
Boyer to
rule all Haiti. Brave
to the last,
Christophe tried to get on his horse to fight.
When he could not, he shot himself with a silver bullet.
Boyer ruled as dictator of all Haiti for twenty-five years
until the
black majority drove him out of office.
Then
one ancient black president died right after another.
The revolutionary leaders were getting too old for the
job. So they picked
a really stupid
man who they thought they could manage, General Soulouque (sue-LUKE).
The surprised general could not read or write.
He made voodoo the national religion.
He bungled the government terribly.
But to keep people from noticing his mistakes, he gave
them a grand
spectacle: he crowned himself as Emperor Faustin I. He ordered
fancy uniforms for his bodyguards. (Because the emperor could not
read what was written on the medallions, the manufacturer felt safe in
cutting them from old sardine cans.) Soulouque kept up the royal show for eleven years.
But finally people revolted, and he left the country.
Since then, Haiti has followed the usual Latin American
pattern of one
dictator ruling until the next revolution puts a different dictator in
his
place.
26.
THE UNITED STATES PLAYS AT EMPIRE BUILDING
In the late 1800s, European nations scrambled to build
empires around the
world. The United
States had
expanded as far as it could on land, and jealously looked at Spain's
last two
American Islands--Cuba and Puerto Rico (PWAIR-toe REE-koe). In 1898, the United States
used a mysterious ship explosion
as an excuse to declare war on Spain.
One politician eager for war was Undersecretary of the
Navy Theodore
Roosevelt. He sent
ships to conquer
Spanish islands halfway around the world in the Pacific Ocean, as well
as in
Latin America. But
Roosevelt wanted
more action; he resigned from his desk job and organized his 'Rough
Rider"
cavalry group. Against
orders, he
led his men on a successful charge up San Juan Hill (after black
soldiers had
made it safe). Roosevelt
suddenly
became a national hero.
Just as suddenly, the United States won the war and found
itself the
owner of a small but scattered empire: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the
Philippines, and
Guam. The next year
it added
Hawaii. To get
local help in the
war, the United States had promised independence to the Cubans. The promise was honored,
and Cuba became free.
(For the very different story of the Philippines, see Unit
V, Chapter 5.)
When Roosevelt tried sending ships to fight a war in both
oceans, he
realized the need for a canal across Central America--especially if the
United
States planned to hold its new empire together.
A group of French businessmen had started digging a canal,
but the company went bankrupt. As
president of the United States, Roosevelt bought out the French company
and
negotiated a right-of-way across the narrowest part of Colombia. But the Colombian senate
objected.
A revolution broke out. (Many people said that the United
States started
the revolution, but that has never been definitely proven.)
Anyway, just three days after the revolution started,
President Roosevelt
recognized the revolutionaries as the Republic of Panama.
In return, the Panamanians granted the United States a
right-of-way
across their land forever.
The biggest problem in building the canal was yellow fever.
Dr. Walter Reed identified the mosquito as the disease
carrier.
Since then, swamp drainage programs have made life in
Central America
much healthier.
With the opening of the Panama Canal, the Unites States
had more Latin
American interests to protect than ever before.
More and more often it interfered in the politics of Latin
American
nations. Since the
beginning of the
twentieth century, Latin Americans have learned to fear their giant
northern
neighbor.
27.
THE OTHER AMERICAN LITERATURE
The arts in Latin America have gone through the same
stages as in Europe
and North America. Until
independence, the art, literature, and architecture mostly imitated
that of the
European masters, The first truly Latin American literature developed
during the
Romantic period.
One of the best Romantic novels ever written was Green
Mansions by
William Henry Hudson of Argentina.
(Actually,
his parents had come from the United States, and he did all of his
writing in
England. But his
books told about
his Latin American homeland.) Green
Mansions is a love story about a free-spirited Venezuelan
girl who lives in
the forest and speaks the language of the birds.
Ruben Dario (roo-BEN dah-REE-o) of Nicaragua led the way
into Realist
literature. Here is
what he wrote
about the way Theodore Roosevelt meddled in Latin American politics:
from
TO ROOSEVELT by RUBEN DARIO
You
are the United States;
You
are the future foe
Of
free America that keeps its Indian blood,
That
prays to Jesus Christ, and speaks in Spanish still.
You
are a fine example of a strong and haughty race;
You’re learned and you’re clever; to Tolstoy*
you're opposed;
*who believed in
And
whether taming horses or slaying savage beasts,
non-violence
You
seem an Alexander and Nebuchadnezzar+ too.
+a mad king
(As
madmen today are wont# to say,
#inclined
You’re
a great professor of energy.)
You
seem to be persuaded that life is but combustion,
That
progress is eruption,
And
where you send the bullet
You
bring the future.
The best-loved of all Latin American writers was a lady
schoolteacher
from Chile, Gabriela Mistral (mees-TRAHL).
