Sophomore Inquiry / Introduction to Latin American Studies

Entries in Bold and Italics indicate important dates to understand for this class

Word list and chronology: The Historical Context

Prehistoric Times, circa 14,500 BCE-100 BCE (Before the Common Era)

circa 25,000 BCE — Asian migrants cross Bering Land bridge and enter North America

circa 12,000 BCE — Migrants have made their way all the way to Chile

6500-5000 BCE — Beginnings of agriculture in Mexico

2000 BCE — Huastecas and other proto-Maya cultures in Mexico

1200 BCE-00 — Olmecs in Mexico

1200-400 — Chavín in Andean South America

400 BCE-1500 CE — Zapotecs (Monte Alban, Mixtla)

400 BCE - 1000 CE —Nazca coastal culture, western South America

Classic Period, 100 BCE-900 CE (Common Era)

31 BCE — First dated Olmec monument, early glyph writing

00-300 CE — Pre-classic Maya

circa 50 CE — Maya leave first written records in Western Hemisphere

100 CE — Sun temple built at Teotihuacan

300-900 — Classic Maya

200-900 — Teotihuacan expands

400-1000 — Tiahuanaco empire, Andean South America

711 — Tariq ibn Ziyad attacks southern Spain beginning the Islamic conquest there

890 — Maya produce first book in the Americas

circa 850-900 — Great Mayan cities of Central America deserted

Post-Classic Period, 900-1492CE

800-1200 — Toltecs

985-1000 Norse explorers establish settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland

1100 — Cuzco (Peru) founded

1168-1522 — Aztecs enter and later control Central Valley of Mexico

1325 — Aztecs occupy island called Tenochititlan

1350 — Rapid Inca expansion in Andean South America

Exploration and Conquest, 1492-1550

1415-60 — Prince Henry the Navigator opens the great Portuguese "Age of Exploration"

1479 — Ferdinand II and Isabella I unite the crowns of Aragon and Castille in Spain

1492 — Spanish Roman Catholics expel the last of the Muslims and Jews from Spain

1492 — Columbus makes landfall in the Bahamas on October 12

1494 — Treaty of Tordesillas divides the New World between Spain and Portugal

1500 — Pedro Alvares Cabral claims the Brazilian "hump" for Portugal

1507 — A German cartographer publishes a map of the New World, using the name America in honor of Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512)

1513 — Vasco Nuñez de Balboa views the "South Sea" from Panama, the Pacific Ocean

1513-21 —Ponce de Leon explores Florida on two expeditions

1519-22 —Cortez enters, lays siege to, and conquers Aztec capital Tenochtitlan

1519 — Ferdinand Magellan begins a westward circumnavigation of the earth. Killed in the Philippines, his crew completed the round-the-world voyage back to Spain in 1522

1527-32 — Civil war between Inca brothers Atahualpa and Huascar

1532 — Pizarro captures Atahualpa, ending the Inca Empire

1535 — Maya defeat and force out all Spaniards from the Yucatan

1540 — Pedro de Valdivia begins the conquest of Chile

Colonial Era, 1550-1800

1516-1700 — Habsburg Dynasty / Spain

1524 — Council of the Indies established to help administer the new colonies

1535 — Antonio de Mendoza becomes first Spanish viceroy

1536 — Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires

1539-41 — Hernando de Soto departs Havana, explores North America in search of the 7 Cities of Cibola

1539 — First printing press set up in the New World at Mexico City

1540 — Francisco Vasquez de Coronado explores north from Mexico to the Great Plains

1542 — Bartolome de las Casas pushed "New Laws" to reform treatment of Indians

1598 — Juan del Oñate established Spanish settlement in New Mexico

1609 — Spanish establish Santa Fe, New Mexico

1680-92 — Massive Pueblo revolt drives Spaniards out of northern frontier

1697 — Last of the Maya defeated by Spaniards

1700-1808 — Bourbon Dynasty/ Spain,

1767 — Society of Jesus (Jesuits) expelled from Spanish America

1769— Father Junipero Serra and Captain Gaspar de Portola exploration in Alta California.

1780-81 — Indian revolt led by Tupac Amaru in Upper Peru

1781 — Comuero Revolt in Colombia

Independence Era, 1791-1826

1791-1804 — Slave revolt on French island of Saint-Dominigue (Haiti) leads to independence

1793-1815 — Napoleonic Wars disrupt political rule in Europe

1799-1803 — German geographer Alexander von Humboldt explores Mexico and South America

1806 — British naval forces invade and briefly occupy Buenos Aires, Argentina

1807 — British forces invade and briefly occupy Montevideo, Uruguay; King John and his court flee to Brazil to escape Napoleon's invading armies in Portugal

1808 — Napoleon Bonaparte installs his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne

1810 — Creoles establish ruling juntas in Caracas, Venezuela, Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, Argentina

1811 — Venezuela and Paraguay declare independence from Spain; Hidalgo killed and replaced by Morelos; José Gervasio Artigas leads battle for Uruguayan independence

1815 — Bolívar forced to retreat to the island of Jamaica

1816 — Argentina declares independence

1818 — Chile declares independence

1821 — Iturbide declares Mexico independent with his Plan of Iguala

1822 — San Martín and Bolívar meet in Guayaquil, Ecuador; the former departs for France and self-imposed exile; King Pedro declares Brazil independent from Portugal

1824 — Last patriot victories against the Spaniards: Bolívar at Junín in August and Sucre at Ayacucho in December; Pedro writes a new Brazilian constitution

1825 — Bolivia declares independence

Nineteenth-Century

1823 — Monroe Doctrine warns against recolonization of newly independent Latin American republics

1828 — British force a settlement of the war between Argentina and Brazil over the "Banda Oriental." This long-contested land becomes newly independent Uruguay.

