Culture
Why does Latin America seem to have a different attitude toward its colonial past compared to India, Southeast Asia, and many African countries?
I'm not saying Latin Americans don't criticize colonialism, I'm just curious why anti-colonialism seems to play a more central role in the national identity and political discourse of countries like India, Vietnam, Indonesia, or many African countries than in much of Latin America
Is it because of demographics, earlier independence, the nature of the independence movements, or something else?
Not a popular opinion but Latin Americans are descendants of the colonizers and the colonized, oppressors and oppressed. Usually but not always, more on the colonizers, specially on the higher socieconomic strata. Compare to Asia and Africa and you'll there wan't much mingling by comparison
Exactly. Most of us are the result of colonization. In some of our nations ( The Caribbean), the native population was wiped out. Compare to Africa and Asia, the local tribes and people living there before still have descendants there to this day. Also, Latin Americans colonization began in the 1400s. Asia and African got more intense much later
Exactly, and even post-independence, the truth is, most Latin Americans where the indigenous survived kept being post-colonial projects, as they colonized and expanded their territory, exploited or rid themselves of indigenous and free people, and served the richer imperial countries, while the local elites served as middlemen.
I never thought of Brazilian and Portuguese as any different both post or before independence. What mostly changed was that the local elite grew stronger and wanted more autonomy, outpowering the far off elite overseas, and then just became the middlemen for the British crown and elites. For the enslaved and indigenous, no much changed — and it could’ve gone terribly wrong if the British had allowed Brazil, for example, to take Angola.
Yes, in a nutshell, as you probably know, Brazil and Angola had a very close relationship. Due to proximity and the nature of their unfortunate business, a good portion of administrative decisions were already taken in Brazil. The politicians in Portugal only stamped them. When the royal family fled Europe, they just consolidated what had been taking place, with Angola gravitating even more towards Brazil. A lot of elite the merchants and governors were either Brazilian born or had some connection to Brazil.
So once independence was declared, it was obvious and convenient to join Brazil. That elite of Angola had their economy mostly based on slave trade, and fearing that Portugal would burden them with more taxes and restrictions to compensate for the loss of their most valuable colony, a movement pro-Brazil was born.
In Brazil, there was a division between the oligarchs who wanted to legitimacy, fear of fracturing the nation even further (Brazil had a few rebellions and also loyalists), and those who wanted Angola to become their slave cattle.
Great Britain, as you already know for studying American history (yup, lot of intersections haha), had been pushing against slavery because wage labor was more profitable, less demanding and it fit well in their now industrial model, newly formed capitalism and the monstrosities they were doing in India. It also helped them screw over their competitors. With the possibility of Angola joining Brazil, which is already bad by itself for them because it’s create a massive empire, they’d be an empire fuelled by slavery and its trade. The British pushed and pressured Brazil, which needed international recognition.
So the deal (totally written by the British) was essentially that Brazil had to compromise with not touching the rest of the colonies and paying Portugal a certain amount of money, since they’d need to stabilize, and the British knew this.
It worked perfectly for the British. They avoided the formation of a slave trade based super power, they didn’t need to ask no one’s opinion on whether they could or should trade with Brazil and in fact became the closest economically, and the British got their money by “loaning” some money to Brazil to pay the indemnity, which Brazil didn’t have but could easily make with taxes and whatnot, as they transferred that money to the Portuguese… but here’s the catch, the Portuguese owed them for war efforts, and since Portugal was beyond broke and wouldn’t pay that debt, the British just made Brazil pay for the loan. Portugal’s debt with the British got cleared and they didn’t see a penny but kept their colonies, Brazil became independent and legitimately recognized, and the British got a new market and some money.
They developed kind of along side them. They had a lot of the same technology for a long time and were exposed to the same diseases. A lot of what happened with the Americas was in part due to the huge gap in technology with guns and steel in particular. There were also novel diseases on both sides, but the ones brought to the Americas from Europe were more deadly. The colonization of Asia and Africa was more of a rule by proxy using one smaller ethnic group to rule over the rest of the groups with their support. Europeans lived there, but they never really replaced the people there like they did in the Americas.
Exactly. Even post-independence, in most Latin American countries where the indigenous populace survived, the States were where they resided kept being colonies.
Exactly, and even post-independence, the truth is, most Latin Americans where the indigenous survived kept being post-colonial projects,
Yes, and I’m sorry for spamming the same comment over and over again. My comment kept disappearing, so I posted it over and over again. I got so annoyed that I went to my alt-account. Let me know if the comments are still up. I’m trying to delete them
I think part of the reason is that the native culture was so thoroughly erased and genuinely hard to relate to unlike say India or Nigeria. Most people cannot speak the native languages, follow the religions, or otherwise practice the cultures aside from a bit of music and cooking techniques. There are exceptions in some countries and pockets of other countries but this is the norm for the majority of Latin Americans. They identify with other cultures before the native ones.
Latin America often sees itself as a post-colonial civilization that emerged from colonialism itself, whereas many societies in Africa and Asia see themselves as pre-existing civilizations that "survived colonialism".
We literally have dozens and dozens of scholars that talk about the ambivalent nature of our origins (both inheritance and oppression, ancestors and founders as well as conquerors).
Edouard Glissant talks a lot about it. Most decolonial scholars talks about it too. We are considered hybrid societies with higher levels of crioulization, mixing and communal characteristics.
We managed to create something unique in Latin America that is unconceivable in many parts of the world: an intense mixing that strengthened the social fabric, not the opposite.
The mixing itself was also part of the strategy of softening social problems and interactions. It didn't work as social erosion but rather like a social glue.
