South America development(or lack thereof) into a superpower

Being in high school senior and looking at being a History and Anthropology major next year in college, I have done a large amount of reading but never into South American history. I have recently taken on the mighty task of attempting to write a 15 page research paper on a subject that has no definitive answer. South America (I'm going into this project assuming some major aspects) has never been recognized as a major superpower in today's modern world. I been attempting to narrow down the reasons (obviously because of time and resource constraints, I can't go as deep as I would like so I only need broad reasons for the lack of development).
I've concluded that three major reasons are by large the most interesting:
1. Indigenous Peoples peoples of Mexico, Latin America, and South America make up the majority of today's population.
2. Geography of Mesoamerica and South America
3. Technology and the adaptation of it

Any ideas or thoughts on this

Hi, Truth. I think it's going to be difficult to help you if you don't explain your three reasons and how did you get to them.

BTW, at least without an explanation, I find #1 quite racist. It's like saying Africa is poor because they're black.

One reason is also the lack of governmental stability and constant infighting among the South American nations. None of the South American nations, with the possible exception of Brazil, have enough population and resources to be a superpower on their own. If the big nations that emerged from the independence struggles keep together and stable, like Gran Colombia and the First Mexican Empire, then they have a good chance of emerging as superpowers later. I think the whole of Spanish America holding together is a bit far-fetched, but you never know. Basically, they have to have as good a set of founding fathers as the US did. Give them the stability and free institutions of the US, and they can go far.

Here's my major explanation for my three reasons:
1. When I say that indigenous peoples still play a major role in South American I mean it purely in the sense of their culture. South American peoples were on course to what we know as the Eurasian Empires that invaded in the 1500s. Mayas, Incans, and Aztecs were proto empires who lacked significant dynamics to ever evolve past their known areas. Major reason was lack of domesticated pack animals (although one that could have eventually led to their eventual continental empire was the llama/alpaca, which was domesticated in the Andes, a couple hundred miles from their empires) to allow for transportation over long distances, and for food. Now these people are GENERALLY unreceptive to advancements in technology, though to say they are all conservative in this nature is incorrect. The demographics of South America is generally white and European, but if we make a comparison to America, the pre-superpower America was made of predominantly white Europeans who used blueprint copying of government to create a unified government that had the strength to hold its founding land together. The indigenous peoples of South America were culturally about 2000 years behind Europe, thus unready for a unified "Super"nation like we see America eventually became after the development of a "strong" central government. This is not say indigenous peoples of South America are any way less intelligent (an easy example is how Mexico was the only other confirmed place of creation of agriculture in 6500 BC) than Eurasians, but instead their role in South America is still prominent enough and diverse enough to not allow for a unified state to develop.
2. The Geography, meaning the distinct mountain range that permeates the land as well as the way the continent is orientated in a north-south manner, rather than the American east-west movement, allows for a more difficult attempt for communication (which leads into my third reason) and unification.
3. The technology of the 1800s deterred the ability to create a unified state.

Would you guys say Spanish colonization more detrimental to South American than Britain's was of North America? Or did other factors lead to South America never evolving past revolutionary states

Truth said:

Would you guys say Spanish colonization more detrimental to South American than Britain's was of North America? Or did other factors lead to South America never evolving past revolutionary states

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The main reason was there was no tradition of rule of law and respect for their Constitutions from the beginning of independence. Give them a good Washington-like figure and a good Adams and Jefferson, and that solves a lot of problems.

Another problem with the Spanish model was that it enforced a strict caste system which took away from their national unity. Class divisions were much more pronounced in Spanish America than in the British colonies. There was a large, poor underclass with no experience of democracy, in contrast to the 13 colonies with widespread, if limited, democracy.

However, I doubt that the British could have done better than the Spanish did. The British model in North America was basically to exterminate the natives and replace them with a carbon copy of old England. That was possible with the small native populations of North America, but it would have been much harder with the dense populations of Mexico and Peru. I think the British would have adopted something similar to what the Spanish did, possibly with more freedoms for the whites and less interbreeding. That would have been even more divided than the Spanish, which at least had a substantial Creole and mestizo middle class.

So, here's a very abstract question:
Reverse the conquerers, and if Spain colonized the American colonies and Britain colonized South America. The main reason for Spain's conquest was for gold and silver, which was abundant in in North America but not readily collected until the later in their history. So in a reversal role, would you say that if South America received the majority of immigrants from Europe, would the North America we know today be the disjointed group of countries South America is today or would history be the same?

I might be a bit off here, but IIRC, the Spanish (and Portuguese) colonial system was very heirarchical with white Iberians holding the reigns of power with the indigenous peoples and (in Brazil and Cuba particularly) African slaves providing cheap labour on cash crop plantations and mining. This system remained pretty much intact with independence, creating a small class of conservative white elites above a large mass of indigenous, black and mixed race peasantry.

Having said that, the big gap between North and South American economic development didn't really open until the early C20th. IIRC Argentina and Chile were among the world's leading economies before WW1.

Okay that makes sense, but my question revolves around why it never evolved past being a mass of countries and not one unified state. Lack of leadership? Differences in culture?

Truth said:

Okay that makes sense, but my question revolves around why it never evolved past being a mass of countries and not one unified state. Lack of leadership? Differences in culture?

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Lack of leadership early on lead to lack of stability later on, which hurt them hard.

South America though had revolutionary leaders (ie Simon Bolivar) who could've very easily unified the countries if he gained the confidence of other nations. Why didn't this happen? This might be getting too deep into the subject for my paper, but did the revolutionary leaders only want freedom from oppression or did they want a unified distinct country but didn't have the ability to create it?

