Latin American Veins are Still Open and Wounded
Martina Brauer
October 4, 2013
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Book Review
Latin American Veins are Still Open and Wounded
Open Veins of Latin America is the book to remember. Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano is responsible for the creation of this relevant and controversial masterpiece, which follows the history of Latin America and the Caribbean through centuries of struggle against poverty and those imperial powers who abused of Latin American resources and created inequality. With a leftist political point of view, magic realism and historical events, Galeano epitomizes a Latin America craving redemption and progress. He illustrates his ideas by laying out the story from 1492 to the 20th century providing a historical and economic overview of the situation. Galeano begins his narrative by illustrating the European conquest and the lust for gold and silver that came hand in hand with it. In Latin America “wealth flowed like water”1 and the Europeans “crave[d] gold like hungry swine”2. They entered the territory and took control and power over every single aspect of society. They would oppress the Indians and after many battles, long treasure hunts and gallons of blood spilled, Europeans found all the ornaments and richness, and took possession of them. As stated by Galeano, “Before Pizarro strangled and decapitated Atahualpa, he got from him a ransom of ‘gold and silver weighing more than 20,000 marks in fine silver and 1,326,000 escudos in the finest gold’”3. This not only shows the extents the Europeans where willing to go to for wealth and glory, but also the enslavement of the native population and the loss of many local lives which reduced the number of inhabitants drastically. This was the beginning of colonization and a long trajectory of domination. Galeano does not only refer to Spanish conquerors as the beneficiaries of the wealth, but “as the money economy extended, more and more social
October 4, 2013
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Book Review
Latin American Veins are Still Open and Wounded
Open Veins of Latin America is the book to remember. Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano is responsible for the creation of this relevant and controversial masterpiece, which follows the history of Latin America and the Caribbean through centuries of struggle against poverty and those imperial powers who abused of Latin American resources and created inequality. With a leftist political point of view, magic realism and historical events, Galeano epitomizes a Latin America craving redemption and progress. He illustrates his ideas by laying out the story from 1492 to the 20th century providing a historical and economic overview of the situation. Galeano begins his narrative by illustrating the European conquest and the lust for gold and silver that came hand in hand with it. In Latin America “wealth flowed like water”1 and the Europeans “crave[d] gold like hungry swine”2. They entered the territory and took control and power over every single aspect of society. They would oppress the Indians and after many battles, long treasure hunts and gallons of blood spilled, Europeans found all the ornaments and richness, and took possession of them. As stated by Galeano, “Before Pizarro strangled and decapitated Atahualpa, he got from him a ransom of ‘gold and silver weighing more than 20,000 marks in fine silver and 1,326,000 escudos in the finest gold’”3. This not only shows the extents the Europeans where willing to go to for wealth and glory, but also the enslavement of the native population and the loss of many local lives which reduced the number of inhabitants drastically. This was the beginning of colonization and a long trajectory of domination. Galeano does not only refer to Spanish conquerors as the beneficiaries of the wealth, but “as the money economy extended, more and more social
Cited: Page Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997