The
Hispanic
Caribbean
Chapter 8
Geography & Environment
North American & Caribbean Plates
Geology
1. North American Plate
• Limestone Plateau – Cuba, Yucatan, Florida
– Karst landscape – sinkholes, caverns, karst towers,
subterranean rivers
– Sierra de los Organos (Cuba)
– Sierra de Escambray (Cuba)
– Fertile soils – sugarcane
2. Caribbean Plate
• Uplifted fault-block mountains (Granite)
– Sierra Maestra (Cuba)
•
Pico Turquino – 1,975 m (6,476 ft.)
– Cordillera Central (Dominican Republic)
•
Pico Duarte – 3,083 m (10,164 ft.)
– Cordillera Central & Sierra de Luquillo (Puerto Rico)
Republic of Cuba
Population: 12 million
Population: 9 million
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
Population: 4 million
Historical Geography &
Economic Development
• Pre-Columbian culture
– Ciboney
• Once in Cuba
– Arawak/Taíno
• Once in Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico
– Caribs
• Today in Dominica
• Black Caribs in Central America – Zambos
– Vocabulary:
• Bohío – hut
• Hurricane, barbeque
• Spanish conquest
– Santo Domingo (Hispaniola/Hispañola)
• Founded by Bartholomew Columbus in 1496
• 1st European city and 1st Spanish capital in the Americas
– Havana (Cuba)
• Principal gateway to the New World for Spanish trade
• Mercantile trading system – stopover to and from mainland
ports of Veracruz, Cartagena, Colón (Acapulco, Lima)
• Became more important than Santo Domingo and San Juan
• Independence from Spain & U.S. Hegemony
– 1865 – Santo Domingo
– 1898 – Cuba & Puerto Rico – Spanish American War
Economy
• Sugarcane
– Spain – importation of African slaves
– United States investment after the Civil War
• Slavery abolished until 1878 (Puerto Rico) & 1886 (Cuba)
– Cultivation and Processing on Plantations
• Small family plantations gave way to large landholdings
• Sugar mills: trapiches, ingenios, and centrales
• Sugar, molasses, and rum
• Other crops and livestock
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Tobacco
Indigo
Coffee
Cattle ranching
U.S. Hegemony & the “Yankee Years”
• Spanish American War – 1898
– Cuban revolution for independence
• José Martí, Antonio Maceo, and Máximo Gómez
– U.S.S. Main explosion in Havana Harbor
– T. Roosevelt and the “Rough Riders” – San Juan Hill
• Puerto Rico – U.S. territory in 1901
• Cuban “independence” in 1902 – Platt Amendment
– mediated “sovereignty”
– Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
• Camp X-Ray – in order to avoid U.S. law toward prisoners
– Dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista – 1933 - 1944, 1952 - 1959
• Dominican Rep. – U.S. intervention –
– Dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo – 1930 – 1961
– Marines landed in 1965
Cuban Revolution
• Fidel Castro
• 26 of July Movement –
1953
– Moncada Barracks
• Che Guevara
– Return to Cuba on the
Granma
• Revolution of 1959
• U.S. Embargo – 1960
– Helms-Burton Act of 1996
• Bay of Pigs Invasion – 1961
• Cuban Missile Crisis – 1962
Contemporary & Social Geography
• Cuba
– “Revolution” continues
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Education
Healthcare
Provision of food and consumer goods – bodegas
Housing
Committees for Defense of the Revolution (CDRs)
– Special Period of 1990s
• Tourism
• Self-sufficiency
• Remittances from exiles
• Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico
– Tourism
• Advantages
– State and regional
economic options
– A clean industry
– Educational
• Disadvantages
– Disjunctive development
– Degrades fragile
environmental resources
– Inauthentic
representations of native
cultures
Tourism:
A Mixed Blessing?
MEXICO
¡Ándale!
Chapter 9
Historical Landscapes of Mexico
• Pre-Columbian
– Teotihuacán
– Tula (Toltecs)
– Tenochtitlán (Aztecs)
• Tlaxcala
• Purepecha (Tarascans)
• Spanish Colonial
– Hernán Cortez vs. Moctezuma
– Haciendas
– Silver and gold mining in the Bajío region
• Independence and Republican Period
– “Grito de Dolores” – Dolores (near Guadalajara)
Historical Landscapes of Mexico
– 1821 – independence from Spain for Mexico and Central
America
– Mexican-American War – 1846
• Gen. Zachary Scott Taylor – Monterrey (1846)
• Gen. Winfield Scott – Mexico City (1847)
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) – present border between
Mexico & U.S.l
– French Intervention – Emporer Maximiliam I (1861 – 1867)
– Modernization of Mexico and the Railroads – President
Benito Juárez
– “Pax Porfiriato” (1876 – 1911) – President Porfirio Díaz
• Mexican Revolution
– Pancho Villa (North) & Emiliano Zapata (South)
• Constitution of 1917
– Expropriation and the Ejido
Regions of Mexico
1. Independent North
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Borderlands
Arid Northwest
Humid Gulf Lowlands
2. Central Mexico
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Central Metropolitan Axis
El Bajío
3. Southern Poverty Belt
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Southern Mountains
Chiapas
Yucatán
Tourist Fringe “Club Mex”
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Mayan Riviera
Pacific Resorts
Baja California
Regions in Mexico
Mexican Plateau
1. Mesa Central - Valle de Mexico
– Neovolcanic Range
• Pico de Orizaba – 18,490 ft.
