ABSTRACT
The details of the history of the emergence of new countries in Latin America is not so well known outside the Iberian culture area, although the British helped in the process. By 1770 the Spanish Empire had become subdivided for administrative purposes. Much of the area had originally been administered under the Viceroyalties of New Spain (Mexico) and Peru (Lima). Already in the eighteenth century, however, smaller colonial subdivisions had been established, such as Chile, Colombia and Guatemala. When the Spanish American Empire finally broke up in the period following the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, ten separate countries emerged. These later split further to give eighteen countries of Spanish origin early in the twen