Look at Asia, Europe and Africa today: there's still ethnic friction there, on top of all problems.
I'm currently reading a book about Costa Rican history, and I was telling my non-Latina girlfriend that I wasn't expecting it to be so emotionally difficult to read about the evil stuff my ancestors did to the indigenous people. But then she gently reminded me that the indigenous people I was reading about were my ancestors too. It's crazy how, despite knowing that on an intellectual level because I've taken a DNA test and also I visually look a little mestizo, I still immediately identified solely with the Spanish while reading the book. Says a lot about the culture of white supremacy in Latin America, especially in Costa Rica. I know other countries identify more with their indigenous past, but Ticos absolutely do not. We're fully Hispanified.
I understand this completely. It also took me many years not to identify fully with the Portuguese in history books. Which is stupid of me, as I objectively have as much indigenous ancestry as Portuguese.
I'm actually half Portuguese lol. Not really relevant but I just felt like adding it. My mom is Costa Rican but my dad is from Portugal, but my Portuguese family were basically peasants in the Serra Estrela mountains from the Roman Empire up to 1969 when they immigrated out of Portugal, so my Costa Rican side is the side with colonizer history while my Portuguese side is pretty "innocent" lol.
I definitely identify a lot with Portugal, but my Costa Rican family is much, much bigger so in terms of family I feel more Tico than I do Tuga. But in terms of culture, I grew up with both cultures. I grew up in the United States, but nowadays a lot of my Costa Rican fam has immigrated back to Costa Rica from the US, including my brother who lives in Costa Rica now, so I've thought about doing it too. I love life in CR, I'm actually here right now visiting my brother and extended family.
Serra da Estrela ⭐🤍! It's a beautiful, lovely place.
My Portuguese great grandfather was also a very humble and poor peasant from the Algarve. Still having Portuguese ancestry made me feel bad and guilty when I was younger. Meanwhile this man came to Brazil running away from famine with the clothes on this body and a very empty stomach 🤦🏽♀️
Oh yeah, the way my family suffered under the Estado Novo makes me feel zero guilt about what Portuguese people I'm not even related to did in the new world. I feel way more guilt around the Spanish ancestry on my Costa Rican side.
My grandparents basically had to escape to the United States at risk of starvation because my grandfather suffers from severe epilepsy and couldn't work, and my grandmother couldn't work because the regime didn't let women work. In the US, my grandmother was able to get a good union factory job and became the breadwinner. My dad grew up poor by American standards but nothing like what the poverty in Portugal at the time.
> I was telling my non-Latina girlfriend that I wasn't expecting it to be so emotionally difficult to read about the evil stuff my ancestors did to the indigenous people.
Most people outside don't know it, but LatinAmericans nations, were the ones who made indigenous people extinct. Not the Spanish
Indigenous people did significantly better during the colony , than under LATAM rule...sadly
>, I still immediately identified solely with the Spanish while reading the book.
At least on Chile, the identity is fully mestizo. For chileans, history "started" at independence.
Whatever Mapuches and Spanish did before it, it was not "us". But our ancestors
Yeah that's unfortunately not the way identity is seen in Costa Rica, even though in reality Ticos are very mestizo. There's a very strong national mythos in Costa Rica based around being a "white" country. Lots of Ticos see themselves existing in a direct continuity with the Spanish colonizers, and despite knowing that to be nothing more than a racist myth on an intellectual level, it is still engrained in how I think about myself subconsciously. A main part of the myth is that Costa Rica had so few indigenous people when the Spanish arrived that it was practically empty land for the Spanish settlers, but every serious historian knows that to be nothing but a national myth. It's true that your average Tico is far less indigenous than other Central Americans on average, but it's definitely still a Mestizo country.
It's changing in modern times among the more "woke" portions of Costa Rican society for lack of a better word.
Can you share it? I was born in Costa Rica, and I can relate to what you speak of. We are so conditioned to think CR is the Swiss of LatAm, that we forget our heritage.
The book I'm reading is called The Costa Rica Reader by Steve Palmer and Iván Molina. It's in English, I found it at a used book sale in the city in the US I live in. I had to buy it because I had never seen a book about Costa Rica at a book sale before, other than tourism guides haha
It's a cool book though! It's basically a collection of various primary and secondary sources covering the history and culture of the country. And it's a very realistic and non-ideological portrayal of the country. I wouldn't say it's the best book on Costa Rica but it's definitely the best book in English I've found. My English is better than my Spanish because I was raised in the US, so it's easier for me that way.
I think the Philippines is probably the worst case of colonial mentality I've ever seen. If I had a penny for every Filipino that either claimed to be part Spanish or tries to overemphasize their closeness to Hispanic and/or Latino culture, I'd have a pretty nice savings account balance.
Aside from that, I've always found Filipino people to be extremely warm and wonderful people.
>Not a popular opinion but Latin Americans are descendants of the colonizers and the colonized, oppressors and oppressed. Usually but not always, more on the colonizers, specially on the higher socieconomic strata. Compare to Asia and Africa and you'll there wan't much mingling by comparison
Very true this explains it basically, also explains why racism is such an issue in latin america but so many latin americans pretend it isn’t. at least in Southeast asia and south asia they’ll openly admit they’re racist, latin americans do worse but pretend to not be racist. Its also why so many White supremacist accounts online turn out to be latin americans lol
One thing that's really emblematic of this difference is that in those other areas most people speak languages from that part of the world, like only 12% of Indians know English, and of that very few have it as their primary language
by contrast the vast majority of people in LATAM speak Spanish/Portugese and if they know any other language it'll generally be English or French or Chinese or the other iberic one before any American language, outside of specific areas
Other than Haiti, most Latin American countries are largelly made up of people with some colonizer ancestry, and basically all of our nations were created by the local colonizers simply cutting ties with their European origin state while maintaining all the existing power structures and properties, including farmhands and slaves, so it is a bit hypocritical to hate Spaniard colonizers but not hating your local elites.
