ABSTRACT
HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE did political independence from Spain and Portugal make in the lives of most Latin Americans? The answer in some ways seems, “Not much.” The social class structure stayed largely intact, the majority of Latin Americans remained mired in poverty, and various cultural institutions, including the Catholic Church, remained in place. However, that answer is too simple. In much of Spanish America, the disappearance of the colonial power left a vacuum of power that was not filled for many decades. Internal civil war was not unknown in the colonial era, but for most of that time, the colonial state system provided a degree of political stability. The aftermath of independence saw the rise of caudilloism, a tendency that continues to mark Latin American politics today. On the other side of the ledger, independence
did result in Latin Americans achieving a sovereign status that would be denied others victimized by European imperialism. It opened the way for a degree of economic and social development that we describe near the end of this chapter and in the next.
