As with all the pages on this
blog, names in green can be found on the Index
of Names, names in Amber on the Merely Mentioned list, names in Lilac among the Purple Cloaks,
names in blood-red on the GER page; theme-pages are in light
red
Two lists
below:
The first, sadly, very brief, because we simply do not have many records:
a) a Timeline of pre-Columban America, for which I
simply sailed to the website of Oxford Reference.com,
pushed any barriers preventing me out of the way (the chief among them was
named Cookies), helped myself from what is truly both a silver and a gold mine,
and then colonised the place with settlements of my own, renamed what was
native to the site but did not meet my requirements, and brought the treasure
home. It seemed entirely appropriate.
pre 15,000 BCE: Tribes from the orient cross the Bering land bridge and begin to settle the northern parts of the continent
circa 15,000 BCE: Hunter-gatherers gradually extend their territory far into the continent
circa 8000 BCE: As temperatures warm, the sea level rises, submerging the Bering land bridge and isolating the Siberian immigrants as the aboriginal First Nations
circa 3000 BCE: The llama and the alpaca, two members of the camel family, are domesticated. Complex societies, with sophisticated temple architecture, develop at sites such as Aspero and Caral in the Norte Chico region of Peru
circa 2500 BCE: At Huaca Prieta, the earliest known farming community in South America, squash, gourds and chili are cultivated for food; and cotton is grown, from which they weave a coarse cloth
circa 2000 BCE: Medicine men in Peru practise trephination, cutting holes in the skulls of their patients
circa 900 BCE: Chávin de Huántar becomes the centre of the first civilisation of the southern Americas
circa 300 BCE–100 CE: The people of Paracas, a coastal region of central Peru, create extremely sophisticated fabrics of woven cotton or vicuña wool
circa 200 BCE: The earth drawings of
the Nazca people, known now as the Nazca Lines, are some of the largest works
of art ever created. At the same time the Mochica develop a civilisation in the
north of modern Peru, known for its realistic pottery sculpture, while the
potato is first cultivated in the Peruvian Andes
circa 500 CE: The city of Tiwanaku develops to the south of Lake Titicaca, and soon dominates the surrounding region
all dates from now on are CE
circa 700: The
quipu is used in the Wari culture and becomes the standard recording device of
the Andean civilisations
[I looked up "quipu" on the Internet, and found this
site; who would have expected the primoridals of Incaland to have been this
scientifically sophisticated! Or was that just modern man using the name for
something…. actually, just as sophisticated. Click here. And then click here and move this listing
much higher up; because "quipu" actually originates from around 2600 BCE]
circa 800: Batán Grande, in northern Peru, becomes a great pilgrimage centre in the Sican culture
circa 900: Chan Chan, today the largest of the ruined Andean cities, dominates the entire length of Peru
circa 1000: The Inca ethnic group migrates into the region of the Cuzco valley in Peru
circa 1150: The Aztecs begin to move south from their original home, which they call Aztlan, somewhere in northern Mexico
1434: The Portuguese establish trading outposts along the West African coast.
1438: After a decisive victory over the Chanca people, a young Inca prince seizes the throne in Peru and takes the name Pachacuti (“transformer of the earth”)
circa 1440: Cuzco, city of the Incas, grows rapidly in power after Pachacuti becomes emperor
1441: Antão Gonçalves of Portugal captures Africans in what is now Senegal and transports them to Lisbon, initiating direct European involvement in the African slave trade; by 1450 approximately a thousand slaves per year are being transported to Europe; by 1460 that same number from sub-Saharan African alone [the point being that slavery had been the norm for ever, and wasn't a consequence of discovering the New World, but simply a continuation and an extension]
circa 1450: The massive architecture of the Incas, consisting of finely dressed irregular blocks of stone, becomes a feature of Cuzco. The most sacred of the Inca divinities, Punchao, is symbolised by a great golden disc representing the sun
1463: The Chimu empire in Peru is conquered by the Incas under the leadership of Pachacuti's son Topa
1471: Topa succeeds his father, Pachacuti, as emperor of the Incas
1487: The Inca empire is extended to the north, and a second capital is established at Quito
1493: On Topa's death his son Huayna Capac succeeds to the throne as Inca emperor
Which takes us to the date at
which my borrowing of this timeline should really end; but that was only one
purpose in tracking it down, and to tell the history in full, it is sadly
necessary to include the conquistadors: what happened afterwards is below:
b) a
timeline of post-Columban America as it pertains to the "pre-"
likewise plundering the Oxford Reference.com website as my principal out-source, though I am also exploiting the several out-sources that worked the galleys of my Africa page
Aug 3 1492: Christoforo Colombo (Cristóbal Colón, Christopher
Columbus): set sail from Palos on
his first voyage, opening a
vast new empire for plantation slavery.
1492: Luis de Torres (Yosef ben Ha Levi Ha Ivri before he accepted conversion) became the first Jew in post-Biblical times to set foot in the "Americas", arriving at Cuba on Nov 2, though you can also find him on Feb 1
Nov 15 1492: The first recorded reference to tobacco (Columbus - but see Nov 2 for Rodrigo de Jerez, who accompanied Luis de Torres on Feb 1, though he isn’t mentioned on the page. How then do I know? Because it turns out that he was the unnamed smoker on Nov 15, Torres on that occasion the second man with him (I wonder if he declined the baccy because of something in Jewish law?): the verification is at the green light on Nov 2; and click here
1494: In negotiations about the New World at Tordesillas, the king of Portugal insists on a new demarcation line which later brings him Brazil
1494: The first Africans arrive in Hispaniola with Christopher Columbus. They are free persons, whereas he and most of the rest of his crew were Jews forced to convert to Xtianity! see Feb 1 and Nov 2
1494: Columbus claims Jamaica for the Spanish
1499: first expedition of Amerigo Vespucci (in his native Italian, but remembered as Américo Vespúcio in Portuguese and Spanish; Latinised it becomes Americus, and thence America); on the blog on May 5
circa 1500: The city of Machu Picchu, its peak high above the jungle, is built in the massively precise Inca style of masonry. At this time the female mamakuna and the male yanakuna are selected in childhood to serve the Inca state (more about them here – which has vast amounts of Inca terminologies – and here; a priesthood of sorts
1500: Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral, with a fleet of thirteen ships, makes landfall in Brazil. At this epoch the Inca empire has about 25,000 miles of well-serviced roads, designed for caravans of llamas; in Cuzco's great temple, the sacrifices are usually of llamas, occasionally of humans
1500: Many sub-Saharan slaves
are brought to Portugal, Spain, Italy and Sicily for Christianization before
they are transported to the Americas.
