ABSTRACT
The protracted colonial period, from the end of the fifteenth century through the early decades of the nineteenth, witnessed the implantation of political institutions bearing the heavy imprint of medieval corporatism. In which the hierarchically organized church, military, and largely peninsular bureaucracy each enjoyed special privileges, and the Creole aristocracy pursued its interests through interaction with them. In most countries, independence was obtained by 1830—with great variations in the effort involved and the leadership generated. The ensuing decades witnessed the frustration of high hopes and a substantial persistence of old patterns behind a facade of rhetoric and cosmetic change. The twentieth century began on an upbeat, even auspicious, note giving rise to hopes that gains made in the preceding period were a foretaste of what lay ahead. Indeed, these nations would undergo substantial changes from the end of the nineteenth century to the eve of the world's Great Depression.
