Post-Independence Period in Latin America

Question 1:
Post-Independence Period in Latin America
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Question 1:
Post-Independence Period in Latin America
The Dutch attacked Latin America, excluding Cuba and Puerto Rico. Spain lost most of its Caribbean assets in the seventeenth century and fought to protect its territory for most of the eighteenth century (Wiarda & Kline, 2018). Supreme rule brought whole districts into direct contact with the strains and contentions between European states. However, most states engaged in military struggles. Spain, Portuguese, and Brazil skirmished over territory that is currently Uruguay. These conflicts stirred up a mix of long-building pressures in the local rule.
Following the American and French transformations model, the vast majority of Latin America gained its independence by 1825. Independence obliterated the old regular market under the Spanish Empire after the Bourbon Reforms. Thus, there was increased reliance on financial assistance from countries that had already started industrializing. Western European powers, specifically Great Britain, France, and the United States, began to assume significant parts of these nations since the area had become economically dependent. Independence also brought about a new Latin American administering class and scholarly people, which on occasion avoided Spanish and Portuguese models in their mission to reshape their social orders.
One of the most pressing and enduring challenges the leaders of Latin American nations faced in the decades after independence was establishing the legitimacy of their new governments. In this regard, breaking the colonial system proved a significant challenge. In Iberian political traditions, power and authority were constrained by the monarch. Only the monarch could dominate the church, the military, and other powerful entities. The Spanish King was the ultimate source of political legitimacy. His ousting from power, the Creole elites had to create new establishments under which administration developments would be accepted by their fellow citizens. Although they could not leave the traditions of the old Iberian colonial rule, leaders in Latin America went by and large to other political customs for answers to political legitimacy (Sinha, 2000). Integrating models from northern Europe and the United States with their own, they set up republics across the region. By doing so, they legitimized their detachment from Spain and the now empowered Latin America.
The failed endeavours in Spanish America to keep together most of the large initial states formed after independence, Gran Colombia, the United Provinces of South America, and the Federal Republic of Central America, led to multiple domestic and interstate conflicts that plagued the newly formed countries. The homegrown wars were often fights between the federalists and the centrists. They ended up asserting themselves through the military repression of their opponents to the detriment of civilian political life. The new states acquired the cultural diversity of the colonial era and chose to create a new identity based on the shared culture and language. Nonetheless, cultural, social, and class d...