1500: Hernando de Soto, "the first European to see the Mississippi River" is on my page for May 21
1501: Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci sets sail from Lisbon to explore to the south of the New World
1501: Gonçalo Coelho commanded the first of his two expeditions; the second, two years later, explored much more thoroughly the full coast-length of Brazil; on the blog on Jan 1, as is Gaspar de Lemos, captain of the supply ship in Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet that “discovered” Brazil; he was sent back to Portugal with the news of their discovery, and was credited by the Viscount of Santarém as having discovered the Fernando de Noronha archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean.
1501: The Spanish king formally allows
the introduction of enslaved Africans into Spain's American colonies; but see 1518 below
1502: Uncle Ahuitzotl succeeded by Montezuma on June 30; learn more about this “spiny aquatic thing” here
1511: The first enslaved Africans arrive in Hispaniola.
April 2 1513: Florida "discovered" by Juan Ponce de León (USA)
September 29 1513: Vasco Núñez de Balboa (born 1475; died January 15 1519, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean): crossed the isthmus of Panama with 190 conquistadores and 600 Indians, and on September 29, 1513, he reached the coast of the Pacific Ocean, never before seen by a European. He named the newly discovered ocean Mar del Sur"; bio here [Africa page]
1517: Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas (born November 11 1484; died July 18 1566): mentioned on the Africa page for his attempts to stop slavery in Hispaniola; the full tale here; but this next requires re-drafting the above, into reverse order, because earlier that same year he had petitioned the Spanish authorities to allow the importation of twelve enslaved Africans for each household immigrating to America's Spanish colonies. He immediately came to regret doing so, and only then became an opponent of slavery [also on the Responses to Bullying page]
1518: King Charles I of Spain grants the first licenses to import enslaved Africans to the Americas; and indeed the the first shipload of enslaved Africans directly from Africa duly arrived in the West Indies. Prior to this time, Africans were brought first to Europe (or simply some slaves were brought in without a license)
March 4 1519: Cortés (with an és please, not an éz) landed in Anahuac, though he would call it México, with the e accented ); the name means “land surrounded by water” in Nahuatl; the capital city, now México City, was called Tenochtitlan, a reference to the prickly pear cacti that grow in abundance in the area
September 20 1519: the start of the Magellan expedition: Fernäo de Megalhäes (in Portuguese), Fernando de Magallanes (in Spanish), Ferdinand Magellan (in English): dead before it happened on Sept 8; gets the credit anyway on Sept 20; still entitled to it on Nov 28
June 30 1520: death of Montezuma, which probably should be Motecuhzoma II Xocoyotzin
1520: Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón (born 1480): his letter to Emperor Charles V protesting smallpox and slavery in the colonies can be read here; sadly he was unsuccessful, so he set out for the north, landing on the coast of Georgia on September 29 1526, the first time enslaved Africans had set foot on the northern part of the continent... the rest of this tale is below
1520: Enslaved Africans are used as labourers in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Mexico
1521: The Santo Domingo Slave Revolt is the first black slave insurrection in the New World - it failed, which is why San Miguel de Gualdape, below, gets the listing
1522: the first known round-the-world voyage completed by Juan Sebastian den Cano (in Portuguese), Juan de Elcano (in Spanish): he took it over from Magellan on Sept 8 and completed the circumnavigation on Sept 20
1524:
Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro González overruns
Ecuador and Peru; among his conquering forces are free and enslaved Africans
serving as sailors, soldiers, and labourers
1525: The Inca emperor, Huayna Capac, dies in an epidemic of a disease brought in by the western invaders: smallpox (as per Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón's 1520 letter, above); ruling respectively from Cuzco and Quito, his sons Huáscar and Atahualpa compete for his empire
1526: Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón: The Africa page has him under 1526 for San Miguel de Gualdape, the town he built and where the first successful slave rebellion against the Conquistadors took place; so clearly he had stopped protesting (see 1520, above), and was now as guilty as any other colonist. He died in Virginia on October 18 1526, after which his fellow Spaniards dunkerked asap back to Hispaniola
1527 or 1528: Esteban Dorantes, sometimes pronounced Estevan, and sometimes diminutived to Estabanico: a Moroccan-born Muslim slave who wound up exploring Texas for fully a decade; his bio here [Africa page]
1530: Francisco Pizarro (Francisco Pizarro González in full) sails from Panama to attempt the conquest of Peru
1530: Atahualpa defeats and kills his half-brother Huáscar, thus winning control of the entire Inca empire
1531: Pizarro leads a hundred and sixty-eight men, with about thirty horses, into the territory of the Inca empire
1532: Pizarro and his tiny force ambush and massacre the Inca court in Cajamarca, capturing Atahualpa alive. Atahualpa agrees to buy his freedom from the Spaniards with a room full of gold and another of silver.
Aug 29 1533: Although the ransom has been paid, Atahualpa is executed (strangled) by the Spaniards - who ensure that he dies a Christian! The Spanish conquistadors then capture and sack the Inca capital of Cuzco, high in the Andes
1535: Pizarro: founded Lima (on the blog on Jan 18)
Oct 2 1535: Jacques Cartier landed at what was then called Hochelaga but is now Montréal (on the blog on this date, and also Dec 31)
1536: Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires
1536: Manco Inca begins a siege of the Spaniards in Cuzco that lasts for a year
1537: With the end of the siege of Cuzco, and the flight of Manco Inca, the Spanish have full control of Peru
1538: Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada: founded Bogota; his party included both enslaved and free Africans, which makes an interesting ideological point, and the same was true in Buenos Aires in 1536: black involvement in key points of eurohistory, and not just as slaves
1540: Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and Hernando de Alarcon: heading for New Mexico with black slaves on board [Africa]
1540: Juan Valiente, former slave and Indian fighter, and another for the GER page, despite his early life; he was rewarded for his participation in campaigns against the Incas with a large estate near Santiago; and see also Juan Guarrido
1540: An African from Hernando de Soto's Expedition decides to remain behind to make his home among the Native Americans there (Seminole presumably as this was Florida)
1542: New Laws are passed in Spain, in an attempt to protect the native people on the encomiendas of Spanish America. The Africa page phrased it differently (before I deleted it!): "1542: The Spanish Crown abolishes Indian slavery in its colonial possessions." A further stage towards the post-slavery world, but we are not there yet, and it only applies to whatever is meant by "Indians"
1542: By this date over thirty thousand Africans are in Hispaniola with 10% living in Maroon colonies in the interior of the island [Africa]
Sept 28 1542: João Rodrigues Cabrilho began the theft of La Jolla and the Pauma
1543: A Spanish royal decree
prohibits the enslavement of Muslims in the West Indies who have converted to
Christianity
1545: Rich seams of silver are discovered at Potosi, in modern Bolivia
1548: Large numbers of African slaves are working in the sliver mines of Zacatecas
1548: Free and enslaved black artisans in Peru manufacture swords, lances, and rosaries for the Spanish army
1548: La Paz is founded on the trade route between Lima and the newly discovered silver mines at Potosi
1549: Brazil becomes a Portuguese royal province, under the control of a governor general, Tome de Souza, who founds Sao Salvador in Bahia, Brazil - now plain Salvador - as his capital [Africa]
1549: Father Manuel de Nóbrega (born October 18 1517; died October 18 1570): no
sooner had he arrived in Bahia from Lisbon than he was protesting the
enslavement of Africans. [Africa and
Responses to Bullying]; bio here
1550: "By this date enslaved people have replaced gold as the principal object of European trade with Africa" [what an extraordinary statement about human beings! and immediately after it, several indeed of the next items on this list, and no doubt each one of them condemned by their "owners" as "terrorists", "criminals"...]
