B2 · Upper Intermediate
16 min
historypoliticsculturesociety
Las independencias de América Latina: revolución, élites y una libertad complicada
Latin American Independence: Revolution, Elites, and a Complicated Freedom
Fletcher breaks down this story in English. Octavio reacts and expands in Spanish. Follow along with the live transcript, tap any word for its translation. Upper Intermediate level — perfect for confident speakers refining their skills.
So, Octavio.
I want to go somewhere big today.
Latin American independence.
The whole thing.
Because I think most people, and I'll include myself here, have a very simplified version of this story in their heads.
Brave colonies, evil Spain, freedom.
Done.
Bueno, mira, ya empezamos mal.
Well, look, we're already off to a bad start.
Porque esa versión simplificada es exactamente el problema.
Because that simplified version is exactly the problem.
La gente piensa que fue como la independencia de Estados Unidos, pero con sombreros diferentes.
People think it was like US independence, but with different hats.
Y no tiene nada que ver.
And it has nothing to do with that.
Right, and that's the American lens I grew up with.
We had our revolution in 1776, so we assume everyone else's looked like ours.
Tea in the harbor, declaration, done.
But you're saying this was fundamentally different.
Completamente diferente.
Completely different.
A ver, para entender las independencias latinoamericanas, primero hay que entender qué pasó en España.
Let's see, to understand Latin American independence, first you have to understand what happened in Spain.
Porque todo empieza en Europa, no en América.
Because it all starts in Europe, not in America.
En 1808, Napoleón invadió España y puso a su hermano José en el trono.
In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and put his brother Joseph on the throne.
De repente, las colonias no tenían rey legítimo.
Suddenly, the colonies had no legitimate king.
And this is the part that never gets enough attention.
It wasn't that the colonies woke up one morning and decided they hated Spain.
The whole thing was triggered by a crisis in the mother country itself.
Napoleon basically pulled the rug out from under the entire Spanish empire.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y es que la relación entre España y sus colonias era complicada.
And the thing is, the relationship between Spain and its colonies was complicated.
No era solo opresión.
It wasn't just oppression.
Había una élite criolla, es decir, personas de origen español pero nacidas en América, que tenía mucho poder económico.
There was a Creole elite, meaning people of Spanish origin but born in America, who had a lot of economic power.
Pero el poder político lo controlaban los peninsulares, los españoles nacidos en España.
But political power was controlled by the peninsulares, Spaniards born in Spain.
Esa diferencia fue clave.
That difference was key.
So Octavio is making a crucial distinction here.
You had this Creole class, born in the Americas, often wealthy, well-educated, who ran estates and businesses.
But when it came to governing, the top jobs always went to people sent from Spain.
That resentment had been building for generations.
Generaciones, sí.
Generations, yes.
Y además, la Ilustración había llegado a América.
And on top of that, the Enlightenment had reached America.
Bolívar, San Martín, muchos de los líderes independentistas habían leído a Rousseau, a Montesquieu.
Bolívar, San Martín, many of the independence leaders had read Rousseau, Montesquieu.
Conocían la Revolución Francesa.
They knew about the French Revolution.
Conocían la independencia de Estados Unidos.
They knew about US independence.
Tenían ideas nuevas sobre la libertad y los derechos del individuo.
They had new ideas about liberty and individual rights.
Here's what gets me, though.
These were mostly wealthy, landowning men.
Educated in Europe, some of them.
Bolívar himself was from one of the richest families in Venezuela.
So when we say 'revolution,' we need to ask: revolution for whom?
La verdad es que tienes razón.
The truth is you're right.
Esa es la gran pregunta.
That's the big question.
Porque los indígenas, los africanos esclavizados, los mestizos, ellos no estaban sentados en las mesas donde se tomaban las decisiones.
Because the indigenous people, the enslaved Africans, the mestizos, they weren't sitting at the tables where decisions were made.
Había excepciones, claro.
There were exceptions, of course.
En México, el cura Miguel Hidalgo empezó su revolución con campesinos e indígenas.
In Mexico, the priest Miguel Hidalgo started his revolution with peasants and indigenous people.
