Chapter 03 Summary

CHAPTER 3

For a half-century after independence, Latin American politics were defined by debates over implementing liberal ideas such as secularism, nationalism, constitutionalism, popular sovereignty, and free trade – a contest also shaping politics in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia.

In Latin America, two tendencies emerged, coalescing into opposing political parties with different nation-building visions. The Conservatives upheld traditional institutions inherited from the colonial era as being the necessary foundation for national identity, social stability, and material prosperity. These institutions included the Catholic Church; the patriarchal family; a centralized government headed by a powerful president or even a monarch; large agricultural estates held by the traditional landowning class; and restrictions on the franchise and civil liberties so as to ensure stable, responsible government by an educated and propertied elite.

Inspired by the models of France, the United States, and Britain, Liberals, in contrast, sought to fundamentally reform their societies to bring about rapid material and moral progress. Seeing the Church as an obstacle to modernization, they sought to curtail its powers and promoted secular public education to cultivate modern citizens. Economically, they auctioned off the communal landholdings of indigenous communities and the Church, hoping to create modern classes of commercial landowners and wage laborers; they also embraced free trade and welcomed foreign investment in infrastructure (especially railroads), government bonds, and new export products like guano and coffee. Politically, Liberals tended toward decentralized government, limited presidential powers, unrestricted civil liberties, and a broader franchise.

These partisan contests often turned violent, as in Mexico's War of the Reform, the War of the Triple Alliance in South America, and countless minor rebellions and civil wars across the continent; in Uruguay, Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, they also invited intervention by neighbors and/or Britain, France, or the US. By the 1870s, Liberals and Conservatives had largely converged toward moderation on questions of economic policy and political centralism; the role of the Church, however, continued to divide them.