Latin America Conflicts - Essay Example

Latin America has seen everything- from conquests, through colonization and revolutions and to modern day violence- all of which has played a major role in various stages of its advancement (2001). In this paper, we shall discuss how the abuses committed by foreign invaders – first the Spaniards, then conquer of Veracruz by France and ultimately the imperial rule imposed by the United States has shaped the history of Latin America (L.A). The two biggest empires of Latin America, Aztec and Incas, were conquered and exploited by the Spaniards.

Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro respectively were the main leaders of the Spaniards behind the conquests of these two large empires. Cortes who was a Spanish conquistador had attacked the city of Aztec with a small troupe of 600 men and had successfully captured the whole empire that consisted of ten thousand warriors. Cortes way of conquest has always been described as ruthless, guile and violent. Cortes audacious and unscrupulous defeat of Aztecs had left behind a trial of bloodsheds and had also inspired many Spaniards to follow his footsteps.

One of them was Pizarro who undauntedly followed the Cortes policy of dividing the native population against one another and exploiting traditional enmities (Minster,n.d). Pizarro along with his four brothers and a small group of just 2000 men and 65 soldiers had tactfully captured the city of Incas which had an army of 30,000 soldiers. He like Cortes had used audacious and ghastly ways to defeat Incas. Many conquistadors soon followed in the footsteps of Cortes and Pizarro to invade Latin America and handicapped it through bloodshed and violence (M.

Fisher & K.Fisher, 2000). More so , to add to the misery of the local people the conquistadors further tortured them by making them slaves. The native population started disappearing due to conquistadors continued torture. These empires had been conquered by the conquistadors, mainly with the aim of acquiring large volumes of wealth and humungous profits. But as the local population started disappearing and only a small population was left to do the work, the Spaniards turned to African slaves.

These slaves faced torture, racism attacks, and abuses by the Spaniards which further increased the repression in these countries and later on led to rebellionism and revolution over here. With the discrimination of people according to races -on top were the whites, then the mestizos, the blacks and then the indigenous people further intensified the urge of the native people to rebel and consequently led to the revolutions which shaped the future of Latin America over the centuries (Chasteen, 2001).

The spread of the news of revolutions across the world like the American Revolution, the French revolution and more closely the revolution in Caribbean, woke up the people of Latin America and ignited the spirit of anti-colonialism in them. The history of Latin America was not without blood and fire which can easily be established through the revolution which happened in Mexico. The people of Latin America were segregated into the classes of rich and the poor by the Spaniards. During colonialism, wealth and race played an important role in shaping the society.

The basic reason to classify the people was to separate “the whitest of the white from those who already lost some of the