1303 Chapter 4 - Middle America

Cultural-Geographic Pluralism: societies in which two or more population groups, each practicing its own culture, live adjacent to one another without mixing inside a single state.

Middle America

• Mexico, Central America, The Caribbean
• A land bridge connecting South and North America and an archipelago
• Intense geographic and political fragmentation and diversification
• Endemic Poverty
• Dominated by Mexico which is expanding and modernizing its industrial capacity
• Natural Hazards include earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes (Ring of Fire runs down the Pacific Coast)
• Mainland is dominated by mountains and tropical jungle and environments

Mesoamerican Cultural Hearth – heartland or source area for a culture as well as the source of major innovation

• Agriculture – maize, sweet potato, beans, tobacco, squash, cacao beans
• Began between 10,000 and 8,000 bp
  

Maya

• approximately 3,000 bp
• Centered in the tropical lowlands of the Yucatan, Guatemala, and Belize
• Polities were centered on City States – much like ancient Greece
• Contained both totalitarian monarchies as well as limited democracies
• Collapsed around 900 AD

o Warfare
o Overpopulation
o Resource depletion

Aztecs

• began in the early 14^th Century
• Centered on Tenochtitlán in the Valley of Mexico
• Consolidated center heartland with periphery empire

Spanish Conquest

• Aztecs fell between 1519 and 1521
• Cortés and 508 soldiers, masters of political manipulation and the Game of Thrones – fractures among the Aztec elites and assisting oppressed ethnic groups
• Horses and Guns
• Smallpox

Results

• 90% decline in population of Native Americans
• Deforestation as land was appropriated for Colonial commercial interests
• Cash cropping for export

• Introduction of European animals and plant species
• Famine and poverty among natives
• Removal of gold to Europe
• Christianity
• European settlement system – resettlement of natives

The Spanish consolidated control through the resettlement of natives from their own villages into new European style villages – a form of ethnic cleansing!

Colonial Spheres

Mainland and Rimland

• Mainland controlled by the Spanish, mainly for natural resource extraction
• Rimland contested among European and then American powers and used for military dominance as well as for cash crops (sugarcane and tobacco)

Results of European Colonialism

• Euro-Amerindian on the Mainland from upland Mexico through Panama

• Mestizo
• Greater Isolation
• Altitudinal Zonation
• Hacienda economy

• Euro-African in the Rimland of the Caribbean and the mainland coastal zone

• Mulatto
• High Accessibility
• Tropical
• Plantation economy (bananas, tobacco, and sugarcane)

Hacienda vs. Plantation

Hacienda

• Spanish Institution
• Provides social prestige over efficiency
• Workers lived on the land
• Generally planted subsistence crops with some cash crops

Plantation

• Northern European origins
• Export oriented mono-cropping
• Imported capital and skills
• Seasonal labor
• Efficiency is key

Regions and Nations of the Realm

Mexico

Physiography

• similar to the southwestern US but more tropical
• Desert northern areas
• Rainforest southwestern areas
• Central mountains and uplands

Population concentrated in the better watered central Mexican Valley and the southern portions of the country

• signs of a coming population stagnation by 2050
• Population focused in the “waist” of the country
• Growing urbanization

o Mexico City – 28 million people, the largest urban concentration in the world – 26% of the national population

• Transculturation – a mixing of European and Amerindian cultures

Mexican Revolution

• Began in 1910
• Focused on the redistribution of land (removal of the Hacienda system)
• Formation of Ejidos – government retains title but land is farmed by independent families – land is handed out in very small plots

Chiapas

• Transition zone between Central America and Mexico with a growing population of Amerindian descent – poor farmers on small plots of land
• On the periphery of the country, far from the core area
• Hacienda System still maintain in Chiapas with the rich valley lands still being held by large landowners.
• Far from the effects of NAFTA development
• Amerindian group – Zapatista national Liberation Army
• Fight for peasant rights (called peones)

Changing Geography of Economic Activity

• Agriculture – shift to large, irrigated farms in the northern areas of the country for cash crops.
• Small farms (Ejidos) are at a disadvantage both due to the industrialization of farming and because of unfair trade practices of the U.S.

