Week 5: Caudillos

This weeks lecture talks about Caudillos and the old world and new world.  It is established right from the onset that independence brought neither order or stability and the governing Latin America was extremely different. The lecture video also talks about how difficult it was for women to be emancipated or even to have the right to vote. Like most countries prior to independence this was common but what struck me the most was that whilst all this was going on in Latin America, in North America and Europe liberalism was part of the norm accepted by the majority of the people. Latin America, however was not part of this norm. Slavery was present until 1880 did not even correspond to appearances and men and women would still be bought and sold, in those years indigenous people would live in servitude. 

Caudillos attempted to fight for reform and social change so that there would be parity for all people and so that the gap between the upper and lower class could be lessened. Caudillos fought for social and economic dependence, It was however described as a “  barbarism that blocked civilization but was still so popular.”   

Whilst reading the slaughterhouse, which talked about the pain and anguish that a lot of people faced during lent in the 1830s in Buenos Aries was extremely insightful. The motif of blood is used a lot within the passages as he aims to disgust the readers with events that he witnessed. He used this as a way to show the barbarism in the way that Argentinian people were being treated. The slaughterhouse was meant to represent Argentina and the cattle were supposed to be the people.  

“Strange that there should be privileged stomachs and stomachs subjected to an inviolable law, and that the church should hold the key to all stomachs! But it is not so strange if one believes that through, meat the devil enters the body and that the Church has the power to conjure it. The thing is to reduce man to a machine whose prime mover is not his own free will but that of the Church and the government” (Echeverria 212-213).

He explains a time where the church decided who would eat what and how the church has the power to conjure everything. It is clear that religion plays an important role in the lives on people then and even today, but to this extent is a bit shocking.  Another quote that showed the authority that the church had on the people was "A time may come when it will be forbidden to breathe fresh air, take a walk, or even to have a conversation with a friend, without first obtaining permission from the competent authorities". Showing that people at that time had little to no power.

This leaves me pondering about whether we have any such situations in today's time- or any "Caudillos" in this age. 


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