Monthly Archives: November 2015

Two Sources: Citizenship and Rights in the New Republic

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Two sources that I found were “Haiti’s Agonies and Exhalations” by Ramsey Clark and “Why Brazil was Different: The Context of Independence” written by Kenneth R. Maxwell, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations. Both articles talk about the reasons by which their respective countries went about abolishing slavery.

William Ramsey Clark (born December 18, 1927) is an American lawyer, activist and former federal government official, who was involved in civil rights movements in America, and occupied senior positions within the United States Department of Justice, while John F. Kennedy was in office. His article”Haiti’s Agonies and Exhalations” goes into detail on how and why Haiti was able to become the first European colony that was able to overthrow its European monarchs and establish themselves as an independent nation. Haiti was originally split between the French and the Spanish. Its pointed out in the beginning of the article that the amount of slaves within the islands far out numbered the European presence, drawing attention to the idea that the Europeans were in over their head. `On  August 14, 1791 the slaves of Haiti rebelled and eventually won the battle against France. They then won again against Napoleon, and scared by the power of the slaves the Spanish left the island, so on January 1, 1804 Haiti became an independent nation. It continues on to talk about how the Slave uprising in Haiti, gave hope to slaves  in other countries in North and South America, and it made Europeans fearful of loosing their colonies. Haiti was able to abolish slavery when they became and independent nation, however not all nations abolished slavery as soon as they overthrew their European powers. Its important to use this source as it is an important case study regarding slavery within Latin America.
The second source that I plan on using will be “Why Brazil was Different: The Context of Independence” written by Kenneth R. Maxwell, Nelson and David Rockefeller. I will not being using the entirity of the source, only the last four pages, as not everything relates to citizenship and human rights in the new republics. With regards to slavery the article discusses the reasons in which the abolishment of it came about within Brazil, stating that it was less of a humanitarian or ethical effort but more so one forced upon them by Britian, who called for them to not practice slavery above the equator. The objection is slavery was also inpart with the people believing that there was a racial embalance in Brazil, that would cause instability and would threaten the growth as a nation, in comparison to the European model. However since they were unable to alter the way labor worked within their government they were unable to abolish slavery until the late 1880’s, making it the last nation in Latin America to do so. This source is important as it goes into the reasons why Brazil was the last to do so.  

Week Nine

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This week’s readings look at the United States influence within Latin America and the effects that is has on the people living within the region. In the majority of the documents read the average person of the Latin American countries views the United States influence in a negative light, stating the United States is exploiting their countries for their own material good. They also say the United States is acting as a empire, taking over Latin American countries, economically to say the least. The very fact that the United States has so much control over outside nations is an indicator of the likeness of an imperial power, which contradicts the basis of what the United States was founded upon. The United States has always seen itself as a sharply anti-imperial country, since in the beginning they were a colony that we being taken advantage of by the British empire. However almost from the very beginning of becoming a sovereign nation, the United States began to expand west ward. Taking over large territories of land that didn’t necessarily belong to them, but thinking that it was their god given right to claim these lands. They exploited the people living there, and drove them out of their homes. These actions were known as manifest destiny.

Being from the United States, I can say that our nation itself tends to see itself in a superior nation in the sense that the United States tends to know what’s right for all other nations. The United States tends to think that our influence has a positive effect on the nations that we intervene with. However that is far from the truth of the matter. This can be seen in Augusto Sandino’s Political Manifesto, July 1927. He talks about how the United States are the source of bad for his nation and that the oligarchs in the government are the only ones who benefit from these deals with the United States, “Our young country… should be the ones to wear on her head head the Phrygian cap… and not that country raped by Yankee morphine addicts brought here by the four serpents who claim to have been born here in my country.” Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart also talked in How to Read Donald Duck that the popular medias, such as Disney, presented third world countries with the mindset that they were children and should be coddled and treated as if they didn’t know any better, then their gold and riches that the United States found useful would be taken and that prevents these regions from being able to emerge into the world economy.

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