Energy Resources

• rich oil and gas resources along Gulf Coast
• supply all of own needs
• poor planning and management lead to undermine these industries
• corruption

Industrialization

• early development of iron and steel industry
• Maquiladoras (factories) following NAFTA in the northern parts of the country

o Assemble imported components to produce finished products which are then exported.

• Mostly from foreign (U.S.) investment
• Increase in jobs available
• Low paying jobs with poor working and living conditions
• Trend of companies to move to Asia for even cheaper labor

NAFTA

Positive Results

• Initial increase in industrialization and jobs due to North American companies moving south
• Boom economy along Mexico’s northern border
• Foreign Investment
• Transfer of Technology
• Development of an International Growth Corridor between Monterey and Dallas-Ft. Worth

Negative Results

• Low wages and slum accommodations for maquiladora works and their families
• Boom slowed by continued movement of companies to Asia
• Increases in crime, drugs, and corruption
• Uneven development between north and south Mexico
• Negative environmental impacts

Central America

Seven countries – Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama

Altitudinal Zonation
Vertical regions defined by physical-environmental zones at various elevations

• Tierra Caliente – hot lands of the coastal plains and low-lying interior basins (tropical climate and agriculture)
• Tierra Templada – tropical highlands, containing the largest population clusters. Farming includes coffee, maize, and wheat
• Tierra Fría – upland, Andes with cooler to cold climate. Farming includes potatoes and barley.
• Tierra Helada – the high Andes which only support livestock grazing for parts of the year.
• Tierra Nevada – above the snow line.

Hazards include earthquakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes.

• Countries are particularly at risk due to small size – one disaster can affect the entire nation.
• Hurricane Mitch – 1998 in Honduras

• 9,200 dead
• 150,000 homes destroyed
• 21,000 miles of roads and 335 bridges destroyed
• 2 million homeless

• Turbulent Development
• Long dominated by Spain with an entrenched Hacienda System of government and agriculture.
• Very small middle class so countries dominated by an impoverished lower class of peons/farmers, generally of Amerindian or Mestizo descent ruled by a small class of elite landowners, generally of more direct European (Spanish) descent.
• Power plays and meddling by the United States during the Cold War led to the continued dominance of the landed aristocracy through right-wing totalitarian dictatorships.

• Non-Democratic
• Rule by military force and violence
• Internal resistance movements

o Violent resistance

o Non-violent resistance through the Catholic Church

§ Liberation Theology - Economic Concerns and the Environment

§ Repudiated by the Vatican

• Foreign exploitation of natural resources and agriculture

o Banana Republics

A Geography of Violence – case example Guatemala

• 50% of the population is ethnic Maya – dominated by the Ladino community (Mestizos and westernized Maya)
• Beginning in 1944 a series of violent coups, including the 1954 – CIA led coup. Rapid switch between leftists and right-wing military governments.
• A 36 year long civil war – insurgency and counter-insurgency – until 1994-1996 peace process

Deforestation

3 million acres of tropical woodland are cut down in Central America each year

• Clearing of rural lands for cash cropping and ranching
• Logging for export to developed nations and for rare woods
• Increasing populations need more room and more fuel for cooking

Panama

• Created in 1903 through manipulation by the U.S. Government so that they could build a canal.
• Presence of the canal places Panama in the middle of international tug-of-wars between major powers. The United States, China, Europe, Russia

The Caribbean Basin

• Greater Antilles

• Cuba
• Hispaniola
• Jamaica
• Puerto Rico

Lesser Antilles

• Begin in the south with Trinidad and Tobago and run north through the Virgin Islands and then on through the Bahamas

Comprise only 9% of the land area of Mesoamerica but a full 21% of the population – the most densely populated part of the Americas

Some islands still have links to the old colonial empires

• Puerto Rico
• Jamaica and others in the British Commonwealth

Political Legacies

• Upper class controlled by people of European descent
• Middle class of mulatto descent (Euro-African)
• Large under class of Afro-Caribbean descent

One of the poorest regions in the world

• Collapse of the sugar trade impoverished the region
• Difficult region in which to farm – making cash cropping problematic
• Around 60% of the population is urbanized

Economies based around Tourism

• Large boost to nations’ economy and job market
• Generally a clean industry
• No uniform development or access to benefits
• Stresses fragile ecological resources
• Warps native views of own culture