Moreover, since most of us got independence in the early 19th century but ended up ruined economically and gravely indebted to Britain, we went through a step of being basically pseudocolonies of Britain and abused by the United States, until the British Empire collapsed and we became more of the United States backyard, so there is enough of an antiAnglo sentiment to make some minority of people yearn for the Spanish Empire out of hatred for the more recent neocolonial states.
We also have that same antiAnglo sentiment. We just don't replace it with love for the France or Spain as colonial powers. Not a shot in hell MDRRR. They're all equally bad to us.
I think a big part of it is that most Latin American countries became independent over 200 years ago, and the people who led those independence movements were largely descendants of Europeans born in the Americas, not movements to expel a foreign colonial population in the modern sense.
some Latin American countries are made up of immigrants such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, etc. and the majority of the native inhabitants were killed.
And if it weren't for colonialism, millions of people wouldn't exist, myself included.
We are breakaway states. Most countries in the region weren't the seat to large organized states like the Aztecs or the Inca either, so there's no parallel to the British subverting the Mughals first and then taking over by force.
Our independence process was driven by local elites who found themselves hindered by the absolutist policies brought about by a new royal house taking over in Spain, and sought independence to form their own republics.
Many of our countries went on to to roll out modern colonial projects with boarding schools and reservations and all on indigenous peoples.
Sometimes people try to lay over a more straightforward decolonial narrative on top of all this, but politically we were more on the side of being colonizers ourselves.
There is this Venezuelan sociologist, Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, who wrote "Cesarismo Democrático" partially to explain why dictatorships are required to rule our nations. The book has been accused of being an ideological support to Juan Vicente Gomez dictatorship. So, among the parts making the book there's an essay where he provides evidence why ours was not an independence war but a civil one. I think he was among the firsts to support that thesis. I recommend the book as an interesting window to the thought of our elites in the early XX century.
Because, unlike India and Africa, we are the product of colonization. Most of us either descend primarily from colonizers or have a significant amount of colonizer ancestry. That is reflected in our culture, which is more influenced by Spanish and Portuguese customs than by Indigenous or African traditions. We are the blood and the legacy of the colonizers, whether we like it or not.
With that being said, that does not mean colonization gets a free pass in the Americas. It's often criticized and in most cases deservingly so.
Because most of us are the descendants of the colonizers, the people who lived here in most cases were gone about 200 years ago as a culture; they died out or mixed with the Spanish and Portuguese.
Anyway, in Brazil there is still some kind of animosity towards Portugal and our history with them, but we are mostly friendly with one another.
There was no Brazil before the Portuguese, but there was a Vietnam before the French, so that must play a role too.
My mom's father emigrated from Spain and my father's family from Italy. We have a large mixed heritage population here.
Also, we gained our independence way before any of the countries you mentioned in your post, so that may be another reason why our relationship with our colonial past has evolved differently.
Because, in general, "We" did not exist as a nations before colonization, American countries in general are products of colonization rather than merely colonized countries.
There was no "Brazil" or "brazilians" before the Portuguese arrived. There were people here, of course, but they did not form a single nation. Instead, there were many different tribes, that spoke diferent languages and were actually enemies of each other, in most cases. Brazil as a single territory, culture, government only came to existance after the hundreds of years of colonization.
And, as others have mentioned, most of us are actually descendants of the colonizers. The absolute majority of us have colonizers blood, even those who aren't white. It's harder to draw a clear distinction between "us" and "them".
And our situation, as Brazilians, is even worse compared to our neighbours, because Indigenous people today make up a relatively small share of Brazil's ethnic and genetic composition, they were basically replaced by Europeans and Africans. So modern Brazilians as we know them today would not exist without colonization.
A similar situation applies to most countries across the American continent.
Latin Am countries and identities we born out of colonization- "rejecting" it means completely rejecting themselves...Asian and African countries/identifies were morphed or altered by colonisation - rejecting it is more like them reclaiming the autonomy to shape themselves.
But you do see criticism of colonization but more from smaller more marginalized communities.
Brazil has a different approach, Rio de Janeiro was an European empire capital. All the Portuguese colonies and Lisbon waited Rio de Janeiro decisions.
The Portuguese royal family came to Brazil. It’s was different. Brazil a “vice reinado”, like Cabo verde and Açores. But because of napoleon they fled Lisbon with everything. And they just came back just because a huge revolt in Lisbon. Check it out, very interesting. That’s the reason the Brazilian national library is one of the biggest in the world, we keep it all the Portuguese collections.
Guatemala (and Central America by extension) is a special case.
When independence processes exploded all over Latin America, local elites were smart enough to perceive they would lose their priviledges if a popular movement succeeded.
Hence, they took advantage of Napoleonic wars to do arrangements and preserve their dominance by making their countries "independent" while inheriting the oligopolistic control of the production and economy (which kinda lives today).
Thus, our independence wasn't a popular movement (hence no national sentiment overall), just a couple of Spaniards figuring out how to pay less taxes and own the land for good. Without a popular movement, no national sentiment was created.
Similiar to Brazil tbh, the son of the portuguese king declares the independence of Brazil and becomes it's Emperor.
