In his classic work on Latin America, Victor Bulmer-Thomas concludes, “The economic development of Latin America since independence is a story of unfulfilled promise,” and stresses that “the gap between living standards in Latin America and those in the developed countries has steadily widened since the early nineteenth century.” This view has been qualified by Stephen Haber, who pointed out that the income gap between Latin America and Anglo-Saxon America “is not a product of the twentieth century.” John Coatsworth, in turn, added that today’s Latin American underdevelopment arose during the colonial era and in the aftermath of independence. Evidence on levels of per capita income supports the view that Latin America as a whole did not worsen its position relative to the United States during the twentieth century (Table 13.1).

Independence, achieved in most of Latin America between 1808 and 1825, and the resulting insertion into the international economy (a long process that gathered momentum between 1850 and 1873) appear as the two most important events in assessments of economic performance in nineteenth-century Latin America.

However, no consensus exists on how independence came about. Was it the result of an external shock, such as the Napoleonic Wars and the French invasion of the Iberian peninsula? Was it a consequence of institutional inefficiency or, conversely, a reaction against reforms and modernization associated with the introduction of new liberal ideas and institutions in the metropolis and, hence, an endogenous phenomenon? Was it, perhaps, the outcome of the struggle against liberal reform and modernization in central colonies (Mexico and Peru), whereas in peripheral colonies (New Granada and the Rio de la Plata), it resulted from militaristic opportunism, stimulated by smuggling interests, at the time of the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula?