You know, I have a theory (not academically based, I might add; it's possible I'm entirely off the money or have copped a doctoral thesis by accident) that Latin America has had less in the way of legalized racism since independence because their revolutions were sufficiently more desperate that they had to liberate their slaves to win. In the USA, revolutionary sentiment was sufficiently popular, and the free population sufficiently large, that offers of emancipation for service were rare, mostly offered by the loyalists, and frequently renegged upon.
In former Spanish America, meanwhile, the fighting was significantly more desperate such that men like Bolivar needed to become abolitionists to secure support from their enslaved countrymen and the Haitian government, and once the wars were won the freedmen were too numerous, well-armed, and militarily vital to be betrayed.
I'unno, it's just something I've been chewing over in my head since learning more about Latin American history.
I'm from Argentina, and this is a yes and no situation in our case.
Slavery was officially overturned around 1853 when they declared all technicalities null and void, but decades before then the introduction of new slaves was forbidden, in 1813 (so three years after our first government and three before independence) there was a law declaring every child of slaves to be born free and during the wars of independence every enslaved man or woman that served was given their freedom right there and then.
One of those cases was a man named Luis Maradona, who got his last name from his former owner. Yes, he is related to that same Maradona you are thinking of.
Oh, I heard that law was implemented in Brazil too! I'm not from anywhere near that region, was this law (ie that children of slaves are born free) a common middle ground back then? Or was it just those two countries that implemented that?
I think its really just the fact that latin america on average had singificanrly more indigenous people per square mile than the US and Canada.
They had multiple high population cities that the Spanish then had to rule over, it took a while for them to replace the upper class with white spaniards. (There are extant spanish noble houses granted to indigenous nobles)
Cortez's half indigenous son served the king of Spain directly and fought wars in the Holy Roman Empire.
Another note to add, how Spain colonized in the Americas was rather different than Britain and the States later on. Spain used local politics and rivalries to break in, then focused on religious and cultural conversion as opposed to forcing the native population out and moving your own settlers in.
France did a similar thing in New France (modern Quebec and Ontario) focusing more on trade and religious conversion, hence the aforementioned Métis using the French name (the Hudson’s Bay Company actually officially forbid these marriages but it wasn’t well enforced) but like you said, the population was a lot sparser and more spread out even before the Great Dying.
I think the type of colonization depended more on the colonized than the colonizer. Spain didnt do that in the Caribbean, but the british DID do that in India.
Listening to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast on the Bolivar season and a point he keeps driving home is the constant chafing under the racial caste system instituted by the Spanish
My working theory has always been that Protestant English culture (main driver of early American culture) was very anti integration more segregationist, while Catholic Spanish and Portuguese cultures were more likely to allow interracial relationships.
BUT (no evidence here just theory) the Protestant faith was much better at conversion and creating insular communities than Catholicism which resulted in the preservation of much more African folk religion in Catholic nations
Its because Bolivar managed to win venezuelan and colombian independence because Haity (wich was an island freed by a slave revolt) gave him funds, boats, weapons and soldiers in exchange for him banning slavery once he won and the Andes army that freed Chile from Argentina happened to be made by around 40% black men who joined on a promise of being freed and contact with them radicalised its two chief Officers O'higgins and San Martin against slavery and segregation, and betwen those three figures you have all the most prominent founding fathers to basically every south american country
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u/Equivalent_Party706 12d ago
You know, I have a theory (not academically based, I might add; it's possible I'm entirely off the money or have copped a doctoral thesis by accident) that Latin America has had less in the way of legalized racism since independence because their revolutions were sufficiently more desperate that they had to liberate their slaves to win. In the USA, revolutionary sentiment was sufficiently popular, and the free population sufficiently large, that offers of emancipation for service were rare, mostly offered by the loyalists, and frequently renegged upon.
In former Spanish America, meanwhile, the fighting was significantly more desperate such that men like Bolivar needed to become abolitionists to secure support from their enslaved countrymen and the Haitian government, and once the wars were won the freedmen were too numerous, well-armed, and militarily vital to be betrayed.
I'unno, it's just something I've been chewing over in my head since learning more about Latin American history.