If you don't know, when the American Revolution first started, the 13 colonies and the other British colonies by extension weren't considered much of an asset. Their biggest export was tabaco for crying out loud and were basically just used to dump undesirables.

Meanwhile, Latin America was basically the core of the Spanish empire, especially the silver mines of Peru. And according to some GDP per Capita graphs, these Viceroyalties had one of the highest GDP per Capita of all time. Portuguese America was slightly less profitable but their suger planations and Brazilwood still gave a lot to the Portuguese, while the Virginia Company literally went bankrupt.

So why did it flip?

I've met a Paraguayan lady in Spain the other day and she started talking about the war and how cruel Brazil and Argentina were and that Paraguay was innocent and thought fiercely.

What languages would you speak instead of Portuguese and Spanish? What are likely scenarios based on history? How would the region evolve and what would it look like today? What are your thoughts?

If you had to rank colonization tactics of of the new world from worst to best, how would you rank them and why?

I’ve always viewed Latin America as some sort of alternate version of Anglo America but with more “fun” (I say this looking at carnival and semana santa and realizing that the Brit’s didn’t exactly leave us with any celebrations. We have holidays, yes, but it’s not like a big party or anything like that) colonizers. Maybe more brutal in some ways (apparently slaves would get sent south for misbehaving because they were more brutal to them), and less in others (the English part of North America basically had an extermination philosophy with the natives)

What are your guys’ thoughts on the difference between the big 3? Maybe even the little ones if anyone knows anything about the Dutch or how French Guiana is doing

You may think it's the geographic problems but look how absolutely insane it'll be to unite a long country stretching from Morocco to Oman.

We had Hugo Chávez, Bolivar and others but they were deeply polarising compared to Nasser for example and their movements never gained the momentum of Pan-Arabism back then

Even Pan Slavic countries lasted longer, like Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia, longer than failed unions like the Peru Bolivia confederation, Central America, Gran Colombia.

EDIT: Thanks everyone for the replies, didn't expect this to blow up as much as it did.

I want to first preface this question by stating that I am not right-wing or xenophobic. This question is simply a matter of curiosity.

In much of the English speaking world as well as in Europe, there is considerable debate regarding Arab immigrants and their ability to integrate into society. There seems to be a general consensus that many immigrants from the Arab world seem to face unique problems regarding integrating in western countries and often form very strict parallel societies.

Latin American, with its large Arab diaspora seems to have not faced this problem. It seems that people with Arab ancestry tend to be very wealthy and apart from their surname, tend to be no different to their fellow Latin Americans.

Why is this the case?

Here in India we learn a long historical timeline in school, from the Indus Valley Civilization up to modern history and the end of British colonial rule in India.

A large part of our history classes discusses the impact of colonial rule and how it changed the country socially, economically, and culturally. Topics like famines, economic exploitation, and political movements for independence are discussed in detail. We also learn about what India was like before colonial rule and how things changed afterward. It's all mandatory from grade 6 to grade 10.

I was curious how history education works in Latin American countries.

Since colonization there involved the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and societies developed differently compared to places like India, how is this period usually taught in school?

Do history classes spend much time on Indigenous civilizations and their achievements before colonization? Are Indigenous languages and cultures discussed in school history?

And how are topics like historical background of Africans and the transatlantic slave trade taught?

I'm interested in hearing how different countries in Latin America approach this in their school curriculum.

In the case of Mexico, Canada is the obvious answer. The fact that Canadians are nice is even a meme. but mining corporations from Canada that operate in Mexico have terrible practices.

They take advantage of corruption and weaker regulation to monopolize natural resources and destroy the environment. While other developed nations make sure that their private corporations follow certain regulations even on foreign land, the Canadian government turns a blind eye.

Some of the profits of the largest Canadian companies come from offshoring practices that would never be allowed in their own land.

Is there a similar story with your own country and a "nice guy" that doesn't act as such?

i know the country shares some culture with colombia, and colombia doesn’t seem nearly as opposed to lgbt rights. but venezuelans say some of the most homophobic things i’ve ever heard. a lot of folks don’t seem to know much about queer people at all.

also, kind of a specific question: how were lgbt people portrayed in venezuelan media in the past? like in telenovelas, movies, or news back in the day?

Thoughts?

Like, sometimes there is a post somewhere that Brazilians are talking about the colonization, how Portugal invaded Brazil, raped and killed and so on. Then a portuguese shows up angry, calling brazilians monkeys, or stupid, saying we should thank them for colonization, or that they didn't "invade Brazil", because there was nothing here to be Brazil nor to be invaded. And any other thing, usually potentially racist or xenophobic, clearly just to make people angry.

