Latin America’s Resistance to U.S. Imperialism
Sandino’s Resistance
In 1926, armed resistance emerged, led by Sandino, who began recruiting companions to combat conservatism in Latin America. His influence transcended borders. U.S. forces bombarded villages where Sandino’s presence symbolized determination. A stand was taken in 1927 from the San Albino mine, and in 1931, after the U.S. government announced its intention to withdraw from Nicaragua, the Sandinistas destroyed the United Fruit Company’s premises. News of the killings and devastation caused by U.S. aviation in Nicaragua provoked indignation and continental solidarity.
The U.S. Occupation of Haiti
At the end of the nineteenth century, coffee replaced cane as Haiti’s main export. Haiti established diplomatic relations with Washington only in 1865. Concurrent with World War I, direct U.S. intervention in Haiti began, intending to permanently displace European (specifically French) influence. In 1915, the Marines landed on the island. Only when Roosevelt adopted the “Good Neighbor Policy” did the Marines leave.
The Roosevelt Era: Good Neighbor Policy
Roosevelt initiated a new external strategy, the “Good Neighbor Policy,” renouncing unilateral interventionism. He was critical of the “big stick diplomacy,” defending the U.S.’s right to intervene. Roosevelt intended to abandon the use of force. His dilemma was maintaining the U.S.’s imperial position with new tactics: trade agreements and loans from the Export-Import Bank to Latin American governments.
Anti-Imperialist Thought
Criticism and denunciation of American imperial progress accompanied the university reform of 1918 and found cultural expression in literary modernism.
The University Reform Movement of 1918
The student movement’s insurrection of 1918 in Córdoba (Argentina) became the home of the university reform project, spreading to universities across the continent. This trend marks the birth of a new Latin American generation.
The context of university reform is precisely the period in which imperialist domination became apparent, including the question of the Panama Canal and U.S. intervention in Mexico, etc.
Martí’s Vision
José Martí was the first to clearly see the threat to the peoples of Latin America from U.S. imperialism. In 1889, during the First Pan-American Conference in Washington, Martí wrote an enlightening message addressed to all peoples of America, denouncing the arrogance and annexationist pretensions of the U.S. He not only exposed imperial policy but also recalled that the U.S. failed to cooperate with the emancipation of the Spanish colonies. He strongly denounced their naked lust for domination and the frontal antagonism between Anglo and Latin America.
Drago’s Doctrine
Luis María Drago strongly opposed foreign intervention in Venezuela, rejecting the position of collecting debts by force. He declared the issue unjustifiable and challenged the blockade and bombardment of Venezuelan ports as procedures for creditor countries to obtain payment of foreign debt. He considered such aggression a dangerous precedent for the security and peace of Latin American nations.
Sandino’s Early Activism
Sandino worked in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. There, he heard derogatory opinions from other Latin American workers about Nicaraguans. In 1926, Sandino adopted the slogan “Fatherland and Liberty” and started the fight against the U.S. occupation in Nicaragua.
APRA and Haya de la Torre
Committees of solidarity with Sandino’s Nicaraguan struggle formed in Mexico. In 1924, Haya de la Torre founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA). Haya de la Torre and Mariátegui took clear anti-imperialist positions and began analyzing dependency and underdevelopment. Haya de la Torre postulated specific particularities for Latin America. APRA proclaimed a five-point program for “Indo-America”:
- Resistance to U.S. imperialism
- Political unity of Indo-America
- Nationalization of land and industry
- Internationalization of the Panama Canal
- Solidarity with the oppressed of the world
Mariátegui became the representative of indigenismo. He aimed his criticism at the human tendency to hide the real economic problem: the land rights of the peasants. Haya de la Torre argued that imperialism could be considered “the highest stage of capitalism” in Europe. He defended the idea of breaking with feudalism to free autonomous national capitalist development.