During colonization of the New World in the early sixteenth century, explorers

sought fame and fortune in the wilds of Central and South America. Two countries stand

out as key players in the colonization of that area; Spain and Portugal. Several colonies

were established to mine gold and to export the native flora. There are several reasons

that the Latin American colonies became independent. The main reason is that the

colonies are so far from Europe they require governors and later viceroys to govern them.

The second reason is that over time these countries became increasingly self sufficient.

The third reason is the emergence of a class of landowners that were born in the colonies

and have little to no ties to Europe. The fourth reason is based on the race relations

between the mother country and the colony. African slaves were brought in and

intermixed with the white landowners, creating a mulatto image of that colony in the

mother country. The independence of Latin America is a result of four main factors: one,

distance from the home country; two, economics began to centralized in each colony;

three, a new generation of citizens that were born and died in just that colony; and four,

the trend of vehement racism of European whites with the ever growing mulatto

The relationship between Europe and the Latin American colonies must be thought

of the same way as a man in California a