CHAPTER XXV - THE STATES OF LATIN AMERICA

Summary

The wars of Spanish American independence virtually ended in 1824. Between the Great Lakes and Cape Horn European dominion in the New World had been reduced to a chain of islands in the West Indies, to the British settlement of Belize in Central America, and to the three colonies of British, French and Dutch Guiana in South America. In the Caribbean sea the old French colony of Saint Domingue had established its rule, as the new republic of Haiti, over the old Spanish colony of Santo Domingo. Brazil had separated from Portugal. And from the viceroyalties, captaincies-general, and presidencies of Spain on the mainlands of North and South America seven new republics had been formed—Mexico, the United Provinces of Central America, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, and those Provinces of the Rio de la Plata which were to become at last Argentina. To these new states four others were added by 1830. The provinces of Upper Peru, the former Presidency of Charcas, became in 1825 the Republic of Bolivia. Uruguay, in 1828, was born of war between the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata and Brazil; and Ecuador and Venezuela, in 1830, both seceded from Colombia. Territorial changes were yet to come. Other republics would be brought to birth. But already in 1830 the political map of South America had more or less assumed its modern form.