Expansion in the Industrial Age - Latin America

EXPANSION IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE HIST 1301 | History Latin America Latin American countries also developed export-oriented economies. After being emancipated from Portuguese and Spanish rule, they were keen to industrialise but encountered several challenges. In the early 1800s, Brazil created facilities for textile manufacture, coffee processing, and sugar refinement, as well as importing steam engines. Paraguay launched a steamship line and constructed an iron foundry. Chile constructed sawmills, wheat mills, and coal mines. Numerous nations also constructed railroads. They did not, however, undergo significant industrialization; as a result, their growth followed a different course. Paradoxically, independence contributed to the issue. Latin American traders had objected to limitations when Spain and Portugal controlled their economies, but these measures also imposed high taxes on items manufactured abroad, shielding domestic handcraft sectors. But as traders were free to deal with any nation, products from the US and Europe began to flood the market. Latin American nations, like Egypt and India, soon discovered that they could not produce or sell their own produced items for as little money as imports. Furthermore, they were unable to produce enough to meet internal demand. Their silver streamed offshore rather than being spent here, as Brazilians and Chileans watched. Latin Americans soon realised that growing sugar and coffee, which had been the cornerstones of the colonial economy and were still in great demand, would be a more profitable endeavour than trying to compete with international manufacturers. Brazil began producing rubber later in the nineteenth century for the same purposes, supplying industrialised countries with raw materials from its vast landmass and labour force of farmers. Planters and politicians justified these actions, but they forced the former colonies of Spain and Portugal to supply raw resources that were not as valuable as the final goods created from them. Consequently, even while the planter class in Latin America benefited greatly from the large-scale cash crop sales they made to the US and Europe, their profits never surpassed or even came close to matching the price they had to pay for imports. Latin American society was negatively impacted by this inequality. The gap between classes was accentuated by the fact that wealthy plantation owners and urban professionals could purchase the manufactured goods of other continents, but rural labourers could not. Additionally, a large portion of the necessary equipment, such as steam engines and other machinery, was imported from Europe, leaving little money at home for domestic projects like building roads and telegraph lines. As a result, many of the industrial improvements that Latin American countries did make, such as the construction of mines and railroads, were funded by European and American banks. During the nineteenth century, regional conflicts further disrupted industry and caused instability in South America. For instance, in the War of the Triple Alliance, Paraguay fought the combined armies of Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina from 1864 to 1870. By the time the conflict ended, a large portion of Paraguay's population had perished from both violence and deadly illnesses. Thus, a number of factors came together to make Latin America's attempts at industrialization mostly futile, and the area continued to be mainly a cash crop exporter. Although railroads were constructed, they were often short routes that connected the interior to the shore, allowing raw materials to be exported. Only large cities saw electrification, and no national rail networks emerged like those in the US and Europe.