GEOG 3515

1
GEOG 3515

• The Geography of South America

Class 11 Geographical Change from Colonialism to
Republicanism
2
Colonial Divisions

• Under colonial rule, Brazil was divided into
  Capitanias by the Portuguese (see Fig 5.11).
  
• Spanish South America was divided into
  viceroyalties New Granada in the north, Peru in
  the center, and La Plata in the south (see Fig.
  5.12).
• New Granada was divided into three sub-units
  corresponding roughly to todays Venezuela,
  Colombia and Ecuador.
  
• La Plata was divided into two sub-divisions, a
  northern and southern portion, the northern being
  made up mostly by present day Bolivia and part of
  Paraguay.
• Peru was the richest viceroyalty and had a
  southern sub-division geographically separated to
  the south, the captaincy-general of Chile.
  
• Three other European nations Britain, France
  and the Netherlands, each had a small colonial
  territory along the northern Atlantic coast
  

3
National Independence

• As previously discussed, the exile of Spanish
  King Ferdinand VIII by Napoleon in 1808 was the
  trigger for republican independence efforts in
  Spanish South America.
• These efforts intensified from 1814 when
  Ferdinand VIII was restored to power and tried to
  rein in the South American colonies.
  
• In 1821, Simon Bolívar defeated the Spanish in
  the Northern Andes (viceroyalty of New Granada)
  and declared a federated state of La Gran
  Colombia, administered from Bogotá.
• His goal/philosophy was to unite the whole of the
  Spanish colonies into a free federation and
  immediately went to fight in Peru/Bolivia.

4
From Independence to the Modern-Day States

• The borders of the newly independent crop of
  republics (1830s snapshot on left) were far from
  fixed.
  
• In particular, Bolivia would lose its access to
  the coast Peru would gain much of the Gran
  Colombia (Ecuadors) Amazon, and Chile would
  claim the Southwest coastline (see 1998 on right).

1998
1830
5
Division of La Gran Colombia

• Roughly corresponding with the resignation of
  Bolívar as President in 1828 and his death from
  TB in 1830, Venezuela seceded from the
  federation, declaring itself an independent
  nation.
• Ecuador also seceded at this time, although it
  was split internally with tensions between the
  two main centers of Quito and Guayaquil.
  
• Ecuadors boundaries were drastically reduced in
  1941 when Peru declared war on Ecuador and
  annexed its Amazonian territories ongoing
  hostilities were resolved in 1998.
• The remainder of La Gran Colombia was known as
  New Granada until being officially renamed as
  Colombia in 1863 and included present-day Panama
  (seceded in 1903).
• Originally a federation of semi-autonomous
  states, Colombia was prone to civil war and in
  1886, passed a constitution reducing state powers
  and centralizing governance in Bogotá.

6
Peru

• The Central Andean viceroyalty of Peru was the
  richest and most powerful, and initially resisted
  a republican revolution.
  
• In 1822, with the help of Argentine/Chilean
  forces, the Peruvian royalists yielded authority
  to Bolívar, whose general, de Sucre, took the
  opportunity to declare the Eastern portion of the
  territory to be the Republic of Bolívar (later to
  become Bolivia).
• Peru and the Republic of Bolívar briefly formed a
  federation from 1836-1839 to fight the Chileans.
  
• Peru, Bolivia and Chile joined together in the
  late 1860s to defend themselves against Spain
  which tried to re-exert control over the Pacific
  coast for the mineral riches it contained.
• The threat of Spain gone, Chile then again fought
  Peru and Bolivia for the same resources, gaining
  control of the coast from Bolivia (1883) and Peru
  (1884).
• One of the Peruvian states was given back to Peru
  in 1929, although none were given back to Bolivia
  (remains landlocked).

7
Bolivia and Chile

• Bolivia initially covered a larger territory than
  present.
  
• Government instability following the creation of
  the Republic in 1822 led to a new government on
  average every year.
  
• Internal distractions weakened Bolivias economy
  and military and led to the loss of considerable
  territory the coast (to Chile 1883), the
  interior around Acre (to Brazil 1903) and the
  lowland Chaco (to Paraguay 1938).
• Chile covered a much smaller territory when first
  independent.
  
• Republican Chileans declared independence in 1810
  but only finally achieved it in 1818 with the
  help of Argentine forces.
  
• In the 1880s war of the Pacific, Chile annexed
  Bolivian and Peruvian coastal territories.
  
• Gradually, the Chileans extended control over the
  Araucanian Indians down into Tierra del Fuego,
  principally through colonization by incoming
  Europeans (Germans mostly), settling the current
  Andean territorial boundaries in 1881.

8
Division of La Plata

• The viceroyalty of La Plata was one of the first
  to undergo independence from Spain.
  
