ABSTRACT
Latin America is rich in mineral wealth—the European conquerors noticed this reality almost as soon as they set foot on the continent. In the seventeenth century, new areas of mining became important in Latin America. Throughout Latin America, especially in the eighteenth century, plantations or “estates” developed near major mining regions as a way to provide goods and services to the mining centers. The length and savagery of the wars for independence during the nineteenth century had a deleterious effect on mining throughout Hispanic America. Industrialization in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and the relationship between industrial development and petroleum, meant new opportunities for Latin American economies. Petroleum resources became a major concern for the industrial West, especially after the 1973 oil embargo. The United States and other industrial countries began looking for reliable sources of crude oil and focused, in a more determined fashion, on Latin America.