Thought experiment: What if, after the AR, many of the 13 colonies went their own way (for whatever reason.) Say you had New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia/Carolina as separate rival countries, often quarreling amongst themselves. It doesn't seem likely that the 20th century American superpower would ever exist and that it might not even extend across the continent. They might or might not all be democracies, but they certainly would be weak.

Claudius said:

Thought experiment: What if, after the AR, many of the 13 colonies went their own way (for whatever reason.) Say you had New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia/Carolina as separate rival countries, often quarreling amongst themselves. It doesn't seem likely that the 20th century American superpower would ever exist and that it might not even extend across the continent. They might or might not all be democracies, but they certainly would be weak.

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That is true to a point. However South America had to deal with problems of geography that impeded the creation of centralized states, and made the construction of infrastructure difficult and expensive. South America had a considerably longer, bloodier, and more destructive war of independence. Said war of independence destroyed most of the colonial economic infrastructure, while hampering the regions ability to repay war loans which would strangle economic development. As mentioned, Spain enforced a rigged caste system that left most of Latin American population as uneducated peons. To top it off, you had regional caudillos who were powers into themselves and could choice to ignore or overthrow their respective government on a whim.

King Gorilla said:

That is true to a point. However South America had to deal with problems of geography that impeded the creation of centralized states, and made the construction of infrastructure difficult and expensive. South America had a considerably longer, bloodier, and more destructive war of independence. Said war of independence destroyed most of the colonial economic infrastructure, while hampering the regions ability to repay war loans which would strangle economic development. As mentioned, Spain enforced a rigged caste system that left most of Latin American population as uneducated peons. To top it off, you had regional caudillos who were powers into themselves and could choice to ignore or overthrow their respective government on a whim.

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Thanks KG, that's very interesting, and illuminating. Revolutions can go wrong in a variety of ways. George Washington himself was of the opinion that the successful AR was "a standing miracle."

So could I even add a fourth reason: Spain as main colonizer?
The idea that the North American colonies being split could have been plausible; all had very individual economies, and though the North and South relied on each other, they could've existed separately.

I have no time now to explore the whole matter, just some notes:
- Iberian colonies were hierachical because the natives survived, though in a subordinate position that only recently was seriously into question (in the overall picture i mean). The british conquest wiped out the natives in a much more radical way. This depends from both the nature of the conquered places and the nature of the colonization aims. Also, British colonization was as hierachical as the spanish one if not more, as far as black slaves were involved.
- hey, Brazil is going to be a major power if it is not yet. The Concert of powers in the near future will probably be something like Us-China-India-Brazil-Russia plus a somewhat unified Europe or/and major European countries. (There also some other places with a chance, but let's see).
- even though the majority of the population was of Native ancestry in many parts of Latin America (not all though), those countries were dominated, bot culturally and politacally, by people who claimed a European ancestry or culture. In many cases they had native blood, but this di not matter much: Spanish colonization was something like 90% of the white immigrants being males, so native wives/concubines were necessarily the norm. The elite culture was essentially European or European-derived in any case, and such was the culture that was offered to the Native peasants (starting with religion).
- The bulk of the Latin American popolace, regardless of ethic origin or genetic mix, is more often than not culturally brought up in a mostly European-derived enviroment. of course South America has her own special characteristics and significant survivals of Natives culture, but usually blended in a way very much removed from what the pre-columbian natives would have recognized.

Another idea, perhaps? Perhaps South America being farther from Europe meant that technological advances took longer to arrive there.

Also, one of the benefits the United States was that it had no geopolitical rivals nearby - British North America was, well, a colony, while Mexico was simply unlucky to have no leader strong enough to ensure long-term stability.

On the other hand, you have basically Brazil + others on South America, so if Bolivar is more successful, then perhaps you can form a good counterweight to Brazil.

Truth said:

Okay that makes sense, but my question revolves around why it never evolved past being a mass of countries and not one unified state. Lack of leadership? Differences in culture?

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Are you talking about an unified Latin American State? Such a country would be larger than Russia, and Russia was mostly uninhabited in vast stretches of land. Only the Mongol Empire had ever reached such size (and even larger) and it didn't last long, for plenty of reasons, which don't involve leadership, but communications, different economic realities across the continent and the importance of local power struggles. Why would Miguel Lanza, one of the few Bolivian warlords surviving the independence war, want to obey the Argentinean, Chilenean or Peruvian head of state?
So, we will get many states - although nearly all of them far larger than the European states. Now, as mentioned, we first have the independence war. It lasted for about 15 years, depending on the region. And it was followed, in most countries, by even more devastating civil conflicts and wars.
And once we go over that, we just realize there aren't internal markets large enough to make large scale industries profitable while at the same time, the exploitation of primary goods is a profitable endeavor. Keep in mind we are talking about the 19th century, not the current globalized world. There was no outsourcing, no WTO and no low tariffs. Even more, trade treaties were, many times, decided at gun point.
So, in short, for a long time, the economic realities favored exporting wool to import shirts, which doesn't really make a country a possible superpower.
Things begun to change in the last years, as access to foreign markets is becoming easier. However, the real challenge right now is to develop an economy that doesn't relay in exporting primary goods to eastern Asia but can, instead, produce enough jobs for everyone. Even with such an economy, few Latin American countries would ever reach something like a world power status: If Uruguay's economy improves to the point where it has a 2% unemployment rate and a GDP per capita which, in PPP, match first world nations, it wouldn't be anything close to a world power.
A good issue you can look up to analize a fair portion of the Latin American history in the 20th century is the "Dutch Disease"