Independence in Spanish and Portuguese America

3.Independence

The wars of Independence in Latina America did not start as a revolution from bottom to top, the population was very diverse and they have nothing in common aside from being born on the same place to just decide to rebel against the white Europeans. The exception was Haiti, where the slaves rebelled and succeeded. Independence in Latin America has much more to do with the events in Europe and how they destabilized colonial rule. Some countries like Mexico and Peru had similar patterns of Independence, Argentina and Venezuela followed another pattern, and Brazil, the exception had its own way of achieving independence.

In Europe the Spanish crown was going through many problems of incompetent ruling king, bankruptcy, long term-loans and a very unpopular government. Neither Spain nor Portugal could escape the repercussions of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. In practical terms Spanish-American independence began to exist in 1808 when the Spanish king was imprisoned by Napoleon. Even though Brazil and England had a good relationship, the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars also started the process of independence in Brazil.

In the late 1807 when Portugal refused to declare war on their old ally England, Napoleon invaded Portugal. So the Portuguese Royalty fled to Brazil followed by an entourage of over ten thousand people establishing the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro. Interesting fact is that Spanish crown was usurped by a foreign in Spanish America while the Portuguese crown was closer than ever to Brazil.

Spanish America rebellions 1810-1815

One of the causes that started with the Spanish American rebellions was the conflicts between the social classes in Spanish America. The native born whites, the creoles and their “enemies” the Peninsulars, Spaniard born in Europe, their conflict was because the Peninsular had better positions and opportunities within the societies, they had privileged access to key positions, while the Creoles were left with less desirable positions. This social clash was only between Creoles and Peninsulars, because the bottom of the Hierarchy were the indigenous and Africans which really did not have much problem with the Peninsulars. In fact, the less privileged classes of native and Africans had more issues with the Creoles, since they were the land owners and really annoyed them in a daily basis.

· Father Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico: He rebelled against Europeans, as a Creole himself, he asked for the entire population to rebel against Europeans, including Peninsulars, Creole and natives. For that he used he use his priest skills, and constructed his rhetoric as a simple American vs. Europeans battle, appealing to the Virgin of Guadalupe and the death of the Spaniards. He was captured and killed.

· After the death of Hidalgo another mestizo priest continues with the rebellions, Father Jose Maria Morelos, he wanted to end slavery, the caste system and the tribute paid by indigenous people.

· Nativism, Spanish Americans and Brazilians are “Americanos” against Spanish and Portuguese. The liberal ideology that the people should govern, the Americans. After all, all the rebellions happened just because the Creole wanted to rule it themselves, not because they were trying to make society more egalitarian or help the masses.

· In Brazil things were a little different, since Napoleon’s defeat Portugal wanted its king back in Lisbon. The Portuguese assembly was very unhappy because King Joao declared Brazil a kingdom, giving it the same status as Portugal itself. Portugal and Brazil were both “equal” and King Joao was king of both. The Portuguese colony wanted to reduce Brazil back to the colony status, so in 1821 Joao returned to Portugal and left his son Pedro in charge. The independence of Brazil was expected by Joao, and in 1822 Pedro declared Brazil independent.

· Bolivar, The Liberator was probably the most famous name in South America independence history. He also used of nativism to gather local t fight with him. He took the Spanish forces by surprise and Bogota fell to Bolivar, he also captured Caracas, Quito and by 1824 Bolivar was the liberator of two countries. Eventually all the wars for independence were over, expect for Cuba and Porto Rico which remained under Spanish control for the rest of the 1800s.

In Brazil people tend to pretty much blame the Portuguese for everything that goes wrong, and even the idea of the Independence is sometimes seem as a joke, because of the circumstances and the rumors about the Portuguese court, the forbidden romances, corruptions etc. Ten years ago a TV series about the Independence and the court was produced in Brazil, with the suggestive name of "Quinto dos Infernos".

Here is an intro from wikipedia: " Tudo começa em 1785, com a chegada da pequena espanhola Carlota Joaquina a Portugal para casar-se com D. João VI. Já em 1808, após muita indecisão, D. João VI resolve transferir a corte para o Brasil, para fugir dos ataques e do poderio bélico de Napoleão Bonaparte. Em paralelo à história dos monarcas, se desenvolve o romance da donzela Manoela com Francisco Gomes, o Chalaça. No Brasil, o rei D. João VI e sua mulher, a esquentada Carlota Joaquina criam os filhos Pedro, Miguel e Maria Teresa que convivem com as loucuras da avó, Dona Maria I, "A Louca", e tentam se adaptar às diferenças de hábitos da colônia. O tempo passa e Pedro terá muitas mulheres, mas somente duas oficiais: D. Leopoldina, e após sua morte, a bela Amélia. Passarão pela sua vida turbulentas paixões, como a artista Naomi e amante mais famosa do Brasil, Domitila de Castro Canto e Melo, a Marquesa de Santos. O dom de Pedro para a paixão deve ser hereditário, já que sua mãe Carlota Joaquina, preza o sangue espanhol que tem e também mantém vários amantes, não se importando em humilhar o marido sempre que pode. As histórias de Chalaça e D. Pedro se cruzarão no Brasil. Uma forte amizade nasce entre os dois, o que dará a Chalaça o posto de primeiro secretário e braço direito do príncipe. Frequentando a corte, Chalaça conhecerá a ardilosa Branca Camargo, que aplica trambiques com o pai, Camargo, e se apaixona por ela. Desencontros irão marcar a vida do rapaz, que vai ficar dividido entre dois amores: Manoela e Branca."