1550: The first slave insurrection is recorded in Nicaragua
1550: The first slave insurrection is recorded in Peru
1550: The first slaves directly from Africa arrive in the Brazilian city of Salvador
1552: Venezuela records its first slave insurrection
1552: Panama experiences its first slave insurrection. The resistance led by Bayano (or Vaino) ends with the founding of a maroon colony in eastern Panama. In 1570 the colonists establish the town of Santiago del Principe [still a long way from post-slavery; but at least things appear to be moving in that direction]
1560: Africans outnumber Europeans fifteen to one on the island of Hispaniola; and see 1542, above
1562: Englishman John Hawkins (born 1532; died in Puerto Rico on November 12 1595) begins trading slaves across the Atlantic when he leaves what is now Sierra Leone with a shipment of three hundred enslaved people bound for Hispaniola. This is the first major example of English participation in the slave trade [Africa]; bio here (apparently he was a cousin of that other pirate Francis Drake
1565: Portuguese settlers, including African slaves, found Rio de Janeiro; see Jan 1
Sept 8 1565: Saint Augustine in
Florida, the first permanent European settlement in North America, founded,
though its founder called it San Agustin.
Named for Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis (the
earlier of the two Saints Augustine, though it is by no means obvious if
Americans, even those who live there, know which of the two is intended
(according to the Smithsonian
magazine: “Legend says that Menéndez first spotted land along today's Florida
coast on August 28, 1565. August 28 is also the feast day for the Catholic
patron saint of brewers, St. Augustine of Hippo. Upon reaching land several
days later, Menendez celebrated Mass and named the site after the saint.” Pedro Menéndez de Avilés
in full, 1519-1574
1568: Spanish trade between
Mexico and the Philippines introduces enslaved Africans to the Philippines
1570: Gaspar Yanga (born May 14 1545 in Guinea Bassau; kidnapped and galley-slaved to Mexico), known as the "Primer Libertador de America" or the first liberator of the Americas, led colonial Mexico's first successful slave uprising and later established one of the New World's first black settlements; bio here [on the Africa and responses to bullying pages]
1573: Professor Bartolome de Albornoz of the University of Mexico writes against the enslavement and sale of Africans [responses to bullying]
June 7 1576: Martin Frobisher set off on his first voyage in search of a North-West Passage [not on the blog, though he does get mentioned on May 28]
1579: Francis Drake seizes a Spanish vessel laden with gold and silver in the Pacific, formerly a safe area for Spain
1591: Martin de Porres began his missionary and medical work among the poor in Lima, Peru; officially named patron saint of social justice in Peru by Pope Pius XII on January 10 1945, thus becoming the Americas' first canonised black cleric
1598: Isabel de Olvera, a free mulatto, accompanied the Juan Guerra de Resa Expedition of 1598 which began the colonisation of what is now New Mexico [Africa]
May 9 1607: my "Free Powhatan" cartoon, which goes with "1607, First permanent English settlement in the US established (Powhatan territory)"; linked to the “Statue of Liberty” essay in Private Collection; see also July 4, July 22 and Oct 28) [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
1609: Fugitive slaves in Mexico, led by Gaspar Yanga, sign a truce with Spanish colonial authorities and obtain their freedom and a town of their own
April 5 1614: Amonute Matoaka (“Pocahontas” means “playful”): married John Rolfe (born circa 1585; died March 1622); he was an English explorer who became the first tobacco planter in Jamestown, Virginia; she converted to Xtianity; full tale here
1615: The Portuguese are exporting approximately 10,000 enslaved people per year to its Brazilian colony - interesting word to have chosen, "exported"! [Africa]
1617: The town of San Lorenzo de los Negros receives a charter from Spanish colonial officials in Mexico and becomes the first officially recognized free settlement for blacks in the New World [note the language! yay, a free settlement, progress is being made - but still referred to as "blacks", not even "Africans" or "black people"]
1618: death of Gaspar Yanga
1620: Black Catholic
clergyman Martin de
Porres founds an orphanage and
foundling hospital in Lima Peru
April 1 1621: First treaty signed between the American colonists and “Indians” - be interesting to see the wording of the surrender (USA) [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog] [I have included April 1 because it describes the end of the epoch as well as the beginning of the new one...in the USA anyway]
circa 1630: Rival
Dutch, English and French colonies are established in Guiana, the northeast
coast of south America
1630: Zumbi, the leader of a group of fugitive slaves, creates the independent state of Palmares in Brazil [AfricaAmericas]; but other websites date this much later, to 1655 [and for a moment it looked like, maybe, a genuine success in breaking free of slavery; but the entry is then completed...] Palmares continues until 1695 when the Portuguese regain control of the region.
