Argentine Confederation

South America (1828–1971 CE)

Republics, Frontiers, and the Modern Continent

Geographic Definition of South America
The region of South America encompasses all lands south of the Isthmus of Panama, including the subregions of South America Major—stretching from Colombia and Venezuela through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina and Chile—and Peninsular South America, which includes southern Chile, southern Argentina, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), and the Juan Fernández Islands.

Anchors include the Andes cordillera, the Altiplano, the Amazon, Orinoco, and Magdalena river systems, the Gran Chaco, the Llanos, the Pampas, and the Patagonian steppe, reaching south to the Strait of Magellan and the sub-Antarctic seas. This continental expanse unites rainforest and desert, mountain and plain, forming the world’s largest tropical forest system and one of its most diverse temperate frontiers.

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Geography and Political Frontiers

Between 1828 and 1971, South America completed its transition from colonial empires to a constellation of modern nation-states. The nineteenth century was an age of consolidation—of borders, capitals, and frontiers—while the twentieth introduced urbanization, industrialization, and social revolution.

In the north and center, the Andes and Amazon defined the heartlands of South America Major: Brazil’s vast interior was opened by coffee, railways, and later industry; Peru, Bolivia, and Chile struggled over mineral frontiers; and the River Plate republics forged new economies on cattle and grain.
Farther south, Peninsular South America—Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the southern islands—shifted from Indigenous autonomy to national incorporation under Chile, Argentina, and Britain. The conquest of Indigenous lands completed the continental frame of modern South America.

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Climate and Environmental Shifts

With the close of the Little Ice Age, climate gradually warmed, though variability remained pronounced.

• Andes: Glacial retreat altered water regimes; earthquakes and volcanic eruptions repeatedly struck Chile and Peru.

• Amazon basin: Rainfall oscillated between flood and drought decades; deforestation and frontier ranching began to modify hydrology by the mid-twentieth century.

• Llanos, Chaco, and Pampas: Drought and locust plagues punctuated otherwise fertile cycles; agriculture expanded through mechanization.

• Patagonia and southern Chile: Winds remained fierce but temperatures moderated, fostering European colonization and ranching.

Environmental transformation followed human frontiers: new roads, plantations, and mines redrew both ecology and economy.

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Subsistence and Settlement

Agrarian foundations persisted even as industry grew.

• Andean republics: Highland farmers maintained terraced maize and potato fields; haciendas, mines, and plantations supplied global markets with silver, tin, and copper.

• Brazil: Coffee, sugar, and later industrial production in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro powered national growth; Amazon rubber boomed and collapsed; steel and oil replaced gold.

• River Plate region: Argentina and Uruguay exported beef, wool, and grain, their estancias mechanized by the early twentieth century. Paraguay remained agrarian after its devastation in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870).

• Northern Andes and Caribbean coasts: Cocoa, coffee, and oil wealth transformed Venezuela and Colombia; pipelines and ports knit the mountains to the sea.

• Southern Chile and Argentina: Wheat, forestry, and later nitrate and copper mining followed Indigenous dispossession; sheep ranching dominated Patagonia; Tierra del Fuego mixed gold rushes and estancias.

• Falklands and Juan Fernández: Remote yet strategic, they sustained small ranching and fishing communities within imperial or national frameworks.

Urbanization intensified: Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Lima, Santiago, Bogotá, Caracas, and Montevideo became centers of power, drawing millions from countryside and abroad.

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Technology and Material Culture

Railways, telegraphs, and steamships linked interior basins to coastal ports.
By the 1880s, rail lines climbed the Andes and spanned pampas and deserts; river steamers plied the Amazon, Orinoco, and Paraná–Paraguay. Telegraphs and later telephones connected capitals; radio and cinema shaped modern culture.
Architecture mirrored aspiration: neoclassical capitols, baroque cathedrals, and art-nouveau theaters proclaimed republican modernity. Industrialization—from Chilean copper smelters to Brazilian steel mills—transformed material life. Yet regional craft traditions endured: Andean textiles, Afro-Brazilian percussion, Mapuche weaving, and Amazonian ceramics sustained living heritage.

