Dr. Rivera in his office in Wheeler Hall
Dr. Rivera pointing at Latin America.
By Matthew Avitabile
COBLESKILL — SUNY Cobleskill Professor Dr. Salvador Rivera recently published his second book: The Fragmented Nation: A Political History of Latin American Societies. We sat down with Dr. Rivera to discuss the new book.
The professor of history and sociology said that he started working on the book around 2017. The new text followed his first book published by McFarland on Latin American unification. Much of the time between 2017 and today has been seeking a publisher and reviews for the text.
“It’s hard to get published,” he said.
“History is subjective,” said Dr. Rivera. He said that in one review of the text a reviewer was displeased that it didn’t include more about New Mexico, but to Dr. Rivera, “it’s just a frontier zone” during the era of Spanish colonization of the New World.
Back during his studies, Dr. Rivera said that he had a college teacher who said “write about what is the most important thing, what the audience should know.”
“Write until you have nothing else to say.”
Dr. Rivera focused on a number of different eras during Latin American history, including after industrialization but much of his focus was on the colonial era.
He said that much of his text was not about the civilizations prior to the arrival of Columbus. He said that in many ways Native cultures would become Latin after 1492.
“The Spanish did not come into a cultural vacuum,” he said. He described the period before the Spanish arrival as a series of despotisms with no private property or money.
The works of a number of explorers and conquistadors, like Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortes transformed what is today Latin America. Pizarro and his expedition subjugated the Inca and prior to this Cortes, Spanish soldiers, and Native allies destroyed the Aztec Empire.
Dr. Rivera cited the relationship between Cortes and the Natives of Central America. About 100,000 natives joined his cause against the Aztecs, who were hated by their neighbors after campaigns of genocide and human sacrifice. He also relied on Doña Marina who hated the Aztecs to translate for him.
Rivera said that he disagreed with what he called “colonial guilt” and the “black legend” of Cortes’ expedition in what is today Mexico.
After the conquest of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City), Cortes built the first hospital, that was called the Hospital of Jesus, which was open to everyone. He then began the process of rebuilding the city.
The hospital is also where Cortes is buried and is currently a museum.
In Dr. Rivera’s research, both Pizarro and Cortes found that their biggest enemies were not Native peoples, but other Spaniards.
The professor argued that “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
As an example he cited the interception of gold ships headed from the New World to Spain by the British and others. These ships were plundered and the booty taken was not returned to Native peoples, even to this day.
The largest such gold shipwreck, the San Juan, is off the coast of Colombia. The Spanish sailors were desperate and had to choose between sailing toward the Royal Navy or the storm, and ultimately chose the storm.
During the Spanish colonial period, Madrid ruled the colonies in part through the Encomienda system. Dr. Rivera stated that the system had private plots and another district in which locals would have services provided to them by his/her rule. The local officials, who he likened to judges, would investigate crimes, defend the local territory, and provide for churches and schools.
“There’s a problem,” he said. “The Indians didn’t have a money economy.” The preexisting system was “service for service” instead. Spain didn’t seek barter but instead wanted labor, which is often referred to as the corvee system. The Inca and Aztecs had used similar systems in the past. Spain, in part due to this decision, has “been damned” because they “just didn’t have the money to send bureaucrats.”
Dr. Rivera said that he hoped that his book would be read by both the general public and college students to “rectify common stereotypes” by “those with dark colonial viewpoints of the history.” Overall, he describes the influence of Pizarro and Cortes as “positive.”
He also stated that during the period of Latin American independence in the 19th century, there were a number of very negative trends that caused the states that had been under the Spanish crown to become a number of independent states. These decisions “condemned millions to poverty.”
He said that Classical Liberals wanted free trade and to “run each country as their own little barony.”
Dr. Rivera also looked at the foreign wars a number of Latin American nations engaged in. Excited the Texan War of Independence and the Mexican-American Wars, both in the 19th centuries. He argued that Americans who fought at the Alamo were “mercenaries hired by the Galveston Bay Real Estate Company.” Former President James K. Polk, who oversaw the Mexican-American War, was “buying slaves and even children while in the White House.”
The professor also looked closely at the intervention of communist Cuba against Portuguese colonial rule in Angola during the Cold War. He also cited Cuba’s interventions in Mozambique and Ethiopia supporting communist revolutions. Cuba suffered setbacks during their expeditions, but not in Angola, he said. There, the invasion was mostly successful, but later crumbled. After all, he said, Havana didn’t have the same resources of the USSR. Despite this, Cuba had defeated the government of apartheid-era South Africa, and Namibia (the former German Southwest Africa) became independent.
“Man for man, the South African Army was better than the Cubans,” he said. However, “The Cubans were at it longer.”
Rivera cited the 1982 Falklands War in which Argentina seized the islands (which it claims as the Islas Malvinas) from Great Britain. The invasion by the military government of Argentina was “doomed to fail,” he said but ultimately did surprisingly well, sinking a tenth of the British force sent to reclaim the islands. The conflict led to the overthrow of Argentina’s government but also showed that Argentina could do damage with limited bombs and just five modern missiles.
“Imagine what Russia or China could do. People should learn from this.”
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