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CHAPTER 1
WHY LATIN AMERICA?
Latin America is made up of nonâAnglo or Dutch components of the Americas formed in the common mould of the Catholic religion, Latin cultural heritage and the romance languages. Iberian America and Haiti would naturally fit into this description. The former because of its Spanish and Portuguese ancestry, the latter because of its French ancestry.
However, if we were to take the argument to its logical conclusion, we would have to include not only the French speaking province of Quebec in Canada, but also France itself by its overseas territories in the Americas. Indeed, such territories are not considered to be colonies but integral parts of the French state.
Nonetheless, when the term Latin America is used its meaning is more restricted as it merely covers the Iberian American countries; Brazil and Hispanic America. The latter includes countries in North America (Mexico); Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras Costa Rica and Nicaragua); the Isthmus (Panama); the Caribbean Sea (Cuba and Dominican Republic) and South America (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay). In total, nineteen republics.
Latin America and the Caribbean
As it happens, however, the denomination Latin America is frequently associated with the notion of the Caribbean. As a result, the combined term of Latin America and the Caribbean has been coined. More than being a cultural or historical notion, it is simply a geographical expression derived from the contiguity of the two areas. Given that, nonetheless, the two of them have as a common denominator the fact of being the only developing economies within the Western Hemisphere, this lax expression took hold.
The nonâLatin American Caribbean countries can be divided into three groups according to their mother tongue. The Englishâspeaking Caribbean comprising Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Guyana, Belize, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Montserrat, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and, finally, Antigua and Barbados. The Dutchâspeaking Caribbean which is formed by Suriname and the Frenchâspeaking Caribbean by Haiti. The three of them have distinct cultural and historical backgrounds and traits.
Except for Belize, Guyana and Suriname, located in Central or South America, the rest are island nations. Curiously enough, the continental countries of Guyana and Suriname are not even located in the Caribbean basin but facing the Atlantic Ocean. Hence, they are not strictly Caribbean nations.
Apart from Haiti which obtained its independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when most of Latin America did so as well, the rest had access to independence within the decolonization process of the second half of the twentieth century. When compared to the Latin American countries, these other nations tend to have much smaller GDPs and populations. The richest Caribbean nation would be Trinidad and Tobago whose GDP compares to Bolivia and Paraguay, two of the poorest of the Latin American nations.
As each of these Caribbean countries became independent, they began to interact with the Latin American nations within the framework of hemispheric and regional organizations. Finally, during the XXI Summit of the soâcalled Group of Rio, in February of 2010, it was agreed to create a new association with the aim of integrating these two regions in a systematic way. That gave birth to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which was formally launched in Caracas, Venezuela, in December of 2011.
The organization comprises 33 states which is equivalent to all the Western Hemisphere except for the United States and Canada. This new group aims at promoting a concerted Latin American and Caribbean position in the fundamental global issues of the day, while strengthening the economic links among its members.
Nonetheless, the term Latin American and the Caribbean, even if practical for joining together two contiguous regions which have in common their developing status, has no real common identity. The members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States have four clear cut cultural and historical identities. One of those identities is the Iberian American one, which holds together Spanish America and Brazil.
But if the term Latin America tends to be confusing, as it does not reflect in an obvious manner the clearâcut Iberian American identity that it is supposed to reflect, why then is it used? What is the purpose of this ambiguous term of Latin America?
To answer this question, we must go back to 1861. Latin America was a term coined that year in an article published by French scholar L.M. Tisserand in the magazine Revues des Races Latines. Neither the article, which referred to the Iberian countries of the Americas as part of the Latin civilization, nor the term were neutral in content.
More to the contrary, they subscribed to the soâcalled PanâLatin thesis whose main ideologue was Michel Chevalier and whose aim was French power projection on the other side of the Atlantic. Moreover, its immediate objective was to provide intellectual legitimacy to Emperor Napoleon IIIâs imperial ambitions over Mexico and other parts of Hispanic America.
This needs some historical context.
Mexican Conservatives
Since its independence from Spain, Mexico was divided between the Liberal and Conservative political movements. The latter had always aspired to a monarchical form of government.
Agustin de Iturbide, the general that represented the leading force behind Mexicoâs separation from Spain, had aimed at an independent Mexico under a constitutional monarch of the royal house of Spain. To such an end he had reached an agreement with the rebel chieftain Vicente Guerrero, who headed the pro-independence forces. The result being the soâcalled Plan of Iguala, which offered the independent crown of Mexico to the King of Spain himself or to any other member of the royal family. Such an offer was flatly rejected by Madrid.
Time and again, however, the idea of a monarchical government under a European prince of royal blood tended to reâemerge among Mexicoâs Conservatives. Lucas Alaman, their most notorious representative, periodically mentioned the idea as so did other important members of such movement. As Mexicoâs continuous instability was becoming an open invitation to the advocates of a âmanifest destinyâ in the United States, Conservatives pushed again for this proposal.
Not surprisingly, a hopelessly divided and weakened Mexico ended up by yielding lands that were to become the future US states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and California. But even after such a dreadful defeat by the United States, the deadâend polarization between Liberals and Conservatives continued.
In the 1850s the Liberals gained control of the country and began a series of Reform Laws aimed at curtailing the ascendancy of the Church and the power of the Army. This process culminated with the passing of the 1857 Constitution, which provoked a military revolt by the Conservativesâthe Reform War.
In December 1860, the Liberals won this war and in March 1861 Benito Juarez, who had headed this faction under the title of Provisional President, was duly elected President of Mexico. The defeated Conservatives again saw the idea of a monarchical regime, under a European prince of royal blood, as the natural solution to their problems.