It is a comedy, but i figure you would at least laugh on this vision of history that we have in Brazil, and this is a quick video with the most important moment in the history of Brazil.

4. Post-Colonial Blues

· Liberalism: The idea of liberalism quickly spread all over Latin America, even Brazil which was still a Monarchy had Dom Pedro a Liberal himself. The Liberals dreamt about a prosperous and progressive future, but mostly ended up disappointed and in economic failure. Interesting enough the Liberals were mostly the whites, which ostracized the indigenous from their society, and consider them a problem and not an benefit. The Liberals also wanted freedom to worship, and separation of state and church, going against the catholic conservatives. The church issue was probably the most interesting example of how Latin America slowly divided between conservatives and liberals. Another important factor was the economy. After the independence wars most countries were short on money and desperately needed a capital input to invest on infrastructure.

The future of the BRICs

Today while commuting to school I was browsing the internet searching for news about developing countries, when I saw this video about the BRICs and India’s status in it.

I thought it was very interesting, especially because years ago India was considered to be the most promising country of the BRIC group according to this publication.

It is a big problem because India is a huge country, extremely populated with a not so large infra-structure. As a emerging economy India still does not have a good transportation system, which does not allow a descent logistic for Indian goods to be transported.

India’s problems are the slow growth, a falling currency, high inflation and high interest rates, a bad combination for an emerging country, especially with such a large population of poor.It is such a delicate issue because India could be seemed and invested as an agricultural based country, but It might happen to India exactly what happens to Jamaica. If India produces something, it is probably going to be cheaper to buy it from China or Indonesia. This other article says more about the current disappointment with India in the BRICs.

The investments of companies, like Wal-Mart for example in India would most likely take away from the poor their chances to improve their lives, being that any multinational can sell imported goods for less than they would produce. The question is with problems like this how is the Indian population going to survive?

Bretton Woods and The Euro

One of the subjects we studied the most during the semester was The Bretton Woods agreement and its consequences to the world we live today. The Bretton Woods change the market with the newly instituted currency, the dollar after the gold.

The Bretton Woods is to this day very important and can be compared to many of the modern issues happening throughout the world. For example, Bretton Woods can be used to analyze the current problem with the euro. The following passage from an article explains very well the relationship between both systems:

"The euro can be considered a political attempt to recreate within Europe the effects of the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement that established a stable international monetary system from 1945 to 1971. The Bretton Woods system was complex, addressing every major currency issue to some extent while the euro clearly had holes in it that were never addressed. The biggest difference between the two may be that while the Bretton Woods system design was led by economists, the euro system was designed by politicians.

At Bretton Woods, currency systems designed by John Maynard Keynes (no introduction needed) and Harry Dexter White, chief international economist at the U.S. Treasury in 1942–44, were melded together in an effort to use the best economic thinking to achieve the best international economic outcome. The euro had only one goal: Achieving European currency unity. To achieve this political currency union, many political compromises were accepted that conflicted with both the best economic theory and real world experience.

Using Bretton Woods as an example of a workable real world currency system, we can explore what was missing from the euro when it was set up:

1. An adjustment mechanism for when intra-zone country costs and trade (the current account balance) get lopsided versus other countries, called “fundamental disequilibrium” in Bretton Woodese. In Bretton Woods, the adjustment mechanism was currency devaluation or revaluation upward. There is no adjustment mechanism at all in the euro. Members are expected to use fiscal constraint (AKA austerity) to achieve internal devaluation. In other words, undergo a recession to lower costs and imports.
2. A bank to lend (or give) currency to countries that are in fundamental disequilibrium. Bretton Woods set up the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for this purpose (there were other tasks for the IMF as well). The euro has the European Central Bank (ECB) but doing all the job of the IMF is specifically forbidden by the no-bailout clause in the euro Stability and Growth Pact.
3. A method of making sure that countries’ have enough currency to maintain international stability and trade. Bretton Woods only partially addressed this with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which today is part of the World Bank. Bretton Woods relied on countries and central banks (in reality, mostly the U.S. Federal Reserve) working in their own best interests to help achieve this. It was a different time when the belief was that strong international cooperation was needed to maximize growth. The Marshall plan was justified in part by the need to lower America’s balance of payment surplus and provide currency needed for international trade. Again, this seems to be specifically forbidden in the euro as the mandate of the ECB is to fight inflation."

From this article.

This is very interesting because it presents the differences between both programs and how the Euro was conceived with a lack of structure compared to the Bretton Woods, and today Europe is in crisis not knowing if the Euro is going to survive. Many of the causes of the Euro crisis could have been avoided if this program was more well structured, for example the European countries had easy credit conditions and were encouraged to practice high risk borrowing and lending money. Right now the Euro is failing and the ones trying to survive are having a hard time maintaining themselves, which makes it almost impossible to rescue the neighbor countries in a worse situation.

The article above explains all the issues with the Euro it uses the Bretton Woods examples from the past making it really easy to understand the intensity of the problem and how can Europe start to think about getting out oh this hole.