Great Depression in Latin America
The Great Depression which followed the US stock market crash of 1929 badly affected the countries of Latin America. Before the global Great Depression of the 1930s, links between the United States economy and Latin American economies had been established through US investment in Latin America and Latin American exports to the US. As a result, Latin Americans felt heavy reverberations when the US market crashed in 1929. Chile, Peru, and Bolivia were, according to a League of Nations report, the countries worst-hit by the Great Depression. The rise of fascism also became apparent in Latin American countries in the 1930s due to the Great Depression. In particular, Getúlio Vargas of Brazil was a staunch supporter of the fascist movement and imitated the Italian government. Fascist governments were the result of a desire for nationalism, which rulers like Vargas played on through propaganda.
The Great Depression also led to the beginning of the industrialization process in Brazil, as the country needed an economic alternative to the highly devalued coffee, Brazil's main commodity at the time. The Vargas government started to purchase and burn coffee from the farmers, in order to avoid their complete bankruptcy.
See also
References
- Modern Latin America, Fifth Edition, T. E. Skidmore and P. H. Smith