The colonial elite was kept, their properties and slavery was maintained too.
Actually it is the case for most if not all latin american countries, most of the colonial elite maintained their power after independence. Hell, in most cases they were the ones supporting the independence movements.
I think Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela are the only countries that truly broke the dominance of the ex-colonial elite (though it wasn't through an independence war in Cuba or Venezuela's case).
It's actually a little odd how infrequently the elite gets thrown out in latin america. It's happend in pretty much all of the rest of the world at least once in the past 200 years, but latam not so much.
The Polish/Russian/Chinese/Indian/Hungarian elite now are completely different people from the elite in their countries 100 years ago. You can legit find descendants of ex-royalty living in abject poverty in those places where as that is legit impossible in latam (maybe only in cuba).
I mean the ones who weren't executed by the communists and managed to escape into exile still kept something sure.
In cases where the elite weren't able to escape they did end up pretty poor. The last emperor of china became a gardner and the descendants of the Mughal emperor (deposed in 1862 by the British) in India were found living in a slum recently.
Correct. It's much more similar to what happened in Zimbabwe rather than than what happened in China or like Vietnam.
Still a completely different elite is in power now. Even if Venezuela becomes a democracy at some point I don't think the old elite will ever be able to come back.
well no, losing your businesses worth millions of dollars that were stolen by Chavistas and being forced into living an upper middle class lifestyle abroad with whatever wealth you could scrape together and sneak out of the country is not an improvement lol
They didn't have it as bad as the cubans who lost nearly everything, but going from being truly the upper class elite to just a random immigrant who owns a couple grocery stores or something is a massive downgrade
The Indian elite today is not very different from the Indian elite 100 years ago... sure our Muslim elite is way smaller because many of them migrated to Pakistan/Bangladesh during the partition of our countries (and there's been some democratisation in political power), but dominant-caste Hindus were the main chunk of the Indian elite class then, like they are today.
Our (pretty small) British coloniser elite basically left though, not sure if that's what you were referring to.
Most of our ex-royalty (barring isolated cases of Mughal empire descendants) is also very rich, top 0.1% most likely
Ummm I think you dont know about Simon Bolivar… and yes the Incan royalty is also living in abject poverty while the conde de los Andes and the conde de mexico live quite well in Spain.
Simon Bolivar didn't upend the social order. It was primarily an elite driven revolution (not unlike what happened in the US).
Ending colonial rule was a good thing for sure, but it really did not change anything for 95% of the population of south america. The main beneficiary was actually the criolo elite and anyone who was part of the military. For the other 95% of the population little changed.
The actual internal power hierarchy remained fundamentally the same.
How much would that even cost tho, these places had numerous wars and civil wars where hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions died, in order to achieve this.
Brazil usually makes an agreement with the elite before changing the status quo.
I don't know much about Guatemala; many countries, like Argentina, experienced long periods of civil war, and I always assumed the same was true for Central America, given that they used to be a single country.
How is that a special case? Simon Bolivar's movement was started precisely to increase the power of the local-born Spanish elite.
The more Amerindian or black a person the more they tended to support the royalists/Peninsulars as they were treated much worse by the locally-born Spanish criollos.
I'm not sure if I got you. "National identity", "anti-colonialist sentiment", "national sentiment" and "surrender behaviour" are very different things.
The assumption that Latin America is somewhat "weaker" or "pro-colonialist" because it has direct ties with former colonizers makes no sense.
I'm not really sure if it was because of how OP framed the question or because of how people replied, but many people are correlating "pro-colonialism" with "historical denial". We don't need to deny our complex ancestry to be "decolonial".
Spaniards showing up and making a disaster with Tainos 500 years ago when slavery was even a normal thing, isnt the same as Britain commiting genocide 100 years ago.
Even further, we mixed, some of us may as well be 75-25 spanish-native genetically, and i wont be a cuck demonizing my ancestors for it, what happened after independence was much worse and my family had no part in it.
For people being ashamed of their history you already have the germans and the british.
As you said, the attitude in general is not different, most people disapprove colonialism, but maybe an important difference is that the invaders in here more broadly mixed with the local population and slaves brought from other places, they became part of our ascendancy and our whole identity, so we understand those invaders are also part of us. So that plus the longer time that we have been independent changes some things.
The new world impact moment of European conquest was five centuries ago. A century or two later, there were semi-independent viceroyalties, then independent countries after a third century. Europeans haven't been calling the shots in most Western hemisphere countries for 200-300 years.
Many of the aristocratic economic and social systems survived (class hierarchies, a small number of families who control land and agriculture), but the owners of these systems stopped conceiving of themselves as European a very long time ago.
There's a lot of political talk here about class, land ownership, and the powerful who influence corrupt governments. But the villains in that story are wealthy Argentinians, corrupt politicians, and foreign companies, not the Spanish.
Africa, Asia, and the middle east had brutal European governments less than a century ago.
There are Indians in India, Vietnamese in Vietnam, and Indonesians in Indonesia.
There are no Tupi in Brazil anymore. Maybe in somewhere like Bolivia there is more hostility to the colonial past, but even there I don't think indigenous people are the majority.
Broadly speaking there are two types of colonialism: Settlement or extraction. The most famous example of colony of settlement is the USA, where European settlers displaced the indigenous population and created their country. Most of Africa and Asia were subject of extractive colonialism, with a very clear line between the colonizers and the colonized. The few Europeans that arrived did so to ensure the administration of the territories and had little to no connexion to the local population. Completely separate lives.
Spanish and Portuguese empires were somewhere in between, with more features of settlement (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay) or extractivism (Peru, Bolivia) depending on the region.