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Movement and Interaction Corridors

Continental circulation reached unprecedented scale:

• Migration: European settlers (Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese) repopulated Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay; internal migration urbanized Andean and coastal cities.

• Rivers and rails: The Amazon, Paraguay, and Magdalena bound hinterlands to export ports.

• Trade: Coffee, copper, nitrates, beef, and wool flowed to Atlantic and Pacific markets; oil joined after 1910.

• Integration projects: Early customs unions evolved into the ABC Pact (Argentina–Brazil–Chile) and the Latin American Free Trade Association (1960).

• Frontier expansion: Settlers, surveyors, and soldiers extended national authority into Amazonian forests and Patagonian plains, binding peripheries to capitals.

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Cultural and Symbolic Expressions

Nations built mythologies of liberation and progress.
Romantic and modernist writers—José Hernández, Machado de Assis, Rubén Darío, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Jorge Luis Borges—forged continental literatures. Visual art ranged from Andean costumbrismo to Mexican and Brazilian muralism, celebrating Indigenous and African heritage as foundations of identity.
Catholicism remained pervasive yet plural: popular pilgrimages and saints’ festivals persisted beside secular nationalism and new Protestant and Spiritist movements.
In the south, national narratives glorified frontier conquest; in the north, Andean and Amazonian cosmologies reemerged through indigenismo. Across the continent, dance and music—samba, tango, cueca, candombe, and vallenato—embodied the fusion of African, Indigenous, and European rhythms.

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Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Traditional ecological systems endured beneath modernization:
Andean terraces and irrigation persisted; Amazonian forest gardens maintained biodiversity; smallholders and Indigenous communities adapted global crops—potatoes, maize, cassava—to local microclimates.
Mechanized agriculture and deforestation redefined landscapes: soybean expansion in Brazil, sheep and wheat in Patagonia, sugar and cotton in northeast Brazil.
By the 1960s, environmental awareness emerged—parks in the Andes, conservation on Juan Fernández, and debates over Amazonian deforestation signaling a new consciousness of ecological limits.

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Technology and Power Shifts (Conflict Dynamics)

The century and a half after independence was marked by recurring upheaval:

• Wars and diplomacy: The War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870), War of the Pacific (1879–1883), and border arbitrations defined national boundaries.

• Social transformation: Abolition of slavery (Brazil, 1888), land reforms (Bolivia, Mexico, mid-20th century), and peasant mobilization challenged oligarchies.

• Political cycles: Liberal republics gave way to populist and military regimes—Vargas in Brazil, Perón in Argentina, Velasco Alvarado in Peru—each promising modernization and social justice.

• Revolution and reaction: Bolivia’s 1952 revolution, Cuba’s 1959 example, and guerrilla movements in Colombia and Venezuela framed Cold War geopolitics.

• Southern frontiers: Argentina and Chile militarized Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego; Britain maintained the Falklands; boundary disputes simmered through the 20th century.

Technological change—aviation, electrification, oil extraction, and hydroelectric power—accelerated modernization while deepening regional inequality.

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Transition (to 1971 CE)

By 1971, South America was a continent of contradictions: industrial cities beside impoverished rural zones, democratic ideals shadowed by coups, and booming exports amid environmental decline.
In the north, Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia led industrial and oil economies; in the south, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay oscillated between prosperity and political crisis.
The Amazon, Andes, and Patagonia—long the continent’s ecological and symbolic pillars—entered the modern age as frontiers of extraction, conservation, and imagination.

From the Inca terraces to the steel towers of São Paulo, from the Guiana forests to the Falklands sheep ranges, South America by 1971 stood as a continent unified by geography yet divided by history—its republics striving toward equity, identity, and stewardship in a world it had long supplied, inspired, and endured.

