Chapter 4 Matching Exercise

Literally, “scientists.” Porfirio Díaz’s most influential advisors. Several occupied cabinet posts. The científicos helped Díaz create a budgetary surplus, encouraged him to build thousands of miles of railroads, and modernize legal codes to encourage foreign investment. Their powerful role in government prompted outsiders to oppose Díaz’s re-election in 1910.

“Porfirian Peace.” Porfirio Díaz used a variety of strategies, including offering financial rewards and coercion, to bring peace to Mexico during his lengthy dictatorship from 1876 to 1911.

A philosophy advocated by Auguste Comte (1798–1857) that favors the careful empirical observation of natural phenomena and human behavior over metaphysics. Positivism appealed to modernizers throughout Latin America, particularly in Brazil.

The application of Darwin’s biological theories to human societies, often to justify claims of racial superiority and rule by the strong over the weak. Social Darwinism was enthusiastically embraced by Latin American liberals in the late nineteenth century.

A railroad line that ran from Mexico City through the center of the nation, stopping at important cities like Guanajuato and Torreón before connecting with a US line in El Paso, Texas. The railroad was one of Porfirio Díaz’s great achievements.

Rural people, or farmers. This is the term that such people often prefer to use to refer to themselves, rather than a negative word like “peasant.”

“Whitening.” This was the racist policy of gradually reducing the African and indigenous presence and marginalizing their cultural influence in Latin America by encouraging white immigration from Europe or intermarriage between races in Latin America. The policy was typical of social Darwinist thought of the late nineteenth century.

Military campaign directed by General Julio Argentino Roca in the 1870s that established Argentine dominance over Patagonia, and resulted in the near extermination of the native Aruacanians.

The octopus, nickname given to the United Fruit Company for its extensive and multi-tentacled reach in Central America.

A railroad line built in the latter part of the nineteenth century that passed through Zacatecas and Monterrey before joining a US line in Laredo, Texas. This route also had great commercial significance.