Latin America And Slavery Essay Research Paper

Latin America And Slavery Essay, Research Paper

Prior to its independence Latin America

had been controlled by external forces for hundreds of years. To

be freed of control from these outside interests did not in any way guarantee

Latin America a return to the status quo. In fact, the inhabitants

of Latin America had done very well in assimilating their in house controllers.

They adopted European language, religion, color, and just about everything

else that the European culture had to offer them. Although they were

free to do as they please and run their own affairs in the global neighborhood

as we know it, they struggled to create an entity for themselves.

They embody too much of what is not native to their region, yet the people

that used to represent their land 500 years earlier were a truly unique

culture. Let us go back to that point in time and trace the route

Latin America has taken, from an isolated civilization with a unique, independent

culture to a Europeanized puppet continent with little cultural identity.

Latin America began as a secluded land

of aboriginal inhabitants that was cut off from the rest of the world.

It was first discovered by Europeans while trying to find more efficient

trade routes to India and China. These Europeans noticed the vast

resources present in Latin America and smelled money. Europeans are

very greedy and would do anything for their country if it meant higher

social status when they returned. Soon the monarchs of their respective

countries were sponsoring conquests and colonization of the Latin American

lands in turn for profits and goods from the lands they took. Due

to the tropical climate that encompasses most of Latin America, colonization

meant growing sugar on plantations in the coastal regions of the continent.

Labor was the main expense of this operation, so enslaving the natives

and putting them to work on these plantations seemed like the most economically

sensible thing to do. This was the first step to sterilizing the

identity of the continent. Diseases introduced by the immune Europeans

took their toll on the natives and killed many off. Coupled with

the stress of working in the fields and in other aspects of enslaved life

the aboriginal population soon dwindled to next to nothing. Looking

at just the aboriginal population, there was a traumatic fall. Birth

rates were very low, especially given that the newer .mixed. children as

a result of crossed marriages took genes out of the native pool and into

the European pool. Extreme blood mixing was going on. Between

the Europeans, the natives, and Africans brought in to replace the dead

natives, new races were popping up in Latin America. Right then the

population in Latin America was undergoing vast changes.

Population growth is usually due to either

high birth rates with low death rates or heavy immigration. During

this time there were normal birth rates, high death rates, and heavy immigration

to compensate for the death rate. This caused a slight increase in

the population during this time, but the demographics changed drastically.

Over a short period of time an independent group of people had their identity

erased only to be replaced by a mixed European culture with varying skin

colors.

Changes in population are usually analyzed

using the demographic transition model. This has four separate categories

in which countries may be classified according to their situation.

The category is countries with extremely high birth and death rates.

This category has become unneeded due to the medical revolution.

Death rates are lower because medicine can keep people alive longer than

before. Common diseases don.t have people dropping like flies anymore.

There are no countries fitting this description in present day countries.

If they were before, they have probably moved into the second category,

which is high birth rate and low death rate. Several Latin American

countries are in this group today, including Venezuela and Peru.

The third category is characterized by midrange death rates and lower birth

rates. Countries having this classification are more developed countries

that have both the medical institutions of the medical revolution and developed

economies. The highest grossing economies are not in rural based

areas. They are in urbanized countries. Most developed Latin American

countries underwent a rural to urban migration before the present date.

Those with the most developed cities and booming economies have the most

blue collar workers. If you are working for a living you do not need

to turn your wife into a child machine as can be seen in rural areas, where

the children are needed for help on the farm. Actually, excessive

children are harmful to the blue collar worker on his limited income, and

thus one rea

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