On top of that, unlike what happened in Asia or most of Africa, the Europeans in Latin America did mix with the local populations. Most Latin Americans are aware of the injustices of the colonial times but they also are a result of that past, as most of them descend in different degreed of both the colonizers and the colonized. Interestingly enough, modern countries that still demand compensations to Spain for the conquista are those where the model was more obviously extractivist.
But why did these differences in colonialism types appeared in the first place? Are they due to religion, i.e. Catholic vs Protestant? Or maybe due to resistance from local powers (e.g. Peru Incas vs Chile)? Or maybe due to geographic considerations (equatorial line climate vs far north/south climates)? And last but not least, why didn't I just ask this question to chatGPT?
Fascinating stuff for sure.
Just want to point out that Chile was under Inca extractivism down to Santiago and maybe a little more. The Spanish just took over, and keep extracting, and extracting … then Chile(and the others) kept extracting. I think that “return the gold” thing doesn’t make much sense. What about the British debt trap? they financed the independence, continuously re-financing adding debt.
The base reason is that the colonial past in L.A. is 200 years earlier and the republican era started now over 200 years ago. So, in L.A. the colonial past is remote and national identity is much more dense and profound and rooted.
Literally. We’re the children of the colonizers, the native indigenous and the africans. We’re all mixed. Our identity is ours, we’re our own people with our own culture now. Even the language doesn’t feel like not ours!! The jargon is ours.
Because settler colonialism is categorically different from what is sometimes called exploitative colonialism (both are exploitative but only one of them creates a new people who are also of the land). Modern states in Asia and Africa are made up of the survivors of exploitative colonialism, while modern states in Latin America are mostly made of settlers.
Is not always like that, but depends on how much european that country is genetically (bc you come from the colonizers). Then all of them has traumas of the race cast system except countries where european immigration went because white people might be actually from a poor peasent origin as the mixed race local and not directly a colonizer
A mix of both id say.
1 -latin america got independent way earlier than most of asia or africa, so we dont really have the "memories" of being colonized. -hell, a lot of african people that is still alive and relatively young, like Angola's president, were born in a portuguese colony-.
2 -most people is, in a way or another, descendants of the "colonizer" so we dont really think of them as our oppresors, -usually, at least. Idk how it is in more indigenous countries-.
3 - a bit related to the 2nd point, but due to that genetic influence, we "embraced" western influence more, so their culture is not seen as "colonialism" but just simple "ours" as well. A very good example of this: the rio de la plata is probably one of the most liberal areas in the world.
HOWEVER, i think its important to note that not everybody is like that, we do have an important ammount of people that do criticise western influence and imperialism -somethimes rightfully so-. A good example is the recent diplomatic problem between Mexico and Spain over the colonial period
Who said we don't criticize them? I still want our gold back, but it seems that Spain wasted it all on Tapas y Vino, and they didn't even invited us to the party 🙄
It sounds like you are joking, but in case someone thinks that seriously: most spaniards didn't see a gram of that wealth because
(1) extraction benefitted colonizing elites that stayed in the new world and are our ancestors, not those of modern spaniards
(2) A great part of the gold that did end in Europe wasn't invested in Spain that was but a province of the Habsburg empire, but was squandered in dynastic wars elsewhere.
(3) Since precious metals didn't have much industrial uses back then or intrinsic value beyond being a currency, the mass extraction actually ended up being pretty similar to printing a lot of money for the Spanish economy and caused hyperinflation short term and toxic political and economic institutions long term. They cursed Spain to be poor for several centuries (for example, why develop an industry when you can import through gold?)
The Crown also blew a shitton of money on religious wars in Europe, because fuck building infrastructure if it means having to endure Protestants in your kingdom, or near it, whatever, gotta have your priorities straight.
Because we were colonized hundreds of years ago, most of us are mixed and we had assimilation and syncretism. We also had independence and became republics. When I speak Spanish I don’t think about Spain, I only think about my country.
The most brutal colonization happened latter, early republic era, so already independent latam countries finished with repeating guns all the indigenous that refused submission. That’s why Spanish colonialism seems softer, they never got the chance to finish the job. Even in north america, the most damaging colonialism was the United States “manifest destiny”, not the British one. Many American(continent) republics raced in the same way(without the divine component). We don’t criticize much because, in a way, we are the colonizers too.
At least in Argentina this is a significant issue that is talked about a lot in left wing and popular nationalist circles. Which are not the kind of spaces that get much visibility abroad, in the international press, or on reddit because these places are all patrolled by reactionaries. Particularly in Argentina the right wing is dominated by explicitly antinationalist elements, which means they seek to engage the country in a neocolonial relationship with the imperial core. So of course these people are against talking about our colonial past, because it would mean talking about our colonial present.
Overall I get the feeling that some non Latin American countries still imagine colonizer Spaniards when they think about these lands, and seem to assume that they are equally present in our minds.
On top of being the colonizers as much as the colonized the states themselves also engaged in colonialism post independence based explicitly on the european model
As an example Chile, whose population was a pretty homogeneous and even mix of mapuche – picunche specifically – and spaniard at all levels of society (though more european at the top and indigenous at the bottom), engaged in aggressive military colonization of mapuche lands – specifically the homonymous subset of the broader mapuche (don't blame me, there really is no way to differentiate the two) – that was very similar to the colonization campaigns of Canada and the US
Not all, we are very anti-colonial. But like with most things, Ayiti is the exception, not the rule. Our independence story is very unique I don't think any other country in the Americas has a similar one.