She served as an ambassador, and she received the Nobel
Prize for
literature. She
wrote about the
simple things which never change:
EARTH
AND THE WOMAN by GABRlELA MISTRAL
While
the world is still light
and
my child is wide awake,
in
his face there's nothing
but
a winking, winking, winking.
The
poplar* grove winks
*tree that turns yellow in the fall
with
her yellow fingers,
while
behind her clouds
pirouette+
like baby goats.
+spin on their toes
The
katydid at noonday
winks
with its hindlegs,
while
an impudent# little breeze
#sassy
winks
with its shirt tail.
When
night descends the cricket
winks
ever so slyly,
and
as the stars come out,
they
wink at me with saintly winks.
I
say to that other Mother,@
@Virgin Mary
where
the two roads flood each other,
Put
your Little One to sleep,
So
mine will go to sleep.
And
that most Indulgent* One,
*generous
Radiance
of the crossroads,
answers,
You put yours to sleep--
So
mine will go to sleep.
One of Gabriela Mistral's students Pablo Neruda
(nay-RU-tha) also won the
Nobel Prize for literature. He
belonged to the Communist party in Chile, and was known as "the
people's
poet." In his warm
and loving way, this Is what he wrote about North
American business exploitation of Latin America:
THE
UNITED FRUIT CO. by PABLO NERUDA
When
the trumpet sounded,
it
was all prepared on the earth,
And
Jehovah parceled out the earth
to
Coca Cola, Inc., Anaconda,
Ford
Motors, and other entities:
The
Fruit Company, Inc.
reserved
for itself the most succulent,*
*juicy
the
central coast of my own land,
the
delicate waist of America.
It
rechristened its territories
as
the "Banana Republics"
and
over the sleeping dead,
over
the restless heroes
who
brought about the greatness,
the
liberty and the flags,
it
established the comic opera:
abolished
the independencies,
presented
crowns of Caesar,
unsheathed
envy,+ attracted
+made naked greed a weapon
Trujillo
flies, Tacho flies,
Carias
flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico
flies,# damp flies
#all Latin American dictators
of
modest blood and marmalade,
drunken
flies who zoom
over
the ordinary graves,
circus
flies, wise flies
well
trained in tyranny.
Among
the, blood-thirsty flies
the
Fruit Company lands its ships,
taking
off the coffee and the fruit;
the
treasure of our submersed
territories
flow as though
on
plates into the ships.
Meanwhile
Indians are falling
into
the sugared chasms@
@pits
of
the harbors, wrapped
for
burial in the mist of the dawn:
a
body rolls, a thing
that
has no name, a fallen cipher,*
+zero
a
cluster of dead fruit
thrown
down on the dump.
Hector Villa-Lobos, a musical composer from Brazil, also
achieved
world-wide fame during the Realist period,
So far, two Existential writers from Latin America have
become
world-famous, Jorge Luis Borges (HOR-hay loo-EECE BOR-hace) of
Argentina wrote
stories and essays to stretch the mind beyond its ordinary limits. Gabriel Garcia Marquez of
Colombia (and later Mexico) wrote One
Hundred Years of Solitude, a strange and exciting story of
one family
through eight generations.
28.
COMMUNIST EXPERIMENTORS--CASTRO, GUEVARA, ALLENDE, ORTEGA
Cuba in the 1950s basked as a vacation playground and
gambling den for
rich people from the United States.
The
dictator and his cronies grew fabulously rich on the tourist trade.
But the Cuban people worked in poverty and ignorance.
A wealthy young man named Fidel Castro decided to help his
people by
starting a revolution. Castro
and
his men hid in the mountains. Many
people from all over the world wished success to these shaggy-bearded
freedom
fighters,
In 1959, Castro won the revolution and became the new
dictator.
He closed down the gambling dens and prostitution parlors.
He turned the old prisons into schools.
He brought electricity and refrigeration to the farm areas. He also brought a lot of
old-time politicians to trial and
had them shot.
The United States grew less friendly.
It refused to buy Cuban sugar at the usual price.
Cuban economy depends on sugar.
When
Russia offered to buy the sugar, Castro sold.
Then the United States sponsored an unsuccessful invasion
of Cuba.
Castro quickly asked Russia for arms.
Later, Castro said he was a Communist and had been all
along.
That may or may not have been.
He
had to please his new master now.
He
had thrown off the chains of the United States only to become the slave
of
Russia.
More exciting to young people was Castro’s
lieutenant, Che Guevara (chay
gway-VAH-ra). Many
saw him as
an Existential hero who remained true to his ideals and refused to sell
out to
anyone. Guevara
thought in
international terms, and tried to bring the Communist revolution to all
Latin
American countries. Cuba
began
supplying weapons and training to rebel leaders.
Frightened dictators all through Latin America broke off
relations with Cuba. Guevara
went
to fight with the revolutionaries--in Bolivia--only to discover that
the
Bolivian people did not really care.
He
died in that struggle in 1967. The
threat of Communist revolution in Latin America faded away.
Large Communist parties flourished in several Latin
American countries.
