Social and Cultural Life

Abstract

IN LATIN AMERICAN history a familiar observation concerning the colonial period relates to its duration. The Spanish and Portuguese empires persisted in America for more than three centuries, and this extended time span not infrequently evokes a grudging admiration for the administrative systems that sustained them. Whatever else we may say about the Hispanic empires, runs a familiar comment-and the implication is that we may say a great deal else, little of it complimentary-whatever else we may say about the Hispanic empires, we must grant that they persisted in America for these 300 years. Their persistence is a foil that may be set against the briefer accomplishments of rival empires as well as against internal Hispanic deficiencies, and it appears as a measurable indicator of strength. But the admiration or awe or grudging respect that we may express with regard to the duration of Hispanic rule is likely to become something quite different when we contemplate colonial survivals thereafter. Independence enforces fresh perspectives. Our new vantage point is liberal, and what were indications of strength now become obstacles to progress. It is as if the colonial period somehow had its historic role to fulfill, while we accompany it in retrospect and give it our support, and as if with independence a new role is called for, with which we also sympathize. If the observer is off his guard, this transition in perspective may pass only as a form of objectivity, a proper historian's accommodation to the spirit of different ages, or an absence of bias. It means however that we confront with quite opposite attitudes two related historical topics: the colonial period itself on the one hand and the persisting colonial features of its aftermath on the other. Like any historical period the colonial portion of Latin American history is most obviously defined by its chronological limits. But the * The author is Professor of History at the State University of Iowa.