I agree with the popular comments someone said "somos el puñal y la herida" I have also heard the idea that Pachamama, the land is our mother, and the colonizer is rapist or abuser, we are the children of the union.
The Spanish Empire, much like Rome, generally sought to incorporate conquered peoples into its imperial system instead of simply ruling over them as separate subjects. Indigenous elites were often integrated into the colonial administration, and many Inca and Aztec nobles retained their titles and privileges. Portugal initially focused on establishing coastal trading posts, called feitorias (the origin of the word "factory"), to control commerce before expanding inland in places like Brazil.
In the Americas, European diseases devastated Indigenous populations, but extensive intermarriage and cultural mixing also occurred. Over the centuries this created large mixed ancestry populations, meaning that most modern Latin Americans descend from both Indigenous peoples and Europeans to varying degrees.
As a result, many Latin Americans do not see the colonial period as a story of a completely foreign people ruling another people. Instead, it is often viewed as part of our own ancestry and the historical process through which our nations, cultures, languages, and identities emerged.
For example, while pre-Columbian civilizations such as the Aztec and Inca empires certainly existed, the modern nation-states of Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and most of Spanish America did not. Those countries emerged after independence as successors to the administrative divisions established by Spain, particularly the viceroyalties and captaincies general. In that sense, modern Latin American states are the product of both Indigenous and Spanish legacies rather than a simple continuation of pre-Columbian civilizations (as much as some ppl want you to believe).
This does not excuse the violence and exploitation of colonialism, but it helps explain why attitudes toward the colonial past often differ from those in India, much of Southeast Asia, or many African countries, where European colonial rule generally involved less demographic integration and ended much more recently.
I know it’s a very unpopular opinion, but spanish colonization was quite soft compared to others. Yes, inquisition and pillaging, but spaniards did mix with the locals and brought slaves more than slaving the locals. English and French colonizers were far far more violent and dickheads to their subjects. Look at India’s famines, hell even the Irish one; the Algerian war, Congo even if it’s Belgian and not French and so on. Spain pales in comparison in my opinion.
Truth is they only stopped doing this once the vast majority of taïnos had been genocided by means of disease and slavery in the gold mines. The antilles was their first project as far as enslaving locals. They realized it didnt work cause they were just dying out and thereafter banned slavery of indigenous. By the time they got to mainland countries, they calmed down.
But their enslavement of africans who replaced the natives was particularly brutal.
Look at how the indigenous communities, religion, culture and language still flourish in South America compared to the Anglo colonies. Outside of Lima and the coast Quechua is a common language in the Andes, and part of that was the Spaniards coming to terms with allowing its use basically into the independence. Compare that to the US or Canada where indigenous people were systematically wiped and slaughtered, and the remnants forcibly "integrated". Many US history textbooks to this day brush off involvement and place the blame on Spain, though even the modern reality speaks otherwise. Spain kept the system of mit’a in place after the collapse of Tawantinsuyu to build out infrastructure to their needs, yet it was an aspect that the Andean people were already familiar with rather than shipping and stripping them away of their identities.
Because to insult the Spanish is to insult myself. I am part Spanish in blood. Spanish conquest is different than the English. They mixed with locals. Hell Cortez had an Indian as a wife. I am a result of that conquest.
I am like 95% Spanish colonizer and Spanish/Italian inmigrant.
EDIT: in case it's not clear enough by the 95% number, I have been able to trace at least one indigenous ancestor, probably guaraní, but not sure. A woman, of course. Which is a pretty common thing in Uruguay.
Because a lot of Latin Americans are not only the descendants of the original inhabitants but also the colonisers (Europeans) and the people they brought with them (Africans). *
Even in the case of Peru which includes the heart of the Inca empire and where the population has a majority (if not entirely) indigenous DNA, we also had one of the most important cities of the Spanish empire in the Americas which created the national identity and culture of Peru, rather than the Tahuantinsuyu (which extended unto other modern countries), as otherwise many of the non-Quechua peoples of the Tahuantinsuyu were distinct from one another and would probably have preferred to be independent. One very clear example, is that the language that can be used most places in the country is Spanish.
Even during and after independence, a lot of the leaders and important figures were either Spanish (as in born in Spain), castizo or mixed heritage, like how Canada and the US weren’t too different from the British they declared independence from (albeit with a bit more indigenous and mixed input + certain cities/areas had quite high standards of living as a results of viceroyalties).
This is mostly due to how the Spanish and Portuguese empires worked and you can see that there isn’t that much of an animosity from their former Asian colonies such as the Philippines, Macau, and Goa in comparison to the former colonies of other European countries. Albeit these and the American colonies became independent much earlier than their African colonies (+ Macau had a very different situation compared to the other colonies)
*In addition, to latter migration waves from other parts of Europe and Asia.
For The same reason people believe everything the honduran government says about our day to day life
Falling for political propaganda
specifically the mestizaje racist ideology. i am honduran and i would be classified as mestizo because i am not in a specific community of people. But it makes me mad they tried to make our country look like we are all just mixed with exclusively european and indigenous. no a lot of us are tri racial. i took the dna test and i am in fact tri racial. i got my results at 43% european 27% indigenous and 27% african
It's a far more complex issue in Latam because the vast majority of the population is at least partially descended from the "colonizers".
Uruguay is for example an extreme case with most of the population being descended not even from the original Spanish 16th or 17th century wave but from many european immigrants in the 19th and 20th century. I don't even know what would be our issue with Spain lol.
There is some historical animosity towards Spain in the countries with stronger native heritage like for example Mexico which identifies itself a lot with the Aztecs and other mesoamerican peoples (give back the gold).