South America Major (1828–1971 CE)

Republics, Frontiers, and Modern Transformations

Geographic Definition of South America Major
The subregion of South America Major encompasses all lands north of the Río Negro, extending across the full continental span of Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, northern Argentina and northern Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador(excluding the Cape lands at the Isthmian boundary), Colombia (excluding the Darién region, which belongs to Isthmian America), Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.

Anchors include the Andes cordillera and Altiplano, the Amazon basin, the Orinoco and Magdalena river systems, the Venezuelan Llanos, the Gran Chaco, the Uruguayan Pampas, and the Guiana Shield.
Bounded by Isthmian America to the north and Subcontinental South America to the south, this subregion forms the continental heartland of South America—linking the Pacific and Atlantic worlds through its intertwined highlands, forests, plains, and river systems.

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Geography and Political Frontiers

Between 1828 and 1971, South America Major evolved from newly independent republics into a mosaic of modern nations. The Andes continued to define borders and identity; the Amazon, Gran Chaco, and Pampas became frontiers of settlement, extraction, and nation-building. The century and a half after independence saw shifting alliances, wars over territory, and the gradual incorporation of frontier zones into national economies.
The Pacific coast urbanized through ports like Lima, Guayaquil, and Valparaíso; Atlantic Brazil expanded through coffee and industry; and inland Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay became landlocked crossroads of diplomacy and struggle. The Guianas remained colonial or semi-colonial enclaves until mid-century decolonization.

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Climate and Environmental Shifts

The retreat of the Little Ice Age brought modest warming and rainfall fluctuations:

• Andes and Altiplano: Melting glaciers improved water availability for valleys but also triggered landslides and floods.

• Amazon basin: Rainfall cycles alternated between flood and drought decades, with deforestation beginning to affect local climates by the 20th century.

• Gran Chaco and Pampas: Droughts and locust plagues recurred through the 19th century; by the 20th, cattle ranching and grain cultivation transformed the landscape.

• Guiana forests and Llanos: Continued to alternate between wet and dry extremes, sustaining biodiversity yet increasingly opened by logging, mining, and plantations.

Environmental volatility shaped settlement patterns but also spurred innovation—irrigation in Andean valleys, drainage of pampas wetlands, and hydroelectric development along major rivers.

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Subsistence and Settlement

Post-independence economies remained agrarian but diversified steadily:

• Andean republics (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia): Highland peasants maintained terraced maize–potato rotations; haciendas and plantations expanded in valleys. Mining revived—silver and tin in Bolivia, guano and nitrate in Peru, oil in Ecuador and Colombia.

• Brazil: Transitioned from sugar and gold to coffee (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro), rubber (Amazon), and later industrial production (Belo Horizonte, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul).

• River Plate region (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay): Cattle and sheep ranching dominated, later joined by grain exports. Paraguay remained rural after devastating wars; Uruguay balanced pastoral exports and political stability.

• Venezuela and Colombia: Coffee, cocoa, and oil reshaped economies; ranching persisted in the Llanos.

• Guianas: Plantation agriculture (sugar, rice) persisted under British, French, and Dutch control, worked by Afro-descended and Indo-Asian laborers.

Urbanization accelerated: Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Santiago, Bogotá, Quito, and Caracas became political and economic capitals, concentrating power and population.

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Technology and Material Culture

Railways, telegraphs, and steamships integrated fragmented landscapes.
In the 19th century, rail lines climbed the Andes (e.g., Oroya Railway, Quito–Guayaquil) and linked interior ranches and mines to ports. Steam navigation on the Amazon and Paraná–Paraguay rivers expanded trade and migration.
European architectural styles—neoclassical capitals, baroque churches, and eclectic civic buildings—symbolized modernization.
Local crafts persisted: Andean textiles, Amazonian ceramics, Guaraní carvings, and Afro-Brazilian percussion instruments. By the 20th century, industrialization brought steelworks (São Paulo, Caracas), automobiles (Buenos Aires), and aviation links across the continent.

