Simón Bolívar, splintered by 1831 into
the sovereign nations of Venezuela,
Ecuador, and New Granada. New
Granada, which later became Colombia,
splintered further when Panama broke
free in 1903. The United Provinces of
Río de la Plata broke up when Uruguay
became independent in 1828, leaving the
remainder to emerge as Argentina. By
1840 the United Provinces of Central
America had fragmented into Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and
Costa Rica.
Many reasons have been suggested
for Hispanic America’s history of frag-
mentation and violent instability. In many
places, barriers of mountains or rain for-
est made regionalism easy and long-range
communication difficult. Regional auton-
omy was traditional in Spanish culture
and had been reinforced by the Spanish
colonial divisions, which established the
dividing lines for many of the nations.
Spain also gave Hispanic America a tradi-
tionally autocratic, military, church-rein-
forced role, with power likely to go to
whichever caudillo, or chief (sometimes
called a “strongman”), could best his
rivals in warfare. This experience was
very different from the more democratic
traditions the English colonists brought
with them to the United States. Chronic
economic troubles and widespread pover-
ty also fed civil instability.
Despite this undemocratic heritage,
many Hispanic intellectuals had studied
the works and deeds of French, English,
and American political philosophers and
statesmen and were struggling to build
liberal, egalitarian republics. United States
president James Monroe (1758–1831;
president 1817–1825) gave indirect sup-
port to their cause when he promulgated
the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning
the European powers not to interfere with
the new nations’ “free and independent
condition.” On the other hand, many
people in the United States were ambiva-
lent or even hostile about the capacity of
Hispanic Americans to govern themselves.
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), then
secretary of state and architect of both the
purchase of Florida and the Monroe
Doctrine, expressed pessimism about the
new regimes’ future, saying they had
inherited Spanish traditions of “arbitrary
power” and “civil dissension.” Stephen
Austin spoke more bluntly, not to say
insultingly, writing in a private letter that
Mexicans were “bigoted and superstitious
in the extreme.... To be candid the major-
ity of the people of the whole nation as far
as I have seen want nothing but tails to be
more brutes than the apes.”
With such attitudes common, it was
no surprise that the United States gave
less support to the struggle for democra-
cy in Hispanic-American nations than its
own civic principles might lead one to
expect. U.S. foreign policy in this period
was typically based on expediency rather
than zeal for democracy. Cuba, for exam-
ple, remained a Spanish colony, but the
United States warned Colombia and
Mexico in 1825 not to attempt to liberate
it from Spanish rule. Among other rea-
sons, the United States feared that a
Cuban war of independence might lead to
a Cuban slave insurrection, which might
inspire slave insurrections in nearby
southern states. Regarding Mexico’s Far
North, expediency was also the rule, as
Mexico soon discovered.Norteamericanos in Texas
With Mexico’s government in chaos,
Anglo-Americans in Texas found it best to
ignore the governing officials. By the early
1830s, the Norteamericanos (as they were
sometimes known) greatly outnumbered
Tejanos and were living by their own rules.
In 1826 empresario Haden Edwards went
so far as to try unsuccessfully to found an
independent republic of “Fredonia” in
eastern Texas. The Anglos’ restless energy
in clearing land and building towns was
startling, though Tejanos were appalled by
some American customs, such as the habit
of saying “God damn!” The phrase, offen-
sive to Tejano Catholics, led to such con-
temptuous terms for the Anglos as
“Godamees” and “Señor God Damn.”
Americans returned the contempt with a
vengeance. Anglo-American William S.
Henry wrote of Texas: “It certainly was
never intended that this lovely land...
should remain in the hands of an ignorant
and degenerate race. The finger of Fate
points... to the time when they will cease
to be the owners, and when the Anglo-
American race will rule with republican
simplicity and justice.”
Fearing the loss of Texas, Mexico
began to enact stricter laws, starting with
the outlawing of slavery in 1829. This
move had little impact outside of Texas,MANIFEST DESTINY AND HISPANIC AMERICA 83