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80 Years Ago in South America

Jorge Luis Borges The population of South and Central America jumped from 43 million in 1900 to 132 million in 1945, with about 35 percent European heritage, 35 percent mixed ethnicity, 20 percent aboriginals and 10 percent African. This had a social impact throughout the region, seeing a migration of poor people from the country to the rapidly growing cities, many of these swelling the population of the urban slums, called barrios in Spanish and favellas in Portuguese-speaking Brazil. As well, the growth in population increased pressure to settle the few lands still in the hands of the indigenous peoples, who were pushed into smaller and smaller areas, or were wiped out completely. The Amazon basin remained as the last main area still largely controlled by indigenous peoples. Argentina was perhaps the most European of the South American states, with immigration from Britain, Italy and Germany as well as Spain, while Paraguay had the largest percentage of native people, and Brazil showed the most African influence.

Industrialization of South America was hampered by both internal and external factors. External factors were those powerful industrialized states, such as Britain and the United States, whose leaders saw the region as a source of cheap raw materials. It was not in their interests to see the rise of strong, stable states in South America. Internal factors included ineffective or corrupt governments and a small but powerful upper class of wealthy landowners who blocked economic and social reforms--often dependent on American or British support to hold onto power. The net result was a reliance on the export of a few key raw materials or agricultural products (hence the term "banana republic"). This made the governments of the various South and Central American states vulnerable to pressure from their powerful American, British and French trading partners.

Taken altogether, these factors resulted in chronic social unrest, sometimes leading to socialist or communist rebellions, with the army frequently intervening. During the Depression, the added pressures of the world economic crisis resulted in the rise of dictatorships, during what is called the "crisis of democracy". By the middle of the 1930s, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil were under the rule of a dictator or the army, while Paraguay and Argentina would soon fall under military rule. Only Colombia and Uruguay could maintain some kind of democracy.

Territorial problems had largely been settled by 1900, but from 1932-35, Bolivia and Paraguay fought the Chaco War. The Chaco is a relatively poor, wilderness area, mostly scrub-covered desert during the dry season, and marsh the rest of the year. This little known war was fought under terrible conditions, similar to the First World War. In the end, Paraguay won and received the largest part of the region.

Some of the most famous writers in the Spanish language in the 20th century include the poet, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). Borges grew up in the tough Palermo district of Buenos Aires, infamous hang out for the compadrito, knife-wielding hoodlums. The young Luis had a close relationship with his grandmother, who had come from England and married an Argentinean army officer. Her story telling had an important influence on his writing. From 1914 to 1921, the family lived in Switzerland, but once back in Argentina, Borges career as a poet began to develop. From 1927, however, Borges slowly began to go blind. He managed to survive the political upheavals in Argentina during the 1940s and 1950s without giving up his ideals and, now almost completely blind, he continued to write. He died in 1986.

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