Pero Hidalgo terminó ejecutado, y al final la independencia mexicana la lograron los conservadores.
But Hidalgo ended up executed, and in the end Mexican independence was achieved by the conservatives.
That's extraordinary, actually.
So in Mexico, the guy who starts the revolution with the common people gets killed, and then the elite basically co-opts the movement and finishes it on their own terms.
That's a pattern that repeats itself, isn't it?
Se repite en casi todos los países.
It repeats in almost every country.
Mira, yo viví cuatro años en Buenos Aires, y allí lo ves claramente.
Look, I lived four years in Buenos Aires, and there you see it clearly.
La revolución de mayo de 1810 fue un grupo de criollos en Buenos Aires que decidieron formar su propia junta de gobierno.
The May Revolution of 1810 was a group of Creoles in Buenos Aires who decided to form their own governing junta.
No preguntaron a los gauchos del interior, ni a los indígenas del Chaco.
They didn't ask the gauchos of the interior, or the indigenous people of the Chaco.
Fue una decisión de la capital.
It was a decision made by the capital.
I mean, I covered enough regime changes in my career to know that the people who start revolutions and the people who finish them are rarely the same people.
But let's talk about the big names.
Because Bolívar, in particular, is a figure who looms over all of this.
What was his actual vision?
Bolívar es fascinante y contradictorio.
Bolívar is fascinating and contradictory.
Quería liberar a toda Sudamérica del dominio español y crear una gran nación unida, algo parecido a los Estados Unidos pero en el sur.
He wanted to liberate all of South America from Spanish rule and create one great united nation, something similar to the United States but in the south.
Lo llamaba la Gran Colombia.
He called it Gran Colombia.
Incluía lo que hoy es Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá y parte de Perú.
It included what today is Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and part of Peru.
And that project collapsed almost immediately.
He unified it, and then it fell apart within a decade.
Which tells you something about how fragile these new nations were from the start.
Es que Bolívar descubrió algo que muchos revolucionarios descubren después de ganar: es mucho más fácil destruir un sistema que construir uno nuevo.
The thing is, Bolívar discovered something many revolutionaries discover after winning: it's much easier to destroy a system than to build a new one.
Había diferencias enormes entre las regiones.
There were enormous differences between regions.
Los venezolanos no querían que los gobernaran desde Bogotá.
Venezuelans didn't want to be governed from Bogotá.
Los ecuatorianos tenían sus propios intereses.
Ecuadorians had their own interests.
Al final, Bolívar murió amargado, casi solo, diciendo que había 'arado en el mar'.
In the end, Bolívar died bitter, almost alone, saying he had 'plowed the sea.'
"Plowed the sea." That's one of the most devastating political quotes I've ever heard.
And I've interviewed people who know a thing or two about futility.
Look, let's talk about the other giant.
San Martín.
Because he's often compared to Bolívar, but he was a very different kind of leader.
Muy diferente.
Very different.
San Martín era militar de formación.
San Martín was a military man by training.
Había luchado en el ejército español, en la guerra contra Napoleón.
He had fought in the Spanish army, in the war against Napoleon.
Así que era un soldado profesional que decidió usar lo que había aprendido de España para luchar contra España.
So he was a professional soldier who decided to use what he'd learned from Spain to fight against Spain.
Tiene cierta ironía, ¿no?
There's a certain irony, right?
There absolutely is.
And his crossing of the Andes, taking an army over those mountains to liberate Chile, that's one of the great military campaigns in history.
I'd put it alongside Hannibal crossing the Alps.
It almost never gets mentioned in American or European history classes.
Nunca se menciona.
It's never mentioned.
Y eso dice mucho sobre cómo Europa y Norteamérica ven la historia de América Latina.
And that says a lot about how Europe and North America see Latin American history.
Como algo secundario.
As something secondary.
Pero a ver, San Martín cruzó los Andes con cinco mil hombres, a más de cuatro mil metros de altura, para liberar Chile y después avanzar hacia Perú.