• In 1816, it became the United Provinces of the
  Río de la Plata but relatively quickly divided
  into Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina,
  completing the division by the late 1820s.
• Paraguay became an insular dictatorship, warring
  unsuccessfully in the 1860s with Argentina,
  Brazil and Uruguay, in part over access denied it
  to the coast.
• It also warred with Bolivia in the 1930s over the
  Chaco lowlands, annexing a large area of grazing
  land that it still possesses.
  
• Historically dominated by corrupt dictatorial
  caudillos, Paraguay is relatively underdeveloped
  with large inequities.

9
Uruguay and Argentina

• A geographical buffer zone between the Portuguese
  and Spanish, Uruguay represented a marginal zone
  of Spanish control.
  
• As with Chile, independence was declared by the
  Uruguay latifundista caudillos in 1810 but was
  disputed over by the bigger Argentina and Brazil
  as being rightly theirs.
• Mediated resolution of this dispute in 1828 left
  Uruguay an independent nation, but embroiled in a
  civil war that continued through to the 1850s,
  and resulted in the return of disputed land to
  Brazil.
• Argentina, the biggest Republic of the La Plata
  viceroyalty, comprises what was left following
  Bolivian, Paraguayan and Uruguayan independence.
  
• Argentina represents the parts of La Plata that
  geographically focused outward, down river toward
  the port of Buenos Aires and the economic export
  routes across the Atlantic.

10
Brazil

• Brazil was home to Portugals government in the
  Napoleonic wars and the colony declared
  independence as a constitutional monarchy soon
  after in 1822, the ruler, Emperor Dom Pedro,
  enjoying defensive protection from the British
  navy.
• Weakening authority under Dom Pedro led to the
  loss of Uruguay and several smaller areas,
  resulting in his voluntary exile in 1831, leaving
  his 6-year old son in place as ruler.
• Many of the capitanias drawn up by the Portuguese
  became the basis for administrative units,
  becoming states in the new nation Pará,
  Maranhão, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba,
  Pernambuco, Bahia, Espírito Santo and Rio de
  Janeiro although with modified boundaries.
• Brazil became a true republic in 1891 following
  Dom Pedro IIs abdication in 1889 and the writing
  of a new constitution.
  
• Brazil gained territory from Uruguay (1851),
  Venezuela (1859), Paraguay (1872, 1895), Bolivia
  (1903), Ecuador (1904) and Colombia (1907) to
  reach its current limits.

11
The Guianas

• The wild coast was colonized by Spain,
  Portugal, the Netherlands and Great Britain for
  the purpose of establishing tropical plantations
  and for forest extraction.
• The Dutch were the dominant colonizer through the
  1700s, except for the coastal zone around
  Cayenne, which was French for almost the whole
  colonial era.
• The Guianas did not follow suit behind Brazil and
  the Spanish territories Guyana only gaining
  independence in 1966, Suriname in 1975, and
  French Guiana still under French control as an
  overseas department.
• Filled with non-native African slaves and Asian
  indentured workers, the region has suffered from
  tremendous racial tensions over the years,
  especially Guyana and Suriname.

12
Guianan Geography

• Guyana, formerly British Guiana, formerly the
  Dutch colonies of Demerera, Essequibo and
  Berbice, came under British rule in 1814.
  
• Dominated by European plantation owners, the
  newly created colony of British Guiana (1831)
  abolished slavery in 1834, with a massive urban
  migration of slaves to the cities requiring
  importation of Asian laborers to the rural areas
  to work the fields.
• Venezuela claims a large portion of present day
  Guyana, claiming that it was theirs before the
  Dutch took it, although they ceded the area to
  British Guiana in an 1899 treaty.
• Although remote, this area is believed to contain
  significant resources such as minerals and fuels.

13
Suriname

• Formerly an English colony (note one of the main
  coastal towns names Totness) it was swapped
  for what was then Nieuw Amsterdam (now
  Manhattan/New York) in 1667.
• Valuable in the 1600s as a plantation economy of
  cotton and sugar that was run on cheap labor, the
  Dutch first imported African slaves and then,
  after abolition in 1863, East Indians/Javanese.
• Given self-governance in 1954, ethnic divisions
  between mixed-race black (Creole), ethnic Asian,
  and escaped slave (Maroon) communities led to
  mass migration (Asians) and internal fighting.
• Suriname has outstanding territorial disputes
  over its borders with both Guyana and French
  Guiana that still simmer today.
  

14
French Guiana

• Officially this territory is called Guyane
  Française and is an overseas department of
  France, occupied by the French almost
  continuously since 1667, the residents having had
  French citizenship since 1848 and representation
  in the French parliament since 1877.
• A tropical region ravaged by imported Old World
  diseases, the principal functions of the region
  were sugar and cotton plantations and as a penal
  colony for French criminals (similar to the way
  Britain used Australia).
• Settled by white settlers, African slaves and
  indentured workers from colonial French
  Indo-China, the territory seems firmly pro-France
  and shows little movement toward independence
  an anachronism of the colonial era.