Latin American History

Units

1. 1

   Pre-Columbian societies

   3 lessons

   1. The Maya city-statesLocate the major Classic Maya cities, explain the political system of rival kingdoms led by divine kings, describe how the glyphs were deciphered, and weigh the explanations for the Terminal Classic collapse of about 800 to 900.
   2. The Aztec empireExplain how the Mexica of Tenochtitlan built the Triple Alliance of 1428 into a tribute empire, how chinampa agriculture and causeways fed and linked the capital, and why the empire was a hegemonic one that depended on enemies and subject rulers.
   3. The Inca empireLocate Tawantinsuyu and its road network, explain how the Inca ruled without markets or writing through the mit'a labor tax, storehouses and quipu, and tell how the civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa left the empire open to Pizarro.
2. 2

   Conquest, colonial society and economy

   3 lessons

   1. The conquest of Mexico and PeruFollow Cortes from Veracruz to the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521 and Pizarro from Tumbes to the capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca in 1532 and the entry into Cusco in 1533, and weigh indigenous allies, epidemic disease and divided empires against military technology as the causes of the conquests.
   2. Colonial society and the caste systemPlace the viceroyalties and the encomienda on a map, explain the colonial society of two republics and the casta categories of Spanish, indigenous, African and mixed people, and describe the Church's role as an institution of rule and conversion.
   3. Silver, sugar and slaveryExplain how silver from Potosi and Zacatecas and the mercury mita, sugar from Brazil and the Caribbean, and the Atlantic slave trade formed the colonial economy, using a map of routes and a chart of enslaved Africans landed by region.
3. 3

   Independence movements, 1808 to 1825

   3 lessons

   1. Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the Haitian RevolutionExplain how Napoleon's seizure of the Spanish throne in 1808 created a crisis of sovereignty in Spanish America, trace the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to independence in 1804 under Toussaint Louverture and Dessalines, and compare the two as origins of Latin American independence.
   2. Bolivar, San Martin and the southern campaignsFollow San Martin's Army of the Andes from Mendoza to Chile and Lima and Bolivar's march from Venezuela through Boyaca to Quito and Peru, explain their meeting at Guayaquil in 1822, and describe the final battle at Ayacucho in December 1824.
   3. Independence in Mexico and BrazilCompare the social revolt of Hidalgo and Morelos in Mexico in 1810 with the conservative independence of Iturbide's Plan of Iguala in 1821, explain Brazil's separate path under Dom Pedro in 1822, and say why both produced a monarchy, if briefly in Mexico, and kept the old social order.
4. 4

   State formation and caudillos

   3 lessons

   1. Fragmentation after independenceExplain why the Spanish American empire broke into many states in the 1820s and 1830s, how Gran Colombia and the Central American federation fell apart, and what problems the new states faced.
   2. Caudillos: Rosas and Santa AnnaExplain what a caudillo was and how Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna in Mexico won and used power, and what their rule shows about politics after independence.
   3. Liberals, conservatives and the ReformaExplain the conflict between Liberals and Conservatives in mid-nineteenth-century Latin America, with the Mexican Reform as the main case: the laws against Church and communal land, the War of the Reform, the French intervention and the execution of Maximilian in 1867.
5. 5

   Export economies

   3 lessons

   1. The export boom, 1870 to 1914Argentine wheat and beef, Brazilian coffee, Chilean nitrate and Cuban sugar on a map, with a chart of export values and British and US investment.
   2. Railways, labor and immigrationA railway map of Argentina centered on Buenos Aires, and a chart of European immigration to Argentina and Brazil from 1870 to 1914 against peasant dispossession.
   3. The Porfiriato and order and progressPorfirio Diaz's Mexico from 1876 to 1911: foreign capital, railways, the hacienda and positivist ideas, shown with a chart of Mexican land ownership.
6. 6

   The Mexican Revolution

   3 lessons

   1. Madero, Huerta and the fall of DiazMadero's Plan of San Luis Potosi in 1910, the fall of Diaz in 1911 and Huerta's coup in 1913, on a timeline of 1910 to 1914.
   2. Villa, Zapata and CarranzaA map of the northern and southern revolutionary armies, Zapata's Plan of Ayala on land, and the factions fighting through 1915.
   3. The Constitution of 1917 and CardenasArticles 27 and 123 of the 1917 constitution, land reform and the 1938 oil expropriation under Lazaro Cardenas, charted by hectares distributed.
7. 7

   Populism and the twentieth century

   3 lessons

   1. The Great Depression and import substitutionThe collapse of export prices after 1929 charted for Argentina, Brazil and Chile, and the turn to industrialization behind tariffs.
   2. Peron and Argentine populismJuan Peron and Eva Peron from 1946, labor unions, welfare and nationalization, with a diagram of the populist coalition of workers, state and army.
   3. Cardenas, Vargas and Peron comparedA comparison table of corporatism and mass politics in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, and what each regime gave to workers and withheld from rivals.
8. 8

   Cold War revolutions and dictatorships

   3 lessons

   1. The Cuban RevolutionCastro's rise from the Sierra Maestra to 1959, the Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis of 1962, and the revolution's export of guerrilla ideas.
   2. Chile: Allende and PinochetAllende's 1970 election, the coup of 11 September 1973, and Pinochet's repression and market reforms, with a chart of Chilean inflation and poverty.
   3. The Southern Cone dirty wars and transitionsA map of military regimes of the 1970s in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, Operation Condor, the Argentine disappeared and the transitions to democracy of the 1980s.
9. 9

   Brazil

   3 lessons

   1. Colonial Brazil and the empirePortuguese captaincies, sugar plantations and gold in Minas Gerais on a map, and the court's move to Rio in 1808 and the monarchy until 1889.
   2. Abolition, the republic and VargasThe Golden Law of 1888, the republic of 1889, coffee politics, and Getulio Vargas and the Estado Novo from 1930 to 1945.
   3. Military rule and democracy in BrazilThe coup of 1964, the economic miracle and repression of 1968 to 1974, the return to civilian rule in 1985, and Brazil's inequality charted by decade.