Colección: Revista Interamericana de Bibliografía (RIB)
Número: 1-4
Título: 1997
Sección: Artículos / Articles
Latin America
The diffusion of Turnerian thought into Latin America paralleled its spread
through Canada. Many Latin American thinkers tested the frontier hypothesis
for their region. While revealing some similarities, their works generally
concluded that Turner’s version of the frontier did not operate in Latin
America.
Interestingly, some Latin Americans anticipated Turner’s thinking. In
1888 the Brazilian-born French writer Emilio Daireaux described the powerful
effect of plains frontiers. He argued that plains frontiers around the world
“imprint” their inhabitants with common characteristics, including
a “passion for independence.”17
João Capistrano de Abreu (1853-1927) focused on the dry inland plains of Brazil’s
northeast, the sertão, just as Turner focused on the frontier. This
rugged “backlands,” lying between the narrow coastal plain and the
Amazonian Basin, became central to his explanation of Brazilian history. Capistrano
viewed the sertão as a place of racial and social democracy. His nationalism
and “New Worldism” resonate well with Turner’s vision.18
In 1923 Victor Andrés Belaúnde examined “The Frontier in Hispanic America.”19
He contrasted Spanish and British colonial settlement patterns.
He pointed out that the Spanish quickly built cities across their vast continental
empire. The English, in contrast, colonized only the Atlantic coastal strip.
Not until the late eighteenth century did Americans push westward across the
Alleghenies.
Belaúnde also contrasted the history of the Mississippi river valley with
the Amazon Basin. The Mississippi basin yielded fertile soils for farming
and easy riverain access. The Amazonian tropical rain forest provided no such
bounty of arable land. Access to much of the region proved difficult owing
to the Andes Mountains and the nature of the rain forest itself.
Belaúnde concluded that only the Río de la Plata and southern Brazil offered
regions appropriate for comparison with the U.S. The flat topography and water
access made them readily accessible to European immigration. The temperate
climate, coastal farm land, navigable rivers, and lack of high mountain barriers
paralleled conditions in the U.S.
Despite the geographical similarities, however, Belaúnde identified significantly
different frontier effects. Spanish policy purposefully created large estates.
In contrast, individuals and settler families established a tradition of smaller
land parcels in the U.S. “Individualism and equality of opportunities,
the two great derivations of the frontier principle” did not arise in
the Río de la Plata as they did in the U.S. Belaúnde presciently linked land
tenure and politics: “large estates continue to be the great obstacle
in the way of democracy.”
Silvio Zavala, familiar with Belaúnde’s essay, shifted his focus to Mexico’s
northern frontier. He asked whether the northern frontier “may be considered
a source of the Mexico national type.” He concluded that the “North
can be considered only a source of social peculiarities,” not of Mexican
national identity. He found no Turnerian parallels for Mexico.20
In contrast, in a 1940 essay Arthur Scott Aiton found a significant basis
for comparing frontiers in Latin America and the U.S. Aiton recognized the
preexistence in Latin America of highly developed, sedentary civilizations.
He also noted that, unlike Anglo-Americans, the Spanish absorbed indigenous
populations into a new mestizo society. Despite such differences, he reached
a Turnerian conclusion: “Frontier conditions in Latin America, as elsewhere,
developed individualism, self-reliance, democracy, initiative, and willingness
to experiment despite closer controls.”21
While not as prevalent as in the United States, frontier images have influenced
Brazilian historiography. A number of scholars, including Caio Prado, Junior,
Gilberto Freyre, and J. F. Normano, pondered the nature of frontier characteristics
and influences. Freyre, for example, wrote in Turnerian language that “the
‘moving frontier’ in Brazil has meant the creation of new ways of
life and new combinations of culture.”22
Turner, of course, concerned himself with explaining the influence of the
frontier on American national character. In 1981, Argentine historian Hebe
Clementi examined “National Identity and the Frontier.” Unlike most
recent scholars, she supported Turner’s linkage of the frontier and national
identity.23
Clementi compared the role of the frontier in the formation of national identity
in the U.S., Brazil, and Argentina. She focused on the Brazilian slavehunter
and explorer, the bandeirante, the Argentine gaucho, and the U.S. pioneer.
She concluded that each “helps to define his nation’s character
through his participation in the appropriation of empty land, and through
his contact with the frontier.” Neither Clementi’s argument nor
evidence is very convincing.24