ABSTRACT
It is true that the Spanish American countries contain a number of marginal peoples who live as strangers within the dominant culture. The conscience of Latin America depends to a significant degree on the treatment of these native inhabitants, the Indians. In short, Brazil and Spanish America have points of resemblance and a certain kinship, but the points on which they differ are far more significant. This is particularly evident if we consider the astonishing consolidation of Brazil into one giant nation bordering on all the Latin-American countries of South America except Ecuador and Chile: a sharp contrast to the fragmentation of Spanish America into nineteen pieces. Spanish America can be seen as a whole because its parts share the stamp of the same conquerors, colonizers, and evangelists. If we try to summarize those five centuries of Latin-American history, one all-encompassing fact stands out: the history of Latin America, to the present day, is a story of failure.
