ABSTRACT
Environment determined many aspects of the social structure in North and South America. New England lacked an economic rationale for coerced labor. Latin America’s wars of independence, by contrast, lasted longer and were far more destructive. Revolutionary governments in Spanish America had to finance military campaigns without aid from Spain’s enemies. The military service of non-elite men speaks to the multiethnic societies that existed in the early nineteenth-century Latin America. Brazil and Chile were the first nations in Latin America to acquire stable, centralized governments. Armed forces play an ongoing role combatting drug smuggling. The Mexican navy intercepts large drug shipments heading to North America and Mexican President Felipe Calderon directly challenged the country’s powerful drug cartels. The fact that South American juntas described themselves as crusading to stop godless communism from subverting their countries’ Christian heritage is revealing.