Sept 16 1630: Shawmut became Boston
1635: Enslaved Africans brought
in by Puritan settlers become the first blacks to reside in Bluefields,
Nicaragua. Eventually Bluefields will become the largest settlement of persons
of African ancestry in Central America [same website as my comment about "blacks" in 1617; clearly they too noticed and are making the point, the change of terminology, very deliberately here]
1638: France's North American colonies open to trade in enslaved Africans [Africa]
1645: The Portuguese take enslaved people from Mozambique to Brazil for the first time [Africa]
1650: The French take control of the island of Grenada
1660: The British take control
of Jamaica
1667: In the Treaty of Breda, England keeps New Amsterdam (now renamed New York) and New Netherland, and Holland keeps the English-held territory of Surinam
1670: A French royal decree brings French shippers into the slave trade, with the rationale that the labour of enslaved Africans helps the growth of France's island colonies [Africa]
1672: King Charles II of England charters the Royal African Company, which dominates the slave trade to North America for the next half century [Africa]
1675: An estimated hundred thousand Africans are enslaved in the British West Indies and another five thousand are in British North America [Africa]
1690: John Strong, landing on some remote Atlantic islands, names them after Viscount Falkland, treasurer of the British navy; (more on this tale on Jan 22, April 2 and May 2
1693: Gold is
found in Brazil, launching the first great American gold rush
1693: All fugitive Africans who have escaped slavery in the British colonies and fled to Florida are granted their freedom by the Spanish monarchy. [and is this perhaps the first moment of transition? though it must be said the Spanish were never as committed to the slave trade as were the British and the Portuguese, so probably not yet]
1697: The island of Hispaniola is divided between France which takes the western third, and Spain which retains the eastern two thirds
1700-1750: The "Akan drum" [see the Africa page] is made in the region of present-day Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire where this type of drum has historically been played during religious and social occasions in Akan culture. It possibly travelled on board a ship transporting enslaved people from West Africa to America, where it was collected in the present-day state of Virginia, USA
1724: The "Code Noir" ("Black Code") is enacted in New Orleans, French Territory, to control blacks and banish Jews; it's a pretty disgusting document, but if you must, you can read it here
1730: The "Little George"
Slave Revolt was one of the most significant uprisings of captured Africans on
the high seas; it had barely left Guinea, so still in Africa, but heading for the pre-Columban Americas;
click here for the full tale
1740: Venezuela,
Colombia and Ecuador become the Spanish viceroyalty of New Granada, with Bogota
as the capital
1746: An earthquake destroys much of Lima, and an ensuing tidal wave engulfs its port at Callao
1750: The British take control of Grenada and introduce an economy dominated by slave labour [just to be clear, this is Grenada in the Caribbean, the one at 1740 is Granada in Central America]
1750: Escaped slaves from other Caribbean islands settle on St. Vincent, intermarry with the indigenous Caribs, and become the Garifuna (Black Caribs). The island is officially controlled by French settlers
1759: The Portuguese expel the Jesuits from Brazil, beginning a widespread reaction against the order in Catholic Europe
1759: Great Britain gains control over the Caribbean island of Dominica
1763: The capital of the Portuguese colony of Brazil is moved from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro [see Jan 1]
1764: A French expedition from St Malo, founding a colony on East Falkland, name the islands Les îsles Malouines [which of course means "people from Saint-Malo", and does add a rather interesting extra dimension to the later Anglo-Spanish conflict]
1774: The Spanish, now in sole occupation of the Falkland Islands, call them Las Islas Malvinas [presumably completely ignorant of the source of the name]
1776: Buenos Aires rather than Asunción is chosen to be capital of the new Spanish viceroyalty of La Plata
1778: The British adopt a new policy in the south, landing in Georgia and capturing much of South Carolina
1780: An Indian
uprising in Spanish Peru is led by a descendant of the Incas,
1781: Los Angeles is founded by fifty-four settlers, including twenty-six of African ancestry
1783: Approximately three thousand black supporters of the British during the American Revolution were repatriated to British Canada at the end of the conflict ["black", "repatriated" - agenda-driven choices of language]
1783: Britain takes control of St. Kitts & Nevis
1784: The Shelburne (Nova Scotia) Race Riot is caused by resentment over David George, a black Baptist preacher, baptising white residents and organizing racially integrated churches
1788: Tiradentes (“the puller of teeth”) leads the first rebellion against Portuguese rule in Brazil [responses to bullying]
May 5 1789: didn't something of significance take place in France today? I wonder if it will have any impact in the Americas
Dec 17 1790: Aztec calendar “discovered” [in Mexico I presume; not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
1791: The Haitian Revolution begins when Toussaint L'Ouverture leads slaves in Saint-Domingue in a rebellion against French rule
1791: Slaves on Dominica initiate an unsuccessful rebellion against English plantation owners
1792: The
Brazilian rebel Tiradentes is beheaded in public in Rio de Janeiro as a warning
to would-be revolutionaries
1793: The British government outlaws the importation of enslaved people into Upper Canada (Ontario). The law also frees the children of enslaved women when those children reach the age of twenty-five
1793: Slavery is declared illegal in Upper Canada
1796: The French crush a revolt by the Garifuna in St Vincent. In the aftermath nearly five thousand Black Caribs (Garifuna) migrate to Honduras and British Honduras
1796: Slaves revolt in Saint Lucia. The rebellion ends when the British agree to free those who lay down their weapons
1796: After Maroons in Jamaica attempt to instigate
a general rebellion of slaves on the island, the British capture six hundred of them
and ship them to Nova Scotia, and eventually to Sierra Leone [Africa]
1801: Haitian forces invade and occupy Santo
Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) and occupy the Spanish colony until 1844
1804: On January 1, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the successor to Toussaint L'Ouverture, declares Saint Dominque independent and renames it Haiti. It becomes the second independent nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States)
1806: The Creole militia of Buenos Aires drive out an English force which has captured the city
1807: The Portuguese royal family flees to Brazil on the approach of a French army led by Jean-Andoche Junot
Jan 1 1807: Great Britain abolishes the importation of
enslaved Africans into its colonial possessions, including the Americas
1809: With acts of defiance in Sucre, Bolivia becomes the first American province to rebel against the Spanish authorities [this entire timeline, from 1788 onwards, is referenced but not included on the responses to bullying page]
1810: Simón Bolívar, a young officer in Caracas,
takes part in a coup which wins control of Venezuela from the Spanish.
