Duxbury High School - Partridge Yearbook (Duxbury, MA)

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HONOR ESSAY The Historical Background of Present Economic Conditions in South America In order to understand the recent course of events in Latin America, one must bear in mind the past history of these twenty republics south of the Rio Grande and the traits of their peoples. These countries, known collectively as Latin America, are those lands which were under the domin- ation of Spain and Portugal during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In the first place, Columbus discovered South America. He explored along the coast of what is now Venezuela in 1498. By 1515, the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors were pouring in. The Portuguese settled in what is now Brazil, and the Spaniards occupied the rest of the continent. By 1550, fifty years after Columbus' discovery, the small horde of 100,000 Spaniards and Portuguese that had managed to get over here had accurately surveyed most of the 8 000 000 square miles of South America: had ex- plored the mountain ranges from Mexico to Cape Horng had charted the main river systems, and had found-ed practicaly all of the principal cities of today. To make a comparison, it was as if the entire North American continent had been explored, prospected, and mappedg as if its principal cities like San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, New York, and every other city of over a hundred thousand population had been founded within fifty years of the landing of the Pilgrims. To continue the analogy, it was as if Chi- cago, Denver, and all these new cities were each dumped into a separate pit, the walls of the pit being the gigantic mountain ranges of South America. The reason for this tremendous expansion was that Spain had finally driven the Moors out of the homeland just a few years before, and a new national enthusiasm had swept over the country. The country needed an outlet for its new-found energies, and this new continent provided just such an ideal outlet. This wave of colonization swept through the mountains and then in a few years the tide went out, leaving the people stranded in little puddles here and there. For the people, this developed a localistic attitude which persists to this day and prevents them from cooperating with their neigh- bors. When the Spaniards chose a place to settle, each man did not make a rush to stake claims for land as the Virginia colonists did. They first built a stone fortress and some stone and adobe houses around it. The streets were made narrow so that they could be easily swept by gunfire. The town could be defended from house to house. These towns were replicas of the feudalistic fortress-towns in Spain. These new Spanish settlers were horribly cruel to the natives. The sole function of the Indian was cheap labor. The Spaniards used the slavery system over here in its worst forms. By 1542, 12,000,000 Indians had been exterminated. E221

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There are fields which some people do not even consider. For instance, Bunny Rabbit may be just a character in bedtime stories to some people, but to 10,000 rabbit breeders he is a most important source of income. Los Angeges alone eats more than a million rabbits a year. There may be op- portunities for nearly 100,000 mor-e commercial rabbit raisers if rabbits are popularized as meat. The war has interfered with the supplies of Australian rabbit skins. I have tried to list a specific number of fields which are open to us. Our motto is Life is what you make of it. It has always been true, and still is. If we want to become something in this world, there are more opportun- ities now than ever before. Only the sluggish and lazy see no future, because they do not try. But the alert and active see a happy future of wisdom, wealth, and wit. We must not see only war, worry, and weakness. We must look forward, not backward! This is a world for youth, a world simply bursting with new opportunity! FRANCES BURNS E211

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The mental makeup of these Spaniard was all the same. They were all passionate. They hated organized and constant labor, such as working in the rieldsg they loved the ceremonial, they were fanatically loyal to their churchg they were not steady, but were given to sudden bursts of energy and violence. Above all, they were intensely individualistic. As Spain declined, her empire over here broke up. It could not keep up with changing conditions. The French Revolution had set afire in the hearts of many patriots like Simon Bolivar and Jose San Martin the desire for independence. Accordingly, they organized armies and commenced hos- tilitles against the Spanish armies in 1817. After skillful fighting and many hardships, they finally destroyed the last Spanish forces in 1826. After the war, new leaders, not realizing that the people were not ready for democracy. adopted constitutions similar to ours, which were not suited to these countries' needs. The countries really needed some form of progressive d-ctatorship. No wonder that Venezuela has had fifteen con- stitutions in the last century. As a result, Latin America was ruled by mllitary dictators of the worst sort who manag-ed to seize power because of the clumsy constitutions. These dictators were changed as often as they could be killed off. For example, there have been 52 revolutions in Venezuela dui-.ng the last century. One dictator, Francisco Lopez of Paraguay thought himself to be a second Napoleon. He declared war on the Argentine Repub- lic in 1864 with the intention of conquering South America. Brazil and Uraguay promptly joined against him and all but ruined Paraguay. In the six years of war that followed, Paraguays original population of 1,337,000 decreased to 221,000, which represents a decrease of eighty-three percent. However, freedom for the Latin Americans had its better aspects. Other Europeans became interested, and -explored and charted a considerable por- tion of the countries' natural resources. Immigrants poured in. People dis- covered new occupations. Cattle and sheep raising were now taken up ex- tensively in the Argentine. 'lhe discovery of nitrates in northern Chili changed that part of the country from a desert to a thriving district. During the prosperous decade of the 1920's American business men were looking for places to invest money. They started to invest in South America. Hundreds of millions of dollars were poured down the South American dralnpipe. ln fact, the money was crammed down the South Am-erlcan throats. The 1929 crash came and business collapsed. South American business men could no longer pay interest. They resented our trying to get our interest. It was really the fault of Americans, because we lent more money than could be payed off. Then the high pressure Nazi salesmen came down and persuaded the business men to barter their goods. This would soon have led to complete dependence of South America upon Germany, but the war interrupted that. One of the most important impediments to progress and cooperation between the republics is the intense nationalism and jealousy of each country. For instance, even a customs union between the five Central American republics of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica would benefit each country. But if any of the presidents sug- gested the idea, he wouldn't last very long. Several unions were attempted in the past. but they were eventually broken up. In the 1921 union, Guate- mala walked out, raising the usual cry: Will the strongest people in Central America submit to be ruled by the bloody Salvadorenos, the savage Hon- durans, and the wily Nicaraguans? This brings up the subject of the political customs. In Latin America, a man is not considered so much by his accomplishments as by the nu-mber of influential friends he has. One of the first things a Latin American politician learns to do is to sit on the fence. He must, besides keeping up l23l