Late-Colonial Latin America Summary

In 1810, many Latin American countries gained independence from Spain’s American empire, customs and allegiances that had been established since 1492. In Toward Independence, Fuentes notes that in 1810, eighteen million people lived under Spanish rule between California and Cape Horn (Fuentes). In total, there were eight million indian’s, one million blacks that were brought through by slave trade and four million caucasians (Fuentes). Late-Colonial Latin America was filled with many types of social classes, with the main similarity being that they were all under Spanish rule. As Fuentes mentions in Toward Independence, there were Creoles, Spaniards, Mestizos and Mulattoes. Within the 18th century Latin America, there were many new mixed-raced. …show more content…
Mulattoes and Mestizos were at the lower end of the spectrum, with limited opportunities of advancement within their regions. Creoles were secondary to the peninsular Spaniards in terms of consideration, privileges, access to wealth and political decision making. White Spanish Americans were vastly outnumbered by Natives, blacks and mixed-race individuals. Since the Spanish were outnumbered, there was a constant fear looming over the higher class due to potential lower-class political mobilizations: Native or Negro-Slave uprisings. The Spanish Crown wanted a community of economic interests to develop in the America’s. This idea failed because the Crown did not comprehend that it was rubbing off the elite of the colonies the wrong way because the revolution's the Crown would put in place were imposed from the government, not from the will or debate of the governed …show more content…
In Peru, for example, honor was a valuable asset, which only men were truly able to showcase how honorable they were in times of crisis. In The Rights of Citizens: Class, Gender and Criminal Justice in early republican Peru, Chambers shows the strong divide that justice had, which depended strongly on one’s class and gender. During the transition from colonial to republican rule in Arequipa, concerns about crime and disorder developed a stronger criminal justice system. Men were more successful at claiming protections of their civil liberties, whereas women were expected to demonstrate their virtue. The concept of honor was linked to rights. Men were more successful at claiming protections of their civil liberties, whereas Women were expected to demonstrate their virtue. Women were constantly judged primarily by their sexual purity and domestic virtue. Male heads of households were the only ones who truly enjoyed a right to privacy. Additionally, Men could treat their wives, children and services as they saw fit. These gendered principles of honor and privacy were developed by early republican Arequipa, which later influenced the 1862 penal code (Chambers). This penal code ordered public prosecutors to proceed in all cases except those against honesty, honor, domestic theft, abuse and minor physical