Latin American Resource Republics and Foreign Capital

Between about 1870 and the First World War, many Latin American governments promoted export growth through railways, ports, mines and plantation commodities. British, European and North American capital financed infrastructure while local elites sought stronger central states.

Economic expansion often deepened regional inequalities and made political stability dependent on control of customs revenues, concessions and strategic resources. Coups, civil wars, caudillo politics and separatist movements repeatedly accompanied projects presented as modernisation.

The period was marked by mineral wealth, foreign finance, railway development, political revolution and the creation or secession of export-oriented provinces.