• Popocatepetl Volcano – 17,887 ft.
• Paricutin & Colima
– Mexico City
– Guadalajara (Mexico’s 2nd largest city), Puebla,
Morelia
– El Bajío (Guanajuato, Querétaro, San Miguel de
Allende)
• Spanish colonial mining centers
Regions in Mexico
2.
Mesa del Norte
– Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora Deserts – mesquite, cacti, agave, creosote
– Northern Borderlands (Mexamerica) – Monterrey (Mexico’s Pittsburgh):
3rd largest city in Mex.
– Mining and manufacturing – Saltillo, Monclova, Chihuahua, Torreon,
Durango, Hermosillo, San Luis Potosi
– “Silver Belt” – Zacatecas, Durango, Parral, Chihuahua
– Haciendas
– Ranching
– Mexican Border towns – Matamoros, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad
Juarez, Nogales, Mexicali, Tijuana
– Maquiladoras
– Mormons and Mennonites
• Sierra Madre Oriental – sedimentary (mostly karst – i.e. limestone)
• Sierra Madre Occidental – volcanic origin (mostly crystalline – i.e.
granite)
– Copper Canyon – Chihuahua
Central America
Chapter 10
Physical Environment
• Caribbean & Cocos Plates
• Sierra de los Cuchumatanes
• Central American volcanic axis
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Guatemala: Agua Vol., Fuego Vol., Lake Atitlán
El Salvador
Nicaragua: Concepción, Momotombo, Masaya
Costa Rica: Arenal, Poás, Irazú
• Lake Nicaragua
– Freshwater sharks
– San Juan River
• 49 Gold Rush
• Caribbean Lowlands – humid tropical
• Pacific Lowlands – tropical wet-and-dry
• Highlands in Guat. and C.R. – tierra fría and páramo
– Mt. Chirripó
• Wildlife: resplendent quetzal, toucans, parrots, tree sloths,
capuchin & howler monkeys, and many others
Historical and Contemporary Geography
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United Provinces of Central America (1823 – 1840)
Highlands: Coffee farms – fincas (Costa Rica vs. El Salvador)
Caribbean Lowlands: Bananas – Standard/United Fruit Company
Guatemala and Costa Rica: Tourism
Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua: Expatriots from N. America & Europe
United States as regional hegemony (Gringos) – “Yankee Years”
• Monroe Doctrine
• President Theodore Roosevelt “The Bully” – Panama Canal
– "Carry a Big Stick and use it..."
– Rough Riders and San Juan Hill (Cuba)
• Good Neighbor Policy – President Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Alliance for Progress – President John F. Kennedy
Guatemala
• Jacobo Arbenz – democratic leader of Guatemala
• United Fruit Co. of Boston – “The Octopus” – Bananas
• CIA and Operation Success – deposed Arbenz
• John Foster Dulles (Advisor to President Dwight Eisenhower)
• URNG – Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity
Historical and Contemporary Geography
Nicaragua
• Río San Juan and Lake Nicaragua
– Trans-isthmian route for 49ers in California Gold Rush
– Potential canal prior to Panama Canal
• William Walker – filibuster from Nashville, Tennessee & established
Nicaragua as a slave empire
– President of Nicaragua 1856 – 1857
– Captured by British and executed by Hondurans
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U.S. Marines – 1912 – 1933
Augusto César Sandino – rebel leader
Anastasio “Tacho” Somoza García – Nicaraguan National Guard
Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza Debayle
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro – journalist assassinated by Somoza Debayle
Revolution in Nicaragua – 1979
Violeta Chamorro (FSLN Junta member, President in 1990)
Daniel Ortega (FSLN Junta member, President in 1980s, current President
since 2006)
• FSLN “Sandinistas” – Sandinista National Liberation Front
• “Contras” – Contra-Sandinistas (illegal funding and support by President
Ronald Reagan)
Historical and Contemporary Geography
El Salvador
• Civil War
• Assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980
• FMLN – Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
• U.S. military advisors
Costa Rica
• Juan Santamaria – pushed W. Walker out of C.R. in 1856
• Civil War – Figueres vs. Calderón (1948)
– Abolished military
– Public healthcare
• Oscar Arias – Nobel Peace Prize (1987)
– Ending conflicts in Central America
Panama – independence in 1903
• Canal – completed in 1914
– Canal Zone reverted to Panamanian sovereignty in 2000
• Gen. Manuel Noriega
– U.S. Invasion in 1989
Caribbean Lowlands
• Mosquito (Miskito) Coast/Mosquitia – British loggers (mahogany)
• Black Caribs/Garifuna of Honduras
Physical Environment
Guatemala
Costa Rica
¡Pura vida!