If people had been allowed to vote, Communists could have
come to power
peacefully. But
only Chile had a history of free elections.
And in Chile in 1970, Salvadore Allende (ahl-YEN-day)
became the first
elected Communist president in Latin America.
The minority would not go along with his plans.
There were strikes and riots--partly financed by the
United States.
After three years, army leaders with U.S. backing broke
the peaceful
tradition and attacked the government headquarters.
Allende died in the surprise attack.
America’s first experiment in freely-elected
Communism
ended in disaster.
Nicaragua had a few wealthy people in the cities, and
extreme poverty in
the countryside. In
1979, all
classes united to throw out their dictator.
The largest group of revolutionaries-the
Communists--quickly took over
the government, with Daniel Ortega (or-TAY-ga) at their head.
They redistributed the land of the dictator and his
cronies (one-fifth of
the whole country) to small farmers.
Some
of those farmers banded together in large cooperatives for greater
efficiency.
Within five years, everyone had a roof over his head.
Everyone had food. For
the
first time, women in the countryside were learning to read and write.
There was even a model prison system with job-training
programs and very
little security. On
the other hand,
the government had dealt harshly with the Indians and the newspapers.
People gladly voted a second term for Ortega.
But U.S. President Reagan became determined to destroy
this government.
He cut off trade and international loans.
He financed an army that mainly terrorized the cooperative
farms. The U.S.
navy hid bombs in
the harbors. Both
the World Court
and the U.S. congress declared these actions illegal, but Reagan and
his
assistants found sneaky ways to get around the law.
When election time came around again, Nicaraguans were
tired of the war,
and decided that the only way to get rid of U.S. interference was to
get rid of
Ortega too.
He stepped down quietly.
It
was the first peaceful change of government in all of Nicaragua's
history.
29.
ADDITIONAL TOPICS
THE
LAST COLONIES
Not quite all of Latin America belonged to Spain and
Portugal.
On the north coast of Brazil, the three Guinas belonged to
England,
Holland, and France. England
also owned Belize and some islands, including the
Bahamas and Jamaica. Holland
and
France also owned a few islands. Denmark
owned the Virgin Islands until the United States bought them in 1917.
In the 1950's, the mother countries began granting their
colonies more
freedom. England
gave complete
independence to most of its colonies.
Some
of these new nations erupted into racial violence.
The United States granted the people in its colonies all
the rights of
citizenship except voting for president.
The
colonies can become states whenever they want.
France made its colonies states, with representatives in
the French
government--quite a change from the days when France sent its worst
undesirables
to Devil’s Island prison in French Guiana.
Holland made its colonies equal partners with the mother
country.
Holland also built racial harmony between the white,
Indian, black, and
Asian workers who had been brought in.
Its
colony of Surinam (or Dutch Guiana) had long been a safety zone for
escaped
African slaves who set up their own villages in the jungle.
WILLIAM
WALKER
William Walker was an adventurer from the United States. In 1853, he invaded Lower
California, and declared it an
independent republic with himself as president.
The next year, when he claimed more Mexican territory, the
Mexican government drove him out.
He
fled back to the United States. A
year after that, he pirated an American merchant ship and invaded
Nicaragua.
He took over control of the Nicaraguan army, and soon got
himself elected
president of that country. As
president, he decided that the worst enemies of Latin Americans were
United
States businessmen. So
he seized
some of their property and gave it back to Nicaragua.
The businessmen--particularly Cornelius Vanderbilt--paid
all the other
Central American nations to go to war with Nicaragua.
After two years, Walker had to flee to the United States
again.
He tried many times to get back to Nicaragua, but he never
made it.
Finally he was captured and turned over to the other
Central American
countries. They
shot him.
MARTI
AND HOSTOS
Jose Marti (ho-SAY mar-TEE) is the national hero of Cuba. Eugenio Maria de Hostos is
the national hero of Puerto Rico.
Both were poets, philosophers, and patriots in the late
1800s.
Marti campaigned tirelessly to free the islands from Spain.
He had to do much of his work in the United States.
He died three years before his dream came true.
Hostos tried to unite the Caribbean islands into a strong
federation, and
designed a model government. But
it
did not happen, and the islands went the way of all other Latin
American
dictatorships.
THE
CHRIST OF THE ANDES
For fifty years, Chile and Argentina had squabbled about
where their
border ran through the Andes Mountains.
By
1902, men of both nations prepared to go to war and die for their
country.
On Easter Sunday the Bishop of Chile had the courage to
preach peace when
people wanted blessings for war. The
Bishop of Argentina followed his example.
Citizens
of both countries were persuaded, and forced their governments to
settle the
boundary dispute peacefully. The
women of both countries felt so happy about their men's lives being
spared that
they had the guns melted down and made into a huge statue of Christ. Soldiers from both nations
hauled the statue up to the
mountain peak dividing the two countries.
It
stands as a reminder to the people of Chile and Argentina and the world
that
peace remains a better solution than war.
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