After a public meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentinians set up an autonomous local government in opposition to Spanish forces
José Gervasio Artigas lays siege to the Spanish forces in Montevideo, beginning Uruguay's long struggle for independence
The citizens of Bogotá expel the local Spanish officials and declare their loyalty to the deposed Ferdinand VII
Chile begins four years of untroubled independence, ruled by a junta introducing liberal reforms
1811: Spain abolishes slavery at home and in all colonies except Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo [Africa]
The citizens of Bogotá declare the independence of the province of Colombia
The colonists of Paraguay throw out their Spanish governor and declare independence
1812: The Spanish authorities recover control of Venezuela, ending the region's first brief spell of independence
1813: Simón Bolivar publishes the Manisfesto de Cartagena, calling on the citizens of New Granada to unite and expel the Spaniards
Argentina abolishes slavery [Africa]
Simón Bolivar defeats the Spanish forces in Venezuela and is welcomed in Caracas as "El Liberador", "the Liberator"
1814: José San Martín becomes commander of the patriot army of Argentina, replacing Manuel Belgrano [wasn't there a ship once named for him? see May 2]
José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1766-1840), known as "El Supremo", becomes dictator of Paraguay and for the next twenty-six years seals his nation off from the rest of the world [the evidence suggests that his motives were actually very good, but his methods did not meet any moral standards, which is why he is marked in GER red - bio here]The Spanish recapture Caracas, after which Simón Bolivar moves southwest to advance on
Bogotá, now held again by the Spanish
Spanish forces at Rancagua defeat a Chilean army commanded by Bernardo O'Higgins, who escapes across the Andes into Argentina
Simón Bolivar recaptures Bogotá from the recently returned Spanish troops
1815: Brazil is given equal standing with Portugal, forming together the Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil [remember that the deposed king of Portugal is now living in Rio, so this is coming from the Brazilian end, not the Portuguese]
The Spanish recover Bogotá yet again and Simón Bolivar flees into exile in Jamaica
1816: The independence of Argentina is formally proclaimed, dropping any pretence of remaining loyal to the Spanish king
1817: Argentine general José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins lead an army through the Andes into Chile and capture Santiago. O'Higgins is elected the “supreme director” of independent Chile after San Martín declines the post
Simón Bolivar returns to Venezuela and builds up an army of liberation in a remote region up the Orinoco
Bernardo O'Higgins introduces liberal reforms in Chile, reducing the privileges of aristocracy and church
1818: Thomas Cochrane arrives in Valparaiso to take command of the Chilean navy
1819: Simón Bolivar marches his army across the Andes, captures Bogotá, and proclaims the republic of Gran Colombia
1819: The Canadian government refuses to cooperate with the United States government in the apprehension of fugitive slaves living in Canada
1820: The newly independent republic of Argentina takes possession of Las Islas Malvinas (the Falklands)
1820: Rev. Daniel Coker of Baltimore leads eighty six African Americans who become the first black settlers to Liberia [but should they not be called American-Africans, rather than the other way around?] [Africa]
[important because this is the first
evidence of anyone even thinking about returning; and sadly, other than Liberia
and Maya Angelou, virtually no one else ever has)
1820: The American Colonization Society's first ship, Mayflower of Liberia, arrives in Liberia [this needs more thinking about; is it the usual conquest-by-colonisation, which is how America started, or is there something positive for Africa, and for former slaves returning to their roots, about it? that debate will be found on the Africa page, not here]
1821: The
22-year-old Portuguese prince, Dom
Pedro, is made regent of Brazil
San Martín enters Lima and proclaims Peruvian independence
with himself as "Protector"
Simón Bolivar defeats the Spanish at Carabobo and liberates, for the second time, his native city of Caracas
and in the same year: Ecuador adopts a gradual emancipation program; Columbia adopts a gradual emancipation program; Venezeula adopts a gradual emancipation program
1822: After
defeating the Spanish at Pichincha, Antonio
José de Sucre enters Quito and
liberates Ecuador
The two liberators, Simón Bolivar and San Martín, meet in Guayaquil for a conference [and we also need to note that all of these "liberators" were also ego-driven melgalomiacal despots of the worst kind, however well-intentioned, and that the people under their authority simply switched from one form of vassaildom and servitude to another]
After failing to agree with Simón Bolivar at Guayaquil, San Martín resigns his post as Protector of Peru
The Portuguese regent, Dom Pedro, proclaims the independence of Brazil and three months later is crowned emperor, as Pedro I
1823: Chile abolishes slavery
1823: Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile's first liberal reformer, is so unpopular that he has to resig
Simón Bolivar arrives
in Lima to be granted command of the army and dictatorial powers in the
republic of Peru
1824: After the surrender of the Spanish army to Antonio José de Sucre at Ayacucho, Peru is finally liberated
1824: Mexico outlaws slavery. This act creates the incentive for Anglo Texans to fight for independence [what is the difference between “outlaws” and “abolishes”?]
1824: The Federal Republic of Central America (formed by the countries that are now Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, plus the region of Los Altos that is now part of both Guatemala and Mexico) abolishes slavery
1824: Ira Frederick Aldridge, alumnus of
the African Grove Theater, begins a prominent acting career in London
1825: With a victory at Tumusla Antonio José de Sucre liberates Upper Peru (the future Bolivia), the last Spanish stronghold in continental America
Juan Antonio Lavalleja leads a band of "Thirty-three Immortals" in Uruguay's fight for independence from Brazil
Upper Peru declares independence as the republic of Bolivia, in honour of Simón Bolivar
1826: Pedro I, emperor of Brazil, inherits the throne of Portugal (as Pedro IV) but continues to rule from Brazil
1827: Lavalleja defeats a Brazilian army at Ituzaingó, in the decisive battle for Uruguayan independence
1828: Conservative “bigwigs” and liberal “novices” emerge as Chile's two main political parties
The independence of Uruguay is agreed in the Treaty of Montevideo between Brazil and Argentina
June 16 1829: Geronimo (Goyakhla, or possibly Goyaałé) born in what is today new Mexico [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
1829: Vincente Guerrero, Mexican independence leader of mixed African and Indian ancestry despite the name, became the second President of Mexico in 1829, and almost immediately abolished slavery in Mexico [Africa, pre-Columban Americas and responses to bullying]
1830: Simón Bolivar resigns as President of Gran
Colombia shortly before dying of tuberculosis
Antonio José de Sucre is assassinated on his journey home to Quito from a
congress in Bogotá
Diego Portales begins a 30-year spell as Chile's conservative dictator
Panama becomes part of the newly independent republic of Colombia
1831: Pedro Iabdicates in Brazil and returns to Europe to recover his Portuguese throne (as Pedro IV)
1831: Bolivia abolishes slavery
Guyana becomes a British colony
1833: Britain ejects the Argentinians from the Falklands and begins the process of settlement with British farmers
The British Parliament abolishes slavery in the entire British Empire [out-sourcing and zero-hours contracts will be introduced later on as replacements] [Africa]
1835: Juan Manuel de Rosas becomes dictator of Argentina and imposes a brutally repressive conservative regime
1838: Civil war breaks out in Uruguay between the Reds and the Whites, followers respectively of Rivera and Oribe
1842: Uruguay abolishes slavery
1844: New Orleans-born African American playwright Victor Séjour's first play, "Diegarias", is performed at the Theatre Français in Paris [the world as stage]
1848: Slavery is abolished in all French Colonies [were there any left in the New World by this time? - yes, in the Carib] [Africa]
1850: Brazil, historically the world's second largest importer of slaves from Africa, finally bans the slave trade
1851: The Republic of New Granada (today's Colombia) abolishes slavery
1852: In an Argentinian civil war, Justo José de Urquiza defeats the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas
1852: The Hawaiian Kingdom abolishes slavery
Jan 28 1853: José Marti born; his death is on May 19
1853: Mary Ann Shadd becomes the first woman of African ancestry to publish a newspaper anywhere in the world when she takes control of the Provincial Freeman in Chatham, Ontario
Venezuela abolishes slavery
Peru
abolishs slavery
1855: An estimated four thousand fugitive slaves from Texas and the U.S. Southwest are living in and around the Mexican border town of Matamoras
1861: At Pavón the provincial troops of Buenos Aires defeat the Argentinian national army, emphatically demonstrating the power of their city
1863: Slavery is abolished in all Dutch colonies [including those in Africa, but don’t tell anyone in Soweto, or in Harlem NYC for that matter] [Africa]
1864: Hiram Ulysses Grant moves south in a hard-fought campaign to pin down Robert E Lee's Confederate army at Petersburg, near Richmond, Virginia [why is this included? good question! the processes of conquest I guess, different in the northern continent than they were in the southern, but still conquest; this was Powhatan Confederacy territory, and Monacan territory, though there were also Chickahominy, Mattaponi and Pamunkey whose homelands were being subsumed and apartheided in the developing new state]
1865: The
Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López starts a war against Brazil,
Argentina and Uruguay which eventually kills more than half his population
1865: The Dominican Republic is declared independent from Spain [first the abolition of slavery, then the giving of independence - but it will take fully a hundred years to complete it]
1866: The
Argentine Rural Society is founded as the exclusive preserve of Argentina's
oligarchy
1868: Antonio Maceo Grajales: joined the Cuban independence movement, eventually rising to the level of General in the insurgent army at the time of his death in 1896 [Africa]
1873: Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico
1880: Buenos Aires is finally accepted as the permanent capital city of Argentina
1881: Chief Sitting Bull, whose real name was Tatanka Iyotake, surrendered on July 20, killed by one of his own people (Tacankpe Luta, "Red Tomahawk" - his website here) on Dec 15
1884: The War of the Pacific brings Chile new mineral wealth at the expense of Bolivia and Peru
Dec 8 1886 has Diego Rivera born, and elsewhere I have Frida Kahlo several times (and both among the illustrious illustrators): both need to be
included, primarily because they are the continuation of the pre-Columban into the
post-Columban, but also because... isn't it just so nice to have something positive to report amidst all this Kurtzian horror! That's Rivera's "Pan-American Unity" mural, below
1886: Slavery is abolished in Cuba [that is incorrect: in all parts of Cuba except the
brothels and casinos of Havana where slavery remained in place until the
overthrow of Batista in 1958]
1888: Slavery is abolished in Brazil
1888: The emperor Pedro II frees all the remaining slaves in Brazil without compensating their owners
1889: The first conference of American nations, in Washington DC, launches the Commercial Bureau of the American Republics (later called the Pan-American Union)
A coup removes emperor Pedro II from his throne in Brazil, putting in his place a military dictatorship
Dec 15 1890: Tatanka Iyotake (“Sitting Bull”) shot; leading to...