So, it was that they proceeded to lobby (some of the Conservative members had begun to do so since the beginning of the civil war) French Emperor Napoleon III. Their objective was that a European prince under his stewardship and military support would become Monarch of Mexico.
Napoleon III and his Mexican Adventure
This proposal was music to Napoleonâs ears, who after his countryâs military success in Indochina aimed at expanding his Empire. Not surprisingly he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his famous uncle. According to
his reasoning, consolidating a French stronghold in Mexico would fulfil several converging purposes.
Among these were the following: creating a barrier to the encroachment of the United States hegemony in the region; ensuring free access to Franceâs increasing trade with Hispanic America; creating the appropriate conditions for establishing other French puppet monarchies in the area; fulfilling the dream of his wife, Empress Eugenie, to expand French imperial influence in the Americas; guarantying the security of the French colonies in the Caribbean and exploiting the rich Mexican mines.
Significantly, the gates of Mexico and Hispanic America had been just opened to European penetration. Indeed, in January 1861 seven Southern States declared their secession from the United States and formed a new country called the Confederate States of America. The imminent war between the parties implied a sudden stop to the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine.
This doctrine, issued in 1823 by President James Monroe, formally warned the European monarchies that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or the creation of tributary monarchies in the Americas.
Furthermore, Napoleon III was convinced that such a war would be won by the South, which implied that Mexicoâs northern neighbour would not be a powerful United States of America but a weakened Confederate States of America.
In other words, ambition and occasion made such endeavour an inescapable one. On 9 October 1861, Napoleon wrote to Count Flahaut, his Ambassador in London, that if Mexico could be regenerated under the influence of France, they would have erected an impenetrable barrier against the encroachment of the United States. A few months later in a letter to General Elie Frederic Forey, dated 3 June 1862, the Emperor emphasized that France had the historic mission to restore the strength and prestige of the Latin race that lived on the other side of the Atlantic.
Two Sides of the Same Coin
The aims, barrier and restoration, represented two sides of the same coin. They formed the basis of Napoleonâs PanâLatin project in the Americas: counterbalancing the growing Anglo Protestant power by developing a Latin Catholic one. A Latin power that would be, of course, subject to the tutelage of France.
The nature of the Latin link that existed between France and the Hispanic part of the Americas derived from their common Roman heritage. A heritage also shared by Brazil. The latter, though, even if considered a fundamental part of âLatin Americaâ, represented a totally different proposition in terms of Franceâs imperial designs. With an Emperor from the Royal House of Braganza ruling the nation and with Great Britain leading its international trade, Brazil was off limits for Napoleonâs grand plans.
Such common heritage dated back to ancient times. The original Latins inhabited central Italy in present day Lazio. Through the conquest of Rome, the rest of Italy became âLatinizedâ. In other words, the term Latin lost its ethnic meaning to acquire a cultural one.
As the Roman Empire spread to what were to become Spain, Portugal, France and Romania, they too became Latin spaces. Roman law was to become a fundamental part of that sphere.
Circa 313 A.D., Roman Emperor Constantine decriminalized Christianity, pushing the ascendancy of the religion which was to become shortly after the official creed of the State. Hence the origins of the Roman Catholic Church.
Vulgar Latin was the language spoken by the ordinary citizens of the Roman Empire, distinct from cultivated Classical Latin. It covered the vernacular dialects that evolved into the Romance languages. That is languages like Spanish, Portuguese or French.
The PanâLatin thesis that emerged during Napoleon IIIâs reign, aimed at emphasising the commonality existing between the âLatin Raceâ of the Americas and Europe. Both peoples, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, shared religion, culture and Romance languages. As such the Latins of the Americas were called to become a natural ally of Latin Europe in their struggle not only against the âAngloâSaxonâ world but also against âTeutonicâ and âSlavicâ Europe.
Maximilianâs Tragic Story
To build a barrier against AngloâSaxon America and restore the Latin race in the Americas, Napoleon needed to begin by creating a tributary regime in Mexico. Maximilian of Habsburg, brother of the Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph, was the chosen French puppet for the Mexican throne. In Napoleonâs words:
So, after consolidating the conquest of the country by French troops and overthrowing its legitimate President Benito Juarez, the crown was offered to the Austrian prince on 10 July 1863. According to the Miramar Treaty, signed between Maximilian and the French Empire, the future Mexican Empire, under the former, had to reimburse and pay all the military costs of the French invasion and presence in Mexico. Maximilian was finally enthroned in May 1864, though it was to be a short lived and tragic reign.
A combination of factors dictated the end of this Latin adventure. First, Napoleon III underestimated the stubborn resistance of the Mexican forces under Juarez. Second, the choice of Maximilian was not a suitable one as his liberal ideas were much more in tune with those of his adversary Benito Juarez than with those of his Mexican Conservative allies. Third, the American Civil War ended with the defeat of the Confederation on 2 June 1865. This reâestablished the Monroe Doctrine and provided the basis for an open threat of war by the United Statesâ50,000 American troops were sent to the border with Mexico and surplus weaponry and ammunitions were supplied to Juarezâ troops. Fourth, France itself began to feel threatened by the growing power of Prussia under the able leadership of Bismarck. The 40,000 French troops based in Mexico became increasingly needed in France.
On 5 February 1867, the French troops abandoned Mexico City. Although Maximilian had been advised to follow them, he decided to remain in Mexico under the military suppor...
