1400-1519: Aztec empire

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information about
Aztec perceptions
about life and death.

1438-1533: Inca Empire

Click here for more
information about uses
of coca in the Incan
empire and throughout
history

1519: Aztec-Spanish Encounter
Click here for more
information about the
Cortes-Moctezuma
Encounter.

Era of Colonization

Requirimiento-forced conversion to Catholicism

Eeconimiendas-land grants to Spaniards that included the inhabitants

Mita-debt peonage tax

And

Vicories-nearly autonomous provincial rulers

1531: Virgin of Guadalupe appears

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About the Virgin of Guadalupe

1532-36: Incan-Spanish Encounter

1545: Silver ore found at Potosi

1542:Bartolome De La Casas
writes "A Short History of the
Destruction of the Indies" in
response to grave human rights
violations against indigenous
people.                                                                                          

1549: Spanish make contact  with Shuar

Click here for more
information about the
myths of the Shuar

Early 1600s: Period of increased autonomy in the colonies

Beginning of slave raiding in Sao Paulo, royal decree allowing the purchase of government offices

1655: Zumbi leads slave revolt in northern Brazil

1701: Bourbon Dynasty in Spain

Reforms impeding colonial

sovereignty lead to increased

anti-Spanish sentiment

1780-81: Tupac Amaru II leads the Great Rebellion in Peru

1791: Slave Revolt in Haiti

1803: After the death of its “Black Napoleon,” Toussaint L’Overture, Haiti gains its independence

1810: Hidalgo, a Creole priest, leads a revolt in Mexico.  He is executed
in 1811.

 

ERA OF THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE

Rise of Caudillo rule

1810: Independence declared in Caracas, Santiago de Chile, and Buenos Aires.
1811: Independence in Venezuela and Paraguay.
1817 New Mexican constitution shepards in an era of massive land reform
1818: Independence in Chile

1819: Independence in Columbia, Simon Bolivars “Great Campaign”

1816: Independence in Argentina

1821: Mexico and Peru gain independence.

1825: Bolivia, named after Latin American unifier and strongman caudillo Simon Bolivar, gains its independence.

1829: Juan Manuel Rosas becomes dictator of Argentina

1848: Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

1853: Downfall of Rosas in Argentina

1853: Argentina Constitutional Convention

1857: Passing of the Mexican Constitution, followed by the War of Reform

1865: Paraguayan War

1876: Porforio Diaz becomes dictator of Mexico

1880: Popular crusade for abolitionism in Brazil

1880: Julio Roca, military leader of the anti-Indigenous“Campaign of the Desert,” wins presidential election in Argentina

1888: Brazil Abolishes Slavery

1891: Suicide and defeat of Balmaceda, president of Chile

1891: Cuban nationalist Jose Marti authors “Our America”

1891: Death of Dom Pedro II, Brazil’s famous prince regent

1907: Birth of Frida Kahlo

Click here for more information about the life and works of Frida

1909: Birth of Camen Miranda in Portugal

Click here for more information
about Carmen Miranda

1910: Mexican Revolution

Zapata in the South,
Pancho Villa in the North

1914: Panama Canal Opens

1938: Cardenas nationalizes oil in Mexico: celebrated date of Mexican economic
independence

1937: Vargas institutes Estado Novo in Brazil

1940: Pele is born

Click here to learn more about Pele, Maradona, and other famous Latin American soccer (football) players.

1944: Founding of the Black Experimental Theatre in Brazil

Click here for an interview with Abdias do Naxcimento

1946: Peron elected to power in Argentina

1952: Guatemala enacts sweeping land reform, re-claiming lands owned from the United Fruit Co.

Click here for more information about the history of the United Fruit Company

1956: Fidel Castro takes power

Click here for more information about the Cuban Revolution, Fidel, and Che.

1957: Papa Doc Duvalier

Takes power in Haiti

1961: Bay of Pigs

1962: Cuban Missile Crisis

1967: Che Guevera killed in Bolivia

1970: Allende elected to power in Chile

Click here for more information about Allende and Pinochet

1973: Coup in Chile, Pinochet assumes power; Kissinger becomes Secretary of State

1975: Meetings for Operation Condor

1976: Beginning of the Dirty Wars

1980s: Rise of the Shining Path in Peru, “Lost Decade” causes economic stagnancy

1990: Alberto Fujimori elected in Peru

1998: Hugo Chavez elected in Venezuela