1891: Civil war breaks out in Chile between supporters of a liberal President and a hostile congress
1894: Brazil's first civilian President, Prudente de Morais, is peacefully elected, setting the pattern for the next four decades
May 19 1895: José Martí killed (Cuba)
1897: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, a prominent 19th century Brazilian writer is a founder and the first President of the Brazilian Academy of Literature. He holds the post until his death in 1908
1899: The War of a Thousand Days begins in Colombia, causing eventually 100,000 deaths
circa 1900: Rubber
brings prosperity to Manaus, thousands of miles up the Amazon
Jan 1 1899: Cuba independent from Spain
1902: Venezuela defaults on European interest payments and is soon threatened by British, German and Italian warships
1903: José Batlle is elected President of Uruguay and proves to be a visionary politician (by the way, you pronounce his name "by-way")
1903 Thousands of black workers from the Caribbean and Latin America arrive in the Canal Zone to help build the Panama Canal
1904: Joseph Conrad publishes his novel “Nostromo”, about a revolution in South America and a fatal horde of silver
1906: The Great Valparaiso Earthquake damages much of central Chile and is felt from Peru to Buenos Aires
1908: Augusto Bernardino Leguía begins the first of two long spells as the strong man of Peruvian politics
Coffee replaces sugar as Brazil's main crop, accounting for more than fifty per cent of exports in 1908
Dec 10 1909: Chief Red Cloud (Mahpiua-Luta) died
circa 1911: The lost Inca city of Machu Picchu is reached by US archaeologist Hiram Bingham
1912: Electoral reform is introduced in Argentina, with universal male suffrage and a secret ballot
1913: An underground railway opens in Buenos Aires, the first subway in Latin America
1914: The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral makes her name with her first collection, “Sonetos de la muerte”
1914: The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) is founded in Kingston, Jamaica by Marcus Garvey and his second wife Amy Euphemia Jacques
Royal-Dutch Shell begins to pump oil in Venezuela, launching
the country as a major oil producer
November 1 1914: Maximilian von Spee sinks two British cruisers off Coronel, on the Pacific coast of south America... December 7 1914: Maximilian von Spee's squadron of cruisers is sunk by the British off the
Falkland Islands [European war spilling over into the Americas; but given what happened when the next warmakers of Germany resumed their mania, and the setting up of Aryan settlements in the interim...]
1916: The election of Hipolito Irigoyen as President begins sixteen years of radical government in Argentina
After an 800-mile journey in an open boat, Ernest Shackleton returns to rescue his stranded colleagues in the South Shetlands (the tale is told on Jan 5, and he also makes an appearance on Dec 14)
1920: A Chilean poet, Ricardo Reyes (Ricardo Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in full), adopts the pen name Pablo Neruda; the name, with its spelling slightly altered, that Fernando Pessoa will adopt as one of his pseudonyms, and José Saramago will use for the hero of one of his novels [Neruda is among The Poets, Saramago the serious scribes]
1923: Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges publishes his first collection of poems, “Fervor de Buenos Aires” [serious scribes]
1924: Still only twenty, Neruda publishes one of his best-known collections, “Twenty Love Poems”
1924: O Clarim da
Alvorada (Clarion of Dawn) becomes the first Afro-Brazilian newspaper.