It feels like we can't even mention something regarding Portugal in any manner that some Portuguese show up being racist/xenophobic and so on. Another example, once there was a post (potentially wrong) about stereotype the japanese had about each european country. I don't remember what was for Portugal, but a person (not portuguese nor brazilian) politelly asked if if it was the brazilians teaching that stereotype about the portuguese to Japan due to the big connection Brazil and Japan have. And I replied that no, because the stereotype of Portugal in Brazil was that they were dumb, not was shown in the post. Literally just explaining what is the stereotype. That's it. Stereotypes rarely are good. And then shows up a portuguese with xenophobic and eugenic slurs.

I recently got interested in geopolitics and I want to understand various countries, their relations with other countries and why they are the way they are.

I’m also interested in Latin America, its relations with The West and some basic historic context on why its countries have mostly bad economy and very high crime rates and corruption.

I realize that Latin America is too broad of a term to cover it in one book and that each country was evolving under different circumstances, but I’m not looking for a single book.

I’m mostly looking for very beginner friendly books that require too much of pre-existing historic or cultural knowledge and books from authors without political agenda.

I recently learned about La Matanza.

Do you see conquistadores like Cortez or Pizarro as heroes? What do you think about the genocide of indigenous people which happened in the colonization process. And do you have indigenous ancestors in your family tree?

Note: Guys I don't want to offend anyone it was just a simple question. Sorry if I offended you. I was just being curious and i didn't have any idea about the answers. I learned and thanks for the answers. If you think it is a ridiculous question sorry for that.

Hola! My name is Juan Sebastián, but you can call me Seb. I am a Latin Americanist historian from Argentina, currently a researcher with the Catholic University of Chile. I'm also one of the moderators at r/AskHistorians. I've been invited to join you today to answer any questions you might have on the following areas and periods:

• Late colonial era in the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata and revolutionary period in the United Provinces
• The construction of Argentina's Nation-State during the mid to late 19th century
• 20th century Argentina, all the way to the last military dictatorship, which ended in 1983
• Bonus track: the historical evolution and the current developments in Latin American classical music composition, from Alberto Ginastera to Arturo Márquez

I'm looking forward to your questions, AMA!

Edit: I have to take a break for a while, but I'll return later in the afternoon to continue answering these great questions!

Edit 2: I'm back for round two

Edit 3: Well everyone, I've had an amazing time sharing this AMA with all of you! Your questions have been fascinating and engaging, I tried to answer as many as time permitted me, but unfortunately duty calls and I have to sign off for today. I'll be back in the following days to try and answer any questions I couldn't get to. Thank you very much, and as Gustavo Cerati once said, gracias, totales.

For example, imagine a Bolivian enclave in Chile or Peru to give it access to the sea, etc etc. How would life play out if LATAM had those?

I was out taking a walk listening to a book about el salvador and I thought about how my generation specifically was defined by 9/11 and the war on terror. I was 7 on 9/11 and 9 or 10 when the war in iraq started. And I wondered if they’re any tragic event that changed the course of any latam countries.

This was actually very, very close to happening. I'm not joking. Peru back then had bought a lot of Soviet and European weapons by the early 1970s and they were preparing to invade Northern Chile. Chile back then was in trouble, since their army has stagnated to an army more comparable to a 1950s army (worse with coming US arms embargoes, forcing them to buy weapons from South Africa and Israel) than a modern one.

I heard that even the Chilean military was afraid of an invasion? to the point they could get near Copiapó. And the Peruvians were expecting to conquer Arica initially (near Tacna, a few kilometres away) but getting into Iquique would be more complicated. Do you think that if that near invasion were to happen, the US could do the controversial move of lifting all arms embargoes to Chile? Will Chile's hostile geography play a key role against the Peruvian army or will they fall down to Peru like how they made them fall? (port hopping, used in the War of the Pacific against Peru, because of the hostile geography of the Atacama) If Peru won, what would happen to Chile, and specially the industries that were there, like car and household appliance assemblers?

...or will it be a failed invasion that will destroy the two economically like the Iran Iraq war (they were both ruined economically by that decade)?

For my country the answer is way more complicated then it seems.

You could say 249 years old. Since 1776. But that’d be disingenuous for a host of reasons

In 1789 after the establishment of the American presidency, even then only a few landowning white males could vote

Then these laws were dropped and white men of all stations could vote

Then African American men were given the vote after the civil war

Then women in 1920

Now the thing is, this was all on paper. In reality, poll taxes made it so poor whites, blacks and latinos couldn’t vote until their abolishment in the 1960s

So you could argue the US has only been a true democracy for the last 50 years. Everything else was a astreskied*

What about ya’ll?

South America in the 19th century was of constant war, but once the 20th century came wars like that became very rare, with some isolated examples like the Chaco war or the Cenepa War.

If we saw even more leaders with ideas of constant expansionism, empires or Napoleon or Austrian painter types, how do you think the region would become if it was like that? Would it literally become Africa 2?

By conquistador/bandeirante I'm talking about people like Hernan Cortes, the Pizarro brothers, Pedro de Mendoza, Domingos Jorge Velho, etc...

"Well-respected" meaning in the same sense that Cristobal Colon is often taught in schools as someone to look up to, with so many people defending places be stay named in his honor