194 CHAPTER 9 DECOLONIZATION AND THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL IDENTITIES, 1821–1870
the agencies of Spanish rule—viceroys, audien-
cias, intendants—and by weakening among the
landowners the ingrained habits of obedience to
a central authority. In contrast, all other colonial
elites—the merchant class, weakened by the ex-
pulsion or emigration of many loyalist merchants;
the mine owners, ruined by wartime destruction
or confi scation of their properties; and the church
hierarchy, often in disgrace for having sided with
Spain—emerged from the confl ict with diminished
weight.
To their other sources of infl uence, members
of the landed aristocracy added the prestige of a
military elite crowned with the laurels of victory,
for many revolutionary offi cers had arisen from
its ranks. The militarization of the new states as a
result of years of destructive warfare and postwar
instability ensured a large political role for this of-
fi cer group. Standing armies that often consumed
more than half of the national budgets arose. Not
content with the role of guardians of order and na-
tional security, military offi cers became the arbiter
of political disputes, usually deciding in favor of
the conservative landowning interests and the ur-
ban elites with whom the great landowners were
closely linked.
ECONOMIC STAGNATION
Independence leaders had expected that a vast
expansion of foreign trade would follow the pass-
ing of Spanish commercial monopoly and aid eco-
nomic recovery. In fact, some countries, favored
by their natural resources or geographic position,
soon recovered from the revolutionary crisis and
scored modest to large economic advances; these
included Brazil (coffee and sugar), Argentina
(hides), and Chile (metals and hides). But others,
such as Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru, whose mining
economies had suffered shattering blows, failed to
recover colonial levels of production.
Several factors accounted for the economic
stagnation that plagued many of the new states in
the fi rst half of the nineteenth century. Indepen-
dence was not accompanied by a redistribution
of land and income that might have stimulated a
growth of internal markets and productive forces.
Nor did the anticipated large-scale infl ux of foreign
capital materialize—partly because political dis-
order discouraged foreign investment and partly
because Europe and the United States, then fi nanc-
ing their own industrial revolutions, had as yet
little capital to export. Exports of Latin American
staples remained below expectations, for Europe
still viewed Latin America primarily as an outlet
for manufactured goods, especially English tex-
tiles. The resulting fl ood of cheap, factory-made
European products damaged local craft industries
and drained the new states of their stocks of gold
and silver, creating a chronic balance-of-trade
problem. The British conquest of the Latin Ameri-
can markets further weakened the local merchant
class, which was unable to compete with its Eng-
lish rivals. By mid-century the wealthiest and most
prestigious merchant houses, from Mexico City to
Buenos Aires and Valparaíso, bore English names.
Iberian merchants, however, continued to domi-
nate the urban and provincial retail trade in many
areas.
Taken together, these developments retarded
the development of native capitalism and capital-
ist relations and reinforced the dominant role of
the hacienda in the economic and political life of
the new states. The deepening stagnation of the
interior of these nations, aggravated by the lack
of roads and by natural obstacles to communica-
tion (such as jungles and mountains), intensifi ed
tendencies toward regionalism and the domina-
tion of regions by caudillos great and small, who
were usually local large landowners.^1 The slug-
gish tempo of economic activity encouraged these
caudillos to employ their private followings of pe-
ons and retainers as pawns in the game of politics
and revolution on a national scale. Indeed, politics
and revolution became in some countries a form
of economic activity that compensated for the lack
of other opportunities, because the victors, having(^1) The term caudillo is commonly applied to politico-military
leaders who held power on the national and regional level
in Latin America before more or less stable parliamentary
government became the norm in the area beginning about
- Military ability and charisma are qualities often
associated with caudillos, who, although assuming many
guises, did not all possess the same qualities.