Latin America

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pampas

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the vast grassy plains of southern South America, esp. in Argentina.

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Amazon Basin

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the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The basin is located mainly (54%) in Brazil, but also stretches into Peru and several other countries.

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Incas

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A Native American people who built a notable civilization in western South America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The center of their empire was in present-day Peru. Francisco Pizarro of Spain conquered the Inca Empire.

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Aztecs

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A Native American people who ruled Mexico and neighboring areas before the Spaniards conquered the region in the sixteenth century. Starting in the twelfth century, they built up an advanced civilization and empire.

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conquistadors

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16th-century Spanish soldiers who defeated the Indian civilizations of Mexico, Central America, or Peru.

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Moctezuma

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Last Aztec emperor in Mexico (1502-1520). He was overthrown by the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés.

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Francisco Pizarro

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Spanish explorer and conqueror of the Inca Empire of Peru (1531-1533). He founded the city of Lima in 1535.

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rain shadow

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a region in the lee of mountains that receives less rainfall than the region windward of the mountains.

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hernan cortez

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Spanish conquistador who defeated the Aztecs and conquered Mexico (1485-1547)

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maquiladora

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a factory run by a U.S. company in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor and lax regulation

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de las Casas

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(August 24 1484 – July 17 1566), was a 16th century Spanish Dominican priest, and the first resident Bishop of Chiapas. As a settler in the New World, he was galvanized by witnessing the torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists. He is commemorated as a missionary in the Calendar of Saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on July 17.

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Macchu Picchu

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is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level. Machu Picchu was constructed around 1460, at the height of the Inca Empire. It was abandoned less than 100 years later. It is likely that most of its inhabitants were wiped out by smallpox before the Spanish conquistadores arrived in the area and there is no record of their having known of the remote city.

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Fidel Castro

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Cuban revolutionary leader who overthrew the regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and soon after established a Communist state. He was Cuba's prime minister from 1959 until 1976, when he became president of the government and First Secretary of the Communist Party. In declining health he passed de facto control of the government to his younger brother Raúl in 2007 and officially retired in 2008.

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Boliviar

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outh American revolutionary leader who defeated the Spanish in 1819, was made president of Greater Colombia (now Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador), and helped liberate (1823-1834) Peru and Bolivia.

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coup d' etat

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The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

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land reform

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any program, esp. when undertaken by a national government, involving the redistribution of agricultural land among the landless.

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embargo

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an order of a government prohibiting the movement of merchant ships into or out of its ports.

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mestizos

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a person of racially mixed ancestry, esp., in Latin America, of mixed American Indian and European, usually Spanish or Portuguese, ancestry, or, in the Philippines, of mixed native and foreign ancestry.

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creoles

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a person born in the West Indies or Spanish America but of European, usually Spanish, ancestry.

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political refugees

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a person who has fled from a homeland because of political persecution.

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hacienda

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a large landed estate, esp. one used for farming or ranchin

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NAFTA

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A trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico that encourages free trade between these North American countries.

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free trade

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Unrestricted trade among nations without government tariffs or customs duties on imports.

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inflation

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A general increase in the price level of goods and services. Unexpected inflation tends to be detrimental to security prices, primarily because it forces interest rates higher.

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"disappeared"

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many political candidates "went missing or died of illness"

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liberation theology

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A school of theology, especially prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, that finds in the Gospel a call to free people from political, social, and material oppression.

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socialism

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Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy

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economic refugee

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A person seeking refugee status in another country for purely economic reasons.