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Movement and Interaction Corridors

Continental circulation intensified:

• River systems: The Amazon, Orinoco, Paraná–Paraguay, and Magdalena became arteries of commerce and colonization.

• Rail networks: Linked mines and ranches to ports, knitting national markets.

• Migration: Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese immigrants settled Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, transforming agriculture and culture.

• Slave emancipation and internal migration: Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, and freed populations moved into cities and frontiers.

• Oil routes: Pipelines and refineries in Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador shifted economies toward energy export.

Regional trade blocs, from early customs unions to mid-20th-century cooperation schemes, sought continental integration, while European and North American investment reshaped industrial growth.

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Cultural and Symbolic Expressions

National identities crystallized from colonial legacies.
Romantic nationalism and liberal reform inspired literature, painting, and architecture celebrating Indigenous and creole heritage: Bolívarian epics, José Hernández’s Martín Fierro, Machado de Assis, Rubén Darío, and Andean costumbrismo.
In the 20th century, modernismo, muralism (led by Diego Rivera and Cándido Portinari), and revolutionary art redefined visual culture.
Catholicism remained pervasive but adapted: popular pilgrimages (e.g., Virgen de Copacabana, Círio de Nazaré) coexisted with secular nationalism and Protestant missions.
Afro-descended and Indigenous cultural forms—candomblé, samba, marimba, and Andean panpipe music—entered national consciousness as emblems of authenticity.

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Environmental Adaptation and Resilience

Peasant and Indigenous communities maintained ecological knowledge despite land concentration:

• Highland terraces and irrigation persisted for local autonomy.

• Amazonian forest management—rubber tapping, shifting gardens, and agroforestry—balanced extraction with sustainability until industrial overreach in the mid-20th century.

• Ranching and agriculture expanded dramatically across the Pampas and cerrado, transforming ecosystems.

• Dams and deforestation along the Amazon and Paraná altered river regimes by the 1960s, initiating modern environmental debates.

Throughout, traditional practices—from Andean vertical exchange to Guaraní collective farming—anchored cultural and ecological continuity.

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Technology and Power Shifts (Conflict Dynamics)

Wars and revolutions marked the region’s political evolution:

• Post-independence conflicts: Civil wars, caudillo rivalries, and frontier disputes shaped early republics.

• Major wars: War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870) decimated Paraguay; War of the Pacific (1879–1883) redrew borders between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.

• Reforms and revolutions: Abolition of slavery (Brazil 1888), republican overthrow of the monarchy (Brazil 1889), and land reforms in Mexico and Bolivia signaled social transformation.

• 20th-century shifts: Populist regimes (Vargas in Brazil, Perón in Argentina), revolutions (Bolivia 1952, Cuba 1959), and guerrilla movements (Colombia, Venezuela) redefined state–society relations.

• External influences: The Good Neighbor Policy and Cold War interventions tied the region to U.S. geopolitical strategies, particularly during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Technological modernization—railways, telephones, automobiles, oil drilling, and aviation—interwove with social upheaval and uneven industrialization.

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Transition (to 1971 CE)

By 1971, South America Major had completed its passage from colonial dependency to diverse modernity.
The region’s republics faced contrasts: booming urban economies alongside rural poverty, democratic aspirations shadowed by coups and authoritarianism.
The Andes still bore terraces and mines older than empire; the Amazon and Guianas remained ecological frontiers; and the Pampas and Llanos powered global agriculture.
From liberation heroes to modern reformers, the quest for sovereignty, equity, and identity defined this long age.
Despite enduring inequality and deforestation, South America Major emerged as a continent of resilience—its highlands, forests, plains, and coasts still bound by the enduring geography that had shaped all its worlds.

The Pacto Federal—with Juan Manuel de Rosas governing Buenos Aires Province and the littoral provinces threatened by the centralist alliance ruled by José María Paz—is signed on January 4, 1831, between the armies of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, who join to invade Córdoba.