Founded in Sao Paulo, it will be a leading force in the growing black culture
movement in Brazil
1926: League of Nations Slavery
Convention binds all signatories to end the slave trade and slavery [and wouldn't it be nice if it were actually adopted and implemented in reality, not just in the history books and the politicians' campaign speeches and memoirs]
Aug 13 1927: Fidel Castro born
1930: A military
coup removes Hipolito Irigoyen from the Presidency in Argentina
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas begins a 24-year personal rule in Brazil
Heitor
Villa-Lobos composes the first of his “Bachianas
Brasileiras”
1931: The Frente Negra Brasileira (Brazilian Black Front) is formed in the city of Sao Paulo
1932: The Chaco War breaks out between Bolivia and Paraguay, in dispute over the swampy plain known as the Gran Chaco
1933: Neruda increases his international reputation with a collection of surrealist poems, “Residencia en la tierra”
1935: A truce ends armed hostilities in the three-year Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay
Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges publishes “A Universal History of Infamy”, one of the first examples of magic realism [I remain to be persuaded that he would have accepted that description of the book]
1936: “The
Febreristas”, a newly formed left-wing group, seize power in Paraguay
1936: Félix Éboué becomes Colonial Governor of Guadeloupe, French West Indies, the first person of African ancestry to hold the post in the French Colonial Empire. Eventually he will hold the same post in Chad, and in 1940 becomes Governor General of French Equatorial Africa [Africa]
1938: The peace of Buenos Aires, ending the Chaco War, gives Paraguay most of the region under dispute with Bolivia
December 13 1939: the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee is scuttled after a battle with Allied ships near the river Plate [see my note to the Admiral at November 1 1914]
1940: The
Conservative Colorados recover power in Paraguay and reimpose military rule
1943: Power is seized in Argentina by a new military junta, the Group of United Officers ["Power"; that's the key-word throughout all these historical records, and globally: me Tarzan, me rule the cave; nothing to do with idealism or civilisation or concern for the well-being of ordinary people. Me Tarzan, me want power]
1944: Jorge Luis Borges publishes “Fictions”, a collection of short stories
1944: Abdias do Nascimento founds the Teatro Nacional do Negro in Rio de Janeiro (and I presume this is the same man who was "elected to the Brazilian Congress in 1983 on a platform of promoting Afro-Brazilian rights") [the world as stage]
1944: Eric Eustace Williams publishes the influential "Capitalism and Slavery", which argues that the British abolition of slavery grew from the realisation that wage labour had supplanted slave labour in the global capitalist marketplace
1945: Juan Perón, professed friend of the poor in Argentina, is arrested by brother officers; a mass demonstration by trade unions in Buenos Aires ends with his release
1946: Perón, with the orchestrated support of gangs of thugs, is elected President of Argentina [now I don't want to accuse the website I am plundering of bias and a lack of neutrality, but the fact is they were not thugs, they were... oh, ask Donald Trump to explain, he knows better than I do how this works]
1947: Thor Heyerdahl sets sail across the Pacific from Peru in a balsa wood boat, the Kon-Tiki (his birth is noted on Oct 6, but the tale is still waiting to be told on the blog; click here and here in the meanwhile)
1948: A nine-year
civil war begins in Colombia, bringing eventually some two hundred thousand deaths
1948: United Nations Article 4 bans slavery globally (read the entire document here)
1948: The University of the West Indies is established as the University College of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica
1950: Neruda publishes his epic account of South America and its people, “Canto general” (click here for as full a version as I can find, plus analysis; otherwise he can be found among The Poets)
1951: The Batllistas, followers in Uruguay of José Batlle (for whom see 1903, above, but also my page on Uruguay at TheWorldHourglass), attempt an unusual experiment in the reform of government
1952: A left-wing coup brings Paz Estenssoro to power and launches a 12-year revolution in Bolivia
Eva Perón dies of cancer and achieves the status of a popular saint in Argentina
July 26 1953: "26th of July Movement" founded in Cuba [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
1954: Alfredo Stroessner seizes power in Paraguay, introducing three decades of repressive dictatorship
1954: The country's President, Getúlio Vargas, commits suicide when the army in Brazil demands his resignation
1955: A military uprising in Argentina forces Perón to resign and go into exile
1956: Eric Eustace Williams founds the People's National Movement in Trinidad [political ideologues]
1957: Oscar
Niemeyer is appointed chief architect for his country's new capital, Brasilia
1958: The Venezuelan dictator Marcos Jiménez escapes to the USA with an estimated fortune of $200 million
Jan 1 1959: Fidel Castro victorious in Cuba; Feb 16: Castro sworn in as President [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
1960: Nazi war
criminal Adolf Eichmann, discovered
in Buenos Aires, is kidnapped by Israeli agents [the tale is told on May 11]
The Brazilian government moves to Brasilia, into public buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer [illustrious illustrators]
April 17 1961: "Bay of Pigs" invasion (USA-Cuba) [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline , but on the blog - probably because it doesn't regard Cuba or the other Caribbean countries as part of the continent, which is an entriely reasonable decision to have made; but my interest is in the impact of European imperialism in the entire region, so they are included here]
Nov 13 1961: Pablo Casals, entertaining JFK at the White House [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
Oct 22 1962: blockade of Cuba, and Oct 24: 16 to 28 October 1962: Cuban missile crisis [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but both on the blog]
1962: The veteran
left-wing politician Victor
Haya is elected President of Peru but is thwarted
by a coup led by General Ricardo Godoy
1962:
Jamaica gains its independence from Great Britain on August 6. Alexander Bustamante
is the first head of state
1962: Trinidad & Tobago gain independence from Great Britain on August 31. Eric Eustace Williams is the first head of state
1963: The Tupamaros are formed as an urban guerrilla group in Uruguay
1964: Senior officers in Brazil seize power, alleging the threat of an imminent communist takeover
A military junta seizes power in Bolivia, ending the 12-year left-wing regime of Paz Estenssoro
1965: The General Assembly of the UN asks Argentina and Britain to enter negotiations on their long-running dispute over the Falklands
Dec 1 1965: Cuban refugees began airlift to Miami [not on the Oxford Reference.com timeline, but on the blog]
1966: Che Guevara arrives in Bolivia in the hope of fomenting a left-wing revolution (Index has : Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna (“Che”): killed on Oct 9; mentioned on June 15) [political ideologues and pre-Columban Americas]
1966: Barbados gains independence from Great Britain on November 30. Errol Barrow is the first head of state
1966: Guyana gains its independence from Great Britain on May 26. Linden Forbes Sampson Burham is the first head of state.
1967: Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez publishes a classic of magic realism, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” [serious scribes]
Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is captured and executed in Bolivia
1968: Catholic bishops in Latin America, plagued by oppressive regimes, develop the concept of liberation theology
1970: Salvador Allende, heading a Socialist and Marxist coalition, is elected President in Chile
1971: Pablo Neruda wins the Nobel Prize for Literature [The Poets]
1973: A
military coup plunges democratic Uruguay into eleven years of repressive terror
1973: The
Bahamas gains independence from Great Britain on July 10. Lynden Pindling
is the first head of state
1973: Guinea-Bissau
gains its independence from Portugal on September 24. Luis Cabral is the first
head of state.
