ABSTRACT
Precolonial indigenous societies had their own economies and values, which, like all societies, dynamically transformed as they faced change. The breadth of their diversity is impossible to catalogue here, but we can acknowledge that the largest civilizations, the Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans, were complex societies with extensive populations, systems of production and distribution, imperial military, and all the religious and cultural apparatuses of European societies. In the 19th century, Latin Americans waged wars of independence from Spain and Portugal, establishing new nations ruled by creoles, the descendants of the European colonizers. In the 20th century, Latin America’s nation-states sought other means to integrate their indigenous populations to their development projects. Neoliberal reforms took many forms. Bilingual or intercultural education taught indigenous languages.
