The Latin American History Podcast

Today we have a special interview episode in which Stephanie Schmidt (Associate Professor in the department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University at Buffalo) tells us about her new book Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain.

The book examines a set of tragic stories which occurred in the years following the conquest of Mexico, involving the use of high-class indigenous children by missionaries to ai...

In the second part of our look at the Manila galleon trade we look at the people whose lives were impacted by it, and how this has affected the very genetics of Mexico and the Philippines. These people include convicts, Portuguese traders, Jews from Iberia escaping persecution, Japanese Samurai, and pirates from Britain and the Netherlands.

Although often forgotten, the Manila Galleon trade route between the Philippines and Mexico was hugely important to Latin America, Asia, and the rest of the world. For hundreds of years this trade across the Pacific helped drive globalisation and fund both Spain and China.

In today's episode we outline how the trade worked and the deep cultural influences it had on all those involved.

Today we finish of our overview series of Latin American history by looking at the region's most recent events. Among the subjects covered are the Washington Consensus, the Left Turn, populism and migration.

The fall of the Soviet Union sent shock waves around the world, and moved the global geopolitical situation into new territory. Having been a cold war battle ground, Latin America experienced this change as abruptly as anywhere.

Compounding things was the fact that this was coupled with a severe economic crisis, and so this episode we examine how these factors led to the end of most dictatorships, as well as the dampening of many l...

While many countries were experiencing left-wing insurgencies during the cold war decades, some were also coming under the rule of dictators. Of these, some waged 'dirty wars' on their populations to either combat the guerillas or stifle any chance of them emerging.

To finish our look at the cold war, we tie up some of the loose ends. We discuss a couple of exceptions to the dictatorship phenomenon - the so called 'perfe...

The Cold War period was one of turmoil in Latin America. Local political trends and outside involvement by superpowers fighting their global battle of ideologies combined to create social conflict waged by both left and right. In this episode we look at the insurgencies which swept the region. Some, like the one in Cuban would result in socialist governments. Others, like that of Colombia, resulted in prolonged civil war.

We begin t...

By 1900 the world had become truly globalised, and so Latin America was affected by the rise of the same competing ideologies as Europe and the USA. This was an the age of workers movements and nationalism, where the economic struggles caused by the Great Depression saw people look for alternatives to the established order.

Of course, these political ideas were adapted to the conditions of Latin America, and so they manifested thems...

Today we move northwards, to look at Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean during the immediate decades after independence from Spain.

We follow the Central American nation's on-off relationship with each other, and the rise of the USA. The later will lead to war with Mexico, and intervention to win independence for Spain's last remaining colonies, and an independent adventurer to invade Nicaragua on his own accord.

Now that Latin America was independent, what kind of countries would its leaders build? And how big or small would those countries be?

Today we look at the major disagreements which created conflict - between liberal republicans and conservative traditionalists, and between centralists and federalists.

We also look at the future of slavery, and the series of wars which swept South America as the new countries defined their borders.

Latin America's independence was a long and drawn out affair, involving multiple decades of war to achieve. It also, bizarrely, happened almost by accident.

In today's episode we look at the causes behind the biggest change in Latin America since colonisation began, as well as the men who waged the campaign against Spain. We also examine the very different path which Brazil took when it broke with Portugal.

Having broken from the previous chronological format of this podcast, one of things I have been thinking about is the potential lack of context for subsequent episodes.

This then, is a series which provides a very rough overview of the major events and ideas which shaped Latin America from the end of the conquests to the present day. Hopefully it will help listeners place future episodes into the greater story, and make them more en...

Guatemala is not usually thought of as an oil county, and that is of course, largely because it is not one. Today’s interviewee however, traces the fascinating story of a largely forgotten – and largely unrealised – oil rush which threatened to take place there, based on a resource which wasn’t there – or to put it more precisely – wasn’t there in the quantities needed to properly exploit.

There is much more to this story, however. ...

Today’s story is not about a specific event, but rather an overview of a place which might have been about as far from the forefront of the big events in Latin American history as it is possible to get, yet which saw a succession of bizarre occurrences across its history.

Despite being uninhabited for most of human history, this remote atoll has drawn in everyone from pirates to presidents on fishing trips, would-be tyrants and peop...

Today we have a special interview episode with Marcos Colón about his new book The Amazon in Times of War.

The book is a collection of essays which detail Marcos' work in the Amazon rainforest, and chronicle the threats which the region, its people, and its non-human inhabitants face.

In the interview we talk about how Brazil's recent political history, the pandemic, its colonial legacy, and how popular and scientific concep...

In the final part of our mini-series on Juan de Onate's time in New Mexico we follow him on his third journey, westwards in search of the Pacific Ocean, and then look at his fate and that of his colony.

Onate faces the first real resistance to his colony, and takes it badly. The Acoma massacre is probably the event of his conquests for which he is most well known.

Today we start a three part series on the conquest of New Mexico. In this first episode we introduce Juan de Onate - the conquistador tasked with incorporating the territory into the Spanish empire, and follow him through the deserts of northern Mexico.

In the second and final part of our mini-series on Mesoamerican food, we look at how West Africa, the USA, and the rest of Latin America have influenced the region's cuisine.

Then, we look at drinks. Everyone and everything from protectionist tax laws and Filipino immigrants to Russian religious sects and smuggler-priests have played a role in the liquids consumed in Mesoamerica.