Despite Most of the Latin American Countries Achieving Political Independence in the Early 19th Century, Not one of Them Was Able to Achieve First World Status over the Next one Hundred Years. Why Was This So? Concentrate on one Country in Your Analysis.

Question: Despite most of the Latin American countries achieving political independence in the early 19th century, not one of them was able to achieve first world status over the next one hundred years. Why was this so? Concentrate on one country in your analysis.

Latin America is the vast continent with three distinctive regions of Central America, South America and the Caribbean coast, and is composed of 33 republic countries varying in terms of population size from over 19 million Brazilians to 11 thousand citizens of Grenada. The ethnic make-up of modern Latin America comprises a variety of racial and ethnic groups such as Europe, Africa, Asia and American-Indians, all of whose root is based in 4 different continents. The notable physical geography is the range of Andes Mountains that are long narrow backbone of the continent from Venezuela through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and on into Chile, and cut off the east coastline and the west inland areas. The other features are the Amazon and rivers, huge tropical rain forest, and lastly, an abundance of natural resources as well as vast hectares of farmland. These geography features are an important factor that hampered economic growth due to difficulties in public transit and transportation between regions, hindrance of social and political unity, and therefore, unable to achieve a formation of large unitary state, like North America, that led to separation into large and small 30 countries. To comprehend Latin America’s struggle to achieve the first world status following their political independence, one must have a look at the infancy of modern Latin America just like a psychiatrist tries to understand the childhood of their parents in order to study the adult.

Today, the majority of the Latin American population is left in lost and struggling to find their identities due to the destruction of whole culture by the Spaniards and replacement of the native power structure to the master and servant system. It can be traced back to the Spanish colonial period from 1492 to 1810, which was the most crucial point in shaping today’s Latin America. Before the Spanish settlers and soldiers set their foot on the continent, millions of civilised Indians in Andean America enjoyed a relatively advanced standard of living as far removed in culture from the naked savages of tropical South America as modern man is from the Neanderthalers (Raymond, 1964). From the very outset, their native religion, ancient culture and traditional way of life were severely repressed and wiped out under Spanish rule in order to make it easy for them to rule.

The Indian native power structures were mostly based on castes and nobility which were shattered since the arrival of the Spanish as the most powerful leaders were killed and the lesser nobility and priests of rank and wealth were stripped. The termination of existing power by losing the upper classes accounts an important part