Paz, in a preemptive attempt against Estanislao López, the caudillo of Santa Fe, falls prisoner to the Federal forces of Córdoba and Santa Fe while on an inspection mission.

Juan Facundo Quiroga now marches through territories still occupied by natives in order to bypass Córdoba, and attack directly Mendoza, where he succeeds.

Juan Facundo Quiroga takes his campaign north along the Andean provinces, until he finally defeats General Gregorio Aráoz de Lamadrid, who leads the last remaining Unitarian forces, in Salta.

A conflict for primacy has arisen between the leader of the Thirty-Three Orientals Juan Lavalleja and veteran military commander Fructuoso Rivera, who on November 6, 1830 had been chosen as the first President of Uruguay.

In June 1832 Lavalleja's supporters attempt to kill Rivera and on July 3 the Montevideo garrison revolts, calling for Lavalleja to be made Commander-in-Chief.

Rivera, with the help of Argentine Unitarians, defeats Lavalleja on September 18, 1832 at Tupambaé, forcing Lavalleja to flee to the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul.

Here Lavalleja will organize a new force with the support of Buenos Aires strongman Juan Manuel de Rosas and in March 1834 invade Uruguay, only to be defeated by Rivera once again.

Juan Manuel de Rosas, completing his three-year term as governor of Buenos Aires in 1832, now campaigns militarily against the natives of the southern Pampas.

A new Peruvian parliament is formed in 1833, but this time it is hostile towards Gamarra.

Since his term as president is already over and there is no time to call for elections, parliament resolves to turn the presidency over to General Luis Orbegoso.

Gamarra does not recognize the new government, and prepares to challenge Orbegoso.

However, popular opinion and most of the army rally against him, and he is frustrated in his effort to again seize power.

With Juan Manuel de Rosas gone, Juan Ramón Balcarce had named Manuel Vicente Maza Chief Minister in 1832, but a year later, he takes part in the movement that demands Balcarce's resignation.

He also takes part in the following brief administration of Juan José Viamonte.

On October 11, 1833, the city is filled with announcements of a trial against Rosas.

A large number of gauchos and poor people make a demonstration at the gates of the legislature, praising Rosas and demanding the resignation of Balcarce.

The troops organized to fight the demonstration mutiny and join it.

The legislature finally gives up the trial, ousts Balcarce and replaces him with Juan José Viamonte.

Balcarce is imprisoned and will die in exile in Concepción del Uruguay.

The second voyage of HMS Beagle, launched on December 1831, is the second survey expedition of the British ship, under captain Robert FitzRoy, the young aristocrat who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after her previous captain committed suicide.

FitzRoy, fearing the same fate, had sought a gentleman companion for the voyage.

The three Fuegians taken on the previous voyage are to be returned to Tierra del Fuego on the Beagle together with the missionary Richard Matthews.

The student clergyman Charles Darwin has taken the opportunity, which is to make his name as a naturalist and a renowned author with the publication of his journal, which is to become known as The Voyage of the Beagle.

The Beagle sails across the Atlantic Ocean and then carries out detailed hydrographic surveys around the coasts of the southern part of South America.

Darwin discovers and explores Patagonia’s Chubut River in 1833.

The two ships of the HMS Beagle expedition sail to the Río Negro in Argentina where Darwin leaves the Beagle for another journey inland with the gauchos.

On August 13, 1833, he meets former Argentinian president Juan Manuel de Rosas, who had left office the previous year, during one of the general’s several punitive expeditions against southern Argentina’s tribes of wandering horse-mounted indigenous peoples, and obtains a passport from him.

In The Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin describes him as a man of extraordinary character, a perfect horseman who conformed to the dress and habits of the Gauchos and "obtained an unbounded popularity in the Camp, and in consequence a despotic power.”

Darwin includes a story of how Rosas had himself put in the stocks for inadvertently breaking his own rule of not wearing knives on Sundays.

This appeals to his men's sense of egalitarianism and justice.