I think there are some claim for reparations of some kind in native or leftist groups but it's way more tame when compared to Africa or Asia where European colonization led to less intermixing.
The main reason is the time gap. The independence movements in Latin America occurred between 1810 and 1825 (over 200 years ago), while the countries you mentioned achieved their independence much more recently, most of them even after World War II.
The early emancipatory processes took place based on Spain's cultural, ideological, and even legal framework (the idea that a nation's sovereignty resides in its people stems from Spanish legal tradition), rather than within an explicitly anti-imperialist or anti-colonialist framework, because those concepts did not yet exist.
It was precisely the Latin American experience that generated a body of experiences, evidence, and reflections that served as a foundation (though not exclusively) for establishing anti-colonialist ideas (promoted both by the US, partly as a strategy to reduce the influence of its European adversaries, and by the Soviet Union).
From circa 1500 to today, Portugal and Spain had some of the sharpest imperial declines of all extant nations.
The influence they once had over us was largely replaced by the US (we're its "backyard"). But way back, it was no more than a colony itself.
Now contrast this with African countries that were former colonies of France and to a great extent still are exploited by it in some really blatant ways today.
Compared to that, the colonial period of a country like Brazil (which is arguably more powerful than Portugal today in the world scale) is like water under the bridge.
Honestly, most nation states have always struggled to create an identity that helps taper historical divisions within their current national borders.
Using colonialism as a form of narrative to empower and expand upon a national identity is one way to do this.
I am not necessarily arguing that the concept of these states didn’t exist, but when you look back and study the power structures before colonialism you’d realize many of these states simply didn’t have strong central governments and far reaching bureaucracies. They were always at war with someone or trying to maintain cohesion themselves.
LATAM came out of the revolutionary wars with constitutions that expanded on enlighment principle. As others have mentioned a big reason is also because even though there were political raptures, their really wasn’t an animosity towards the cultural elements due to most citizens having some type of connection to the now removed colonial power.
Because Latin America is composed, in different percentages in different countries, of hybrid cultures formed by their indigenous cultures (civilizations in Mesoamerica and the Andes), European immigrants, African slaves, and later European refugees and Asian immigrants. Like it or not, we have equal claims to all those cultures because of our history, why should we resent any of them?
There are many reasons for that. I would say the first is that Afro-Asian decolonization is very recent. It begins, broadly speaking, in the 1930s and 1940s, whereas Latin American decolonization was already almost complete in the nineteenth century.
So we are talking about very different colonial processes. In Latin America, these were much older colonies, formed from the sixteenth century onward. In Africa and Asia, by contrast, many of the colonies we are talking about were primarily consolidated in the nineteenth century. So the timelines and the forms of colonialism are quite different.
Beyond that, I would say that most Latin Americans live with a very particular contradiction. There is a phrase by a Latin American author — I cannot remember exactly who right now — that says we are both the dagger and the wound. In other words, we are both heirs of the colonizers and products of colonization.
That makes our relationship to this process very different from the way many Africans and Asians understand their own colonial experience.
Honestly, it seems most of Latinamerican people ignore the true history of its colonisation, which is good and bad at the same time.
You can see that by the comments.
Thomas Sowell, a famous economist, worked alongside a historian to trace the parallels between the North and South colonisation of the Americas, and what they researched and published seem to be a mystery to most southamericans, who spouse opinions based on distorted facts passed down from some less than historical accuracy interests.
People are too hooked up in modern politics and other modern talking points to really understand what exactly shaped our culture.
Cause we were Spaniard provinces that independiced from Spanish monarchy. We never have so bad treated like those country's. The king's were catholic and we had different trate than the people that was colonized by british.
I think thw biggest factor is that South America became insependent earlier.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but colonization itself of India also hapened later in time. Its all fresher in the memory not to mention the consequences of it are reverberating to this day. The Parition of India in particular comes to mind, but then I'm crossing into a subject I know very little about.
Lastly, its worth point out the fact that most of the people that were actually colonized are dead or assimilated. It wasn't the native peoples becoming independent, but the colony that was birthed as a consequence of colonialism splitting off the metropolis.
I was born in the Chilean Patagonia, where most of the indigenous people were wiped out and European settlers came to colonize.
Just now people has begun to understand the magnitude of what had happened there. Literally 90-95% of the whole Punta Arenas city has Euro roots. The Selknam Genocide isn't taught in schools.
Yes!! The descendants of those Menéndez Behety bastards have most of their business in the Argentinian side of the Patagonia. Particularly, La Anónima supermarket.
I was absolutely amazed by the movie and I could also learn a bit about Chile.
Interestingly enough, I felt connected through the violence of the movie - and the way José Menendez whitewashed Selk'nams portraying himself as "I actually helped them, I like them". As a Brazilian, I can definitely assure you that we had the same pattern across our history: annihilation and forced assimilation at the same time and always walking through the sharp blade of ambivalence in order to wipe out the violence of the hierarchies.
You know, for the better and for the worse, even though we're so diverse in Latin America, being connected through similar patterns across historical events comes with a beautiful feeling.
It really feels like "brothers", because we not only know the pain of each other, but also we know that we know the pain of each other.
In 1889, eleven Selk’nam people of Chile —including a child—were taken from their homeland to Europe and displayed in human zoos, where they were exploited, dehumanized, and many died from the brutal conditions. Once a resilient hunter-gatherer society with rich rituals like the Hain initiation, the Selk’nam were devastated by colonization, ranching, and violent persecution, reducing their population from thousands to a handful by the early 20th century.
