Effect of Revolutions on Latin America and the Carribean
Between 1720 and 1914, Latin America and the Caribbean changed due to an overall effect of revolutions. At the beginning, slavery was the most popular labor force on the plantations, but later on the slavery practically eliminated from the system. Even though slavery had lessened, indentured servants began to increase. Continually through the changes in the labor systems, a lot of the workers were foreign immigrants. Also, the hacienda system went hand in hand in causing some of the changes, but only because it stayed active throughout the whole time. The hacienda system was a very influential continuity during this time. A hacienda itself is a Spanish word for an estate, meaning that hacienda system was system of estates like plantations. The system was developed in 1529 by the Spanish crown, saying that some people could control land and the life of the Native Americans living on it. So, when the Spanish people moved to Latin America and the Caribbean, they brought this system with them, leading for lots of people to be working on the land that one man controlled, kind of like serfs. The Spanish kept this idea with them until the later 1900’s because it was a nice way to get easy labor. Revolutions that occurred did not affect this continuity due to the Spanish people always wanting power and using people who didn’t pay debts or other situations like that in an attempt to obtain free work. During this time period, certain revolutions were ridding Latin America and the Caribbean on their system of slavery. When the colonies were first made, they found that using slaves gained from Africa from the “Middle Passage” was an easy way to get free labor on their sugar cane plantations, which were very beneficial economically. Later on, though, due to some revolutions like the Haitian Revolution (which was a slave revolt), the social gap slowly reduced. Being a slave rebellion, it naturally pretty much eliminated slavery in that part of Latin America. Overall, when