President Salvador Allende appoints Augusto Pinochet commander-in-chief of the Chilean army and brings him into the cabinet
The 77-year-old Juan Perón, after returning to Argentina, is once again elected President
Chilean President Salvador Allende dies in the Chilean capital, Santiago, in a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet - see Sept 11 and my page on Chile at TheWorldHourglass
1974: Augusto Pinochet takes sole power in Chile, at the head of a junta which governs with extreme brutality
Isabel Perón becomes President of Argentina on the death of her husband Juan Perón (his third wife, and she the first woman to become President of anywhere on planet Earth)
1974: Greneda gains its independence from Great Britain on February 7. Sir Eric Matthew Gairy is the first head of state
1975: Surinam wins independence from the Dutch, with Johan Ferrier as the first President
1976: A military coup in Argentina brings to an end the two-year Presidency of Juan Perón's widow, Isabelita
1976: Cuban troops and military advisors from the Soviet Union are sent to assist the Angolan government in its campaign against South African-supported insurgents during the Angolan Civil War. Cuban troops remain in Angola until 1991
1977 The First Congress of Black Culture in the Americas convenes in Colombia
circa 1978:
Shining Path and Tupac Amaru emerge as left-wing guerrilla groups in Peru
1978: Dominica gains its independence from Great Britain on November 3. Patrick Roland John is the first head of state [pre-Columban Americas]
1979: The emergency measures underpinning military rule are repealed in Brazil, and an amnesty restores political rights
1979: On March 13, Maurice Bishop leads a coup and seizes control of the government of Grenada. He sets up a Marxist regime and is ousted and killed on Oct 19 1983, six days before United States troops take control of the island
1979: St. Vincent & Grenadines gain independence from Great Britain on September 19. Robert Milton Cato is the first head of state
1981: Leopoldo Galtieri becomes leader of the military junta ruling Argentina
1981: Antigua & Barbuda gain independence from Great Britain on November 1. Vere Cornwall Bird is the first head of state
1981: Belize gains independence from Great Britain on September; George Cadle Price is the first head of state
1982: Five thousand Argentinian troops land in the Falkland Islands, provoking war with Britain
Chilean author Isabel Allende publishes her first novel, “The House of the Spirits” [serious scribes]
The Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano (see 1814, above) is sunk by a British torpedo, with the loss of three hundred and eighty-six lives (see May 2)
June 14: British troops recapture Port Stanley, after which the Argentinian forces in the Falklands surrender; the leader of the Argentinian junta, Leopoldo Galtieri, resigns three days after the Falklands defeat
1983: A civilian government, voted into power in Argentina, prosecutes members of the military junta for civil rights abuses
1983: St. Kitts & Nevis gain independence from Great Britain. Kennedy Simmonds is the first head of state
1983: Abdias do Nascimento is elected to the Brazilian Congress in 1983 on a platform of promoting Afro-Brazilian rights [this is interesting because there are two struggles going on simultaneously, the attempt by the native peoples to recover their homes and their identities, and that of the former slaves from Africa, trying to make a meaningful life in their place of exile; the latter are being much more successful than the former]
1984: Drug barons in Colombia murder the Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, to protect their trade
1985: Civilian rule is restored in Brazil after Tancredo Neves and Jose Sarney are elected President and Vice-PresidentWith the return of democracy to Bolivia, the 77-year-old Paz Estenssoro is once again elected President
A dormant volcano erupts in Colombia, burying some twenty thousand victims under a deep layer of silt
Gabriel García Márquez publishes “Love in a Time of Cholera”, a novel about love rekindled after five decades
Augusto Pinochet, the only candidate in Chile's Presidential election, resigns when he wins less than half the votes cast
1989: Paraguayan
dictator Alfredo Stroessner is toppled by Andrés
Rodríguez, who restores
democracy to the country
Carlos Menem is elected President of Argentina and introduces a free market economy [the story of Argentina's astronomic inflation rate presumably started here; click here for more on that]
Uruguay enjoys the first entirely free election since the years of military dictatorship
With the fall of Pinochet, Chile returns eagerly to democracy - electing a Christian Democrat, Patricio Aylwin, as President
1990: Alberto Fujimori and his newly formed Cambio 90 party win a surprise election victory in Peru [and a man of Japanese descent, which addds an entirely new dimension to this account of history]
1993: Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin drugs cartel in Colombia, is cornered and shot
1995: Britain and Argentina come to an agreement concerning the future exploitation of oil around the Falkland Islands (click here)
1995: Benedita Souza da Silva Sampaio, is the first woman of African ancestry elected to the Brazilian Senate
1996: Tupac Amaru guerrillas take four hundred and sixty guests hostage at the Japanese ambassador's Christmas party in Lima, Peru
1996: Celso Roberto Pitta do Nascimento becomes the first black mayor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city (and no, not related to Abdias, above: both had the same slave-owner's name, as did the footballer Pele)
1997: Fifteen years after the Falklands War there are seventeen hundred British troops in the islands, guarding two thousand two hundred residents (and how much oil? see 1995, above)
1998: A sudden collapse of the Brazilian stock market follows the earlier slump in the Asian markets
Augusto Pinochet, visiting Britain from Chile for medical treatment, is arrested on an extradition request from a Spanish judge
1999: Marxist guerrillas in Colombia, in partnership with drug cartels, control much of the south of the country
Floods and massive mudslides in the Vargas state of Venezuela kill an estimated twenty-five thousand people
2000: The British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, judges Augusto Pinochet mentally incapable of standing trial and returns him to Chile [where, but the website does not report this, he remained immune from prosecution until his death in 2006]
Alberto Fujimori resigns after a corruption scandal during his third term as President of Peru
2001: Five Presidents succeed each other within a month in Argentina's economic crisis
2003: First Conference of legislators of African descent from the Americas and the Caribbean meet in Brasilia, Brazil [see my note at 1983]
and just in case anyone thought the long journey towards real independence was nearing conclusion, I shall end with this somewhat self-conflictory listing:
2005: On September 27, 2005 Michaëlle Jean was installed as the 27th Governor General of Canada. As Governor General she is appointed by the Queen of England as Canada's titular Head of State. Michaëlle Jean is a Haitian Canadian [on the blog on April 17]
2005: Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, after sheltering since 2000 in Japan, arrives unexpectedly in Chile
2006: Portia Simpson-Miller,
leader of the People's National Party of Jamaica, becomes the nation's first
female Prime Minister
[this too requires the same note as 1983, except that this is also about
women's progress, and not just "Black" or "First Nation", though clearly she is all three]
2006: Loria Raquel Dixon Brautigam is
elected to the Nicaraguan National Assembly where she represents the North
Atlantic Autonomous Region of Nicaragua. She is the first woman of African
ancestry to sit in the Assembly [and again the same note
as 1983]
2007: The Chilean Supreme Court grants the Peruvian government's request for the extradition of Alberto Fujimori to Peru
2008: Dean Oliver Barrow becomes the first black Prime Minister of Belize
2009: On December 10 U.S. President Barack Obama receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm (a US version of the 1983 note)
2009: Peru's Supreme Court finds Alberto Fujimori guilty of authorising death squads and sentences him to twenty-five years in prison
2021: Barbados becomes a
republic on the 55th anniversary of its independence from Great Britain. It
remains in the British Commonwealth of Nations
What an absolutely hideous and revolting account of human
history, and thank the non-existent gods for three novelists, a pair of
poets, and two phenomenal artists to alleviate at least some of the on-going misery.
No, I need to rephrase that last paragraph, because it is not the account that is the problem; that merely records the events that happened. What is absolutely hideous and revolting is the history itself, the human beings who made it, and which, alas, was no different in the pre-Columban than in the post, and no different anywhere else on planet Earth, then or now.
French Southern and Antarctic Lands
Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
I have not included Alaska, as it is now part of the United States of America, but I have included Canada, as it is not yet
Netherlands Antilles no longer exists, but see here anyway
And fascinating to see just how many "independent countries" there are, and how very few of them get so much as a mention on most of the historical encyclpaedia or even the general timelines of the region.
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