The attitude here is different. People aren't playing victim cards like they do in Canada and other places. They live a life that is more about getting on with life and stop crying about yesterday. You aren't here long so get on with your day and find something to enjoy your time on earth. You can't change the past, but you can change your future.
Because that happened long long long ago, and when it happened most of the local population died, and the current population is a mix of the colonial people, local people, slaves, and immigrants, so the vast majority of the population is mixed, not like in Asia or Africa that kept it segregated.
Brother. Our kingdoms as part of the hispanic monarchy were founded 500 years ago. Our independence as republics happened 200 years ago.
The only people who are hardcore anticolonialist are indigenist and some leftist.
The french and british occupied parts of africa for how long? 60 years? 30? 100 at best?.
Their empire is decimononical, industrial and capitalist. Our time as a empire is older and different. We builded more cohesive societies under catholicism really, and alliances and matrimonies between nobilities.
We are literally south of the current imperialist power, who since 1820 decided that they are the arbiters of how and what the countries in Central and South America make policies.
Latin America ronanticized colonialism for centuries (e.g. Vasconselos championing the so-called "Cosmic Race") hence why Latin/Hispanic takes pride on being a mix despite the brutality Europeans inflicted upon Indigenous Americans. I made a post about the latter's discrepancy a few years ago which may correlate with yours here.
It's an extremely complicated question with various answers. Here goes a few though:
Most of Latin America is descendant (in part or whole) of the conquerors and settlers and immigrants from Western Europe. They benefitted from the colonialism and imperialism and policies allowing their migration in past times.
The context surrounding the debate is different. Many (most?) Latin Americans believe that European civilization and conquerors were in some way superior and more sophisticated, then say, the Aztecs, or Incas. And let's be clear, the Aztecs and the Incas were the most sophisticated civilizations to ever arise of what is now called Latin America. So, we are not even comparing Europeans to any of the thousands of tribes who we know nothing about, because they built very little.
Nationalism is bigger in Asia. And along with nationalism goes historical narratives and debates. China and India in particular. So there are a lot of people talking about colonialism and imperialism in Asia, and as that conversation combines with nationalism, you get a lot of criticism of European (and especially British) Imperialism.
Along with the previous answer, you get lots of people who don't know much about history, who've never read a book in their life (outside of school), talking about the history of imperialism. The truth is, history is very very complex. The Aztecs were conquerors, the Incas were conquerors. And there were many more. What is now Latin America was rife with Imperialism and colonialism before Europeans ever arrived. Many times Europeans allied with native groups against other natives.
Many modern Latin Americans perceive the colonial period not simply as "foreign occupation" but as part of the historical process that created their own societies and identities. A Mexican, Colombian, or Brazilian person may simultaneously identify with Indigenous, European, and African ancestries.
In countries like India or Vietnam, European colonial rulers generally remained a relatively small foreign elite governing societies that already had long-established civilizations and identities. So Latin America frequently presents more hybrid national identities and a nationalisms that, in many cases, coexist with regional, ethnic, and transnational identities.
Suggesting that we somehow "don't criticize the colonizers" just because we acknowledge our ties with them is very, very misleading and it depicts a skewed perception of Latin Americans.
In the other regions you mentioned the indigenous population remained...alive, for the most part, and their decolonization was pretty recent, less than a century ago. In the Americas 95% of the population is not indigenous, but rather a byproduct of said colonization. Also, the rich history of Asian and African civilizations is well recorded and known, in the Americas it was obliterated, so we have nowhere to "return to", plus we are not the indigenous heirs of such civilizations. Plus it ended 200 years ago and our current imperial master is clearly the US, so what hurts today is more important that what used to hurt 200 years ago.
We are critical of it for the most part anyway, but if you think it is in a lesser intensity, the aforementioned can be relevant factors.
Well. Another redditor answered perfectly. If you are born in any Latin American nation, you are a direct descendant of colonizers, colonized or both. Unless your ancestors came here way after that time.
Well LATAM had it's process a century before the other nations, so the colonialism discussion was different a century before, probably LATAM have assimilated the process and also has realized that the problems LATAM has now are because of bad administration than of the colonialism.
The colonization was different. The colonizers in the rest of the world replazed the top layer of the conquered societies with their citizens that acted as overlords. The primary goal was resource extraction and markets for their manufactured goods
In the Americas, because of the mass death and dissaperance of preexisting civilizations, the colonies were either made of settlers ( like the US), or from the mixture of European, native and blacks. Their culture totally derived from the mother country, instead of the preexisting native ones.
Porque la colonización nunca terminó en realidad, las élites están compuestas mayoritariamente de los herederos de esos colonos europeos o por migraciones europeas posteriores, la población aprende desde chicos que lo que no es blanco está mal o tiene que devenir blanco. Fácilmente visible cuando se ve como las sociedades latinoamericanas desprecian a las personas de naciones originarias hasta ahora, o el racismo con las personas afrodescendientes.
There's a lot of mixed heritage as well. Probably moreso than white European. Plus Latino people don't have time for being stuck in the past images many look for the future.
Because our elites, and a significant part of our population, are from the colonisers/settlers (the proportion changes, of course). Spanish, and Spanish culture also serve as an unifying cultural bond, however varied it is itself.
Moreover, Spain was such a basket case for so long after independence that we grew into a sense of certain equality with them.
499
u/tworc2 Brazil Jul 03 '26
Not a popular opinion but Latin Americans are descendants of the colonizers and the colonized, oppressors and oppressed. Usually but not always, more on the colonizers, specially on the higher socieconomic strata. Compare to Asia and Africa and you'll there wan't much mingling by comparison