But look, San Martín crossed the Andes with five thousand men, at more than four thousand meters altitude, to liberate Chile and then advance toward Peru.
Es una hazaña increíble.
It's an incredible feat.
And then there's this mysterious meeting between Bolívar and San Martín in Guayaquil, in 1822.
Nobody knows exactly what they said to each other.
But afterward, San Martín just...
left.
Stepped aside.
Went to Europe and never came back.
What do you make of that?
Es uno de los grandes misterios de la historia latinoamericana.
It's one of the great mysteries of Latin American history.
La interpretación más generosa es que San Martín entendió que dos líderes fuertes no podían compartir el mismo continente, y que se retiró por el bien de la causa.
The most generous interpretation is that San Martín understood that two strong leaders couldn't share the same continent, and that he stepped back for the good of the cause.
La interpretación menos generosa es que Bolívar lo presionó para que se fuera.
The less generous interpretation is that Bolívar pressured him to leave.
Having covered enough strongmen in my career, I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.
But here's what I want to push on.
You mentioned earlier that these were mostly elite movements.
So what actually changed for ordinary people after independence?
Bueno, la respuesta honesta es: muy poco, al principio.
Well, the honest answer is: very little, at first.
La esclavitud continuó en muchos países durante décadas.
Slavery continued in many countries for decades.
En Brasil, hasta 1888.
In Brazil, until 1888.
Los pueblos indígenas siguieron marginados.
Indigenous peoples remained marginalized.
Las haciendas siguieron funcionando igual.
The haciendas kept functioning the same way.
Cambió la bandera, cambió el himno, pero las estructuras de poder económico no cambiaron mucho.
The flag changed, the anthem changed, but the structures of economic power didn't change much.
No, you're absolutely right about that.
And I think this connects to something I saw again and again as a correspondent.
You can change a government overnight.
Changing a society takes generations.
The independence wars replaced Spanish viceroys with local strongmen.
Caudillos.
El caudillismo es quizás la consecuencia más importante de las guerras de independencia.
Caudillismo is perhaps the most important consequence of the independence wars.
Cuando se destruyó el orden colonial, no había instituciones fuertes para reemplazarlo.
When the colonial order was destroyed, there were no strong institutions to replace it.
Entonces el poder fue para los generales, para los hombres con ejércitos.
So power went to the generals, to the men with armies.
Y ese patrón ha perseguido a América Latina durante doscientos años.
And that pattern has haunted Latin America for two hundred years.
Two hundred years.
I mean, think about that.
You can draw a line from those early caudillos all the way through to the military dictatorships of the twentieth century.
Pinochet, Videla, the Brazilian junta.
The pattern is remarkably persistent.
No, no, espera.
No, no, wait.
Es verdad que hay una línea, pero hay que tener cuidado con ser demasiado determinista.
It's true there's a line, but you have to be careful about being too deterministic.
Porque también hubo momentos de democracia real.
Because there were also moments of real democracy.
Costa Rica abolió su ejército en 1948.
Costa Rica abolished its army in 1948.
Uruguay fue llamada 'la Suiza de América' a principios del siglo veinte.
Uruguay was called 'the Switzerland of America' in the early twentieth century.
No todo fue caudillos y dictadores.
It wasn't all caudillos and dictators.
Fair point.
I take that.
I was painting with too broad a brush.
But let me ask you something as a Spaniard.
How does Spain itself reckon with this history?
Because from the outside, it seems like Spain has been pretty quiet about its colonial past compared to, say, Britain or France.
Es que en España tenemos un problema con la memoria histórica en general.
The thing is, in Spain we have a problem with historical memory in general.
Nos costó décadas hablar de la Guerra Civil y Franco.
It took us decades to talk about the Civil War and Franco.
Entonces imagínate hablar de trescientos años de colonialismo.
So imagine talking about three hundred years of colonialism.
En las escuelas españolas, la historia de América Latina se enseña muy rápido.
In Spanish schools, Latin American history is taught very quickly.
Dos semanas, quizás tres.
Two weeks, maybe three.
Y se presenta como 'el descubrimiento' o 'el encuentro de culturas.' Muy neutral, muy cómodo.
