ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relationship among the states that emerged from the ruins of Spanish and Portuguese empires in Latin America. The Spanish colonies achieved their independence in three more or less separate movements. The first movement originated in Mexico and was joined by Central America. Nineteenth-century relations among the newly independent countries in Latin America involved a series of important conflicts and wars, and the impact of those struggles has often been visible in the twentieth century. Conflicts between Brazil and Argentina, for example, evoked the mediation of Great Britain, which managed to arrange the creation of the buffer state of Uruguay in 1830. The remainder of the nineteenth century in Latin America was most notable, perhaps, for the culmination of a long-term trend. The United States had issued its Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning other states to refrain from colonizing efforts in the Western Hemisphere.