1829 — Venezuela leaves "Gran Colombia"

1830 — Ecuador leaves "Gran Colombia"; Bolívar dies preparing to go into exile

1830s — Rise of caudillos, self-interested military dictators backed by private armies

1828 — British force a settlement of the war between Argentina and Brazil over the "Banda Oriental." This long-contested land becomes newly independent Uruguay.

1829 — Venezuela leaves "Gran Colombia"

1830 — Ecuador leaves "Gran Colombia"; Bolívar dies preparing to go into exile

1830s — Rise of caudillos, self-interested military dictators backed by private armies

1831-1844 — Pedro I forced to abdicate. Brazil ruled by committee--a time of political fragmentation

1844-89 — King Pedro II rules Brazil

1835-45 — Anglo-American settlers in Texas revolt against Mexico, establish an independent nation, and finally join the United States.

1840s — Rise of Manifest Destiny, the belief by many Americans that westward and outward expansionism represented God's plan for the nation.

1846 — Mexican War of expansion

1848 — Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo cedes northern half of Mexico to the US

1850 — Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in which Great Britain and the US agree to maintain as neutral any Central American canal

1853 — With the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, US acquires route for a railroad through southern Arizona and New Mexico.

1855 — U.S. filibuster William Walker and his mercenaries invade and occupy Nicaragua. Walker declares himself president, rules for 2 years

1857 —Walker's disruption of his business interests prompts US businessman Cornelius Vanderbilt funds the war against Walker, hires American mercenary S. M. Spencer to lead Costa Rican forces.

1860 — British forces capture Walker and turn him over to Honduras. He is shot by a Honduran firing squad on September 12.

1865 — US mobilizes troops along the Mexican border as a threat to the French occupying army of Louis Napoleon, whose troops arrived there in 1862.

1895 — US forces Great Britain into arbitration in its boundary dispute with Venezuela, asserting US dominance in the Western Hemisphere

1876-1911— Porfirio Diaz rules Mexico, reelected 7 times, the Porfiriata

1898 — Spanish-American War / US intervention in Cuba US takes control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

Twentieth Century

1901 — Hay Pauncefote Treaty, Great Britain cedes canal-building in Central America to the US.

11/1903 — Theodore Roosevelt intervenes to assist Panamanian independence from Colombia, resulting Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty makes US sovereign "in perpetuity" in the ten-mile wide Canal Zone.

12/1904 — (Theodore) Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine declares the U.S. to be the policeman of the Caribbean.

1912 — United Fruit Company begins operations in Honduras and later becomes a major force throughout Central America.

1914 — Panama Canal opens.

1910-1920 — Mexican Revolution, overthrows Porfirio Diaz, 1917 new constitution

1917 — Zimmermann Telegram revealed in which Germany offers to help Mexico recover territory lost to the US in exchange for support in the First World War.

1926-33 — US Marines occupy Nicaragua and fight against the nationalistic forces led by Augusto César Sandino.

1933 — FDR announces "Good Neighbor Policy".

1936-79 — US supports three different Somozas as dictators of Nicaragua.

1938 — Lazaro Cardenas nationalizes Mexican oil industry, including many US holdings.

1945-89 — Cold War ideology drives US Latin American policy.

1948 — Organization of American States formed

1954 — CIA overthrows constitutional government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.

1956 — US-supported dictator Anastasio Somoza assassinated in Nicaragua.

1957-86 — Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier rule Haiti as dictators

1/1959 — Dictator Fulgencio Bastista, supported by the US until 1958, flees Castro's revolution in Cuba.

1/1961 — Eisenhower administration breaks diplomatic relations with Castro in Cuba.

4/1961 — Failed Bag of Pigs invasion of Cuba

1961-69 —Kennedy's Alliance for Progress tries to bring reform and development to Latin America.

10/1962 — Missile Crisis with Cuba and USSR

1964 — Brazilian President Joao Goulart overthrown by the military, with covert US support.

1965 — US forces, fearing a Communist takeover, occupy Dominican Republic.

1970-73 — US and multinational corporations work covertly to overthrow socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile. He dies in the September 1973 military coup.

1977 — US and Panama sign a new treaty providing for Panamanian control of the canal in 1999.

1981-86 — Reagan administration officials secretly direct counter-revolutionary (contra) forces against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. More than a dozen Reagan administrator officials are convicted of a variety of crimes in the "Iran-Contra Scandal."

1981-88 — Reagan administration strongly supports the Salvadoran military in their fight against the FMLN guerrillas.

4/1982 — Argentina invades the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, held since 1833 by Great Britain.

1983 — Reagan orders US forces to invade the island of Grenada to halt Cuban work on an airstrip.

12/1986 — Congress begins investigations of the Iran-Contra scandal

1989 — End of the Cold War diminishes Latin America's significance in US foreign policy.

12/1989 — George Bush orders "Operation Just Cause," the invasion of Panama to capture CIA collaborator and dictator Manuel Noriega.

1992 —500th anniversary of Columbus's Caribbean landing gives rise to widespread meetings and protests against imperialism, rejuvenation of indigenous rights movements. Guatemalan Rigoberto Menchú Tum wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

1993 — US, Mexico, and Canada form NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

1994 — Threatened invasion of Haiti by US troops; NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement goes into effect, Zapatista uprising begins in Chiapas

1996 — Helms-Burton Law increases economic boycott of Castro's Cuba.

1990s — High levels of drug trafficking, massive foreign debt, economic dependency, rain forest and coral reef destruction, illegal immigration to the US, and other problems continue to face the US and Latin America.

12/1999 — Panama begins sole operation of the Panama Canal.

2001- present — continued US policy drift in Latin America, economic collapse in Argentina, serious economic problems in Brazil and Uruguay