And it's presented as 'the discovery' or 'the encounter of cultures.' Very neutral, very comfortable.
"The encounter of cultures." That's doing a lot of heavy lifting as a euphemism.
Look, I covered enough conflicts to know that every country has its blind spots.
Americans don't deal with the Philippines particularly well.
The British have a very selective memory about India.
But the scale of what happened in the Americas...
La escala fue enorme.
The scale was enormous.
Y la verdad es que los movimientos de independencia tampoco resolvieron esa injusticia original.
And the truth is the independence movements didn't resolve that original injustice either.
Los criollos que tomaron el poder eran descendientes de los colonizadores.
The Creoles who took power were descendants of the colonizers.
Entonces hay una ironía profunda: la independencia liberó a América Latina de España, pero no de la herencia colonial.
So there's a deep irony: independence freed Latin America from Spain, but not from the colonial legacy.
That is a really powerful way to put it.
Not from the colonial legacy.
And you see that today.
You see it in who owns the land, who holds political power, even in beauty standards.
The colonial hierarchy didn't end with independence.
It just became invisible.
Invisible para algunos.
Invisible to some.
Porque si le preguntas a una persona indígena en Bolivia o Guatemala, te va a decir que la estructura colonial nunca fue invisible para ellos.
Because if you ask an indigenous person in Bolivia or Guatemala, they'll tell you the colonial structure was never invisible to them.
Siempre la sintieron.
They always felt it.
Evo Morales llegó al poder en Bolivia en 2006, y fue el primer presidente indígena.
Evo Morales came to power in Bolivia in 2006, and he was the first indigenous president.
¿Doscientos años después de la independencia?
Two hundred years after independence?
Eso te dice todo.
That tells you everything.
Two hundred years.
That number keeps coming back.
I reported from Bolivia in the early 2000s, actually.
The inequality was staggering.
You could see it in the streets, physically.
The difference between La Paz and the surrounding indigenous communities was like two different centuries existing side by side.
A ver, pero también es importante hablar de lo que sí se logró.
Look, but it's also important to talk about what was achieved.
Porque las independencias crearon naciones con identidades propias.
Because the independence movements created nations with their own identities.
La literatura, la música, la gastronomía de América Latina son el resultado de esa mezcla de culturas que empezó con la colonia y se transformó después de la independencia.
The literature, music, cuisine of Latin America are the result of that mixture of cultures that began with the colony and transformed after independence.
Piensa en el tango, en el muralismo mexicano, en la literatura del boom.
Think of tango, Mexican muralism, boom literature.
No, you're absolutely right.
García Márquez, Borges, Neruda.
These are some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
And they couldn't have existed without that particular collision of European, indigenous, and African cultures.
The pain produced something extraordinary.
García Márquez lo dijo mejor que nadie.
García Márquez said it better than anyone.
Dijo que la soledad de América Latina venía de su historia.
He said Latin America's solitude came from its history.
Que cien años de soledad no era solo una novela, sino una forma de describir la experiencia de todo un continente que siempre se sintió lejos del centro del mundo.
That One Hundred Years of Solitude wasn't just a novel, but a way of describing the experience of an entire continent that always felt far from the center of the world.
Creando su propia realidad.
Creating its own reality.
Creating its own reality.
That might be the best summary of two hundred years of post-independence Latin America I've ever heard.
Octavio, this was remarkable.
And I'll say this: if I'd had this conversation before I started reporting, I would have understood so much more of what I was seeing on the ground.
Bueno, es que para entender el presente de América Latina, siempre hay que volver a la independencia.
Well, the thing is, to understand Latin America's present, you always have to go back to independence.
Y a la colonia.
And to the colony.
Todo está conectado.
Everything is connected.
Es como un río que nunca para de fluir.
It's like a river that never stops flowing.
Las preguntas que Bolívar se hacía sobre la libertad y la justicia son las mismas preguntas que se hacen hoy.
The questions Bolívar asked himself about liberty and justice are the same questions being asked today.
Solo cambian los nombres.
Only the names change.