South America

Aboriginal Inhabitants.—At the time of the discovery of South America the aboriginal inhabitants differed greatly among themselves in customs, language and state of civilization. Those of the temperate regions of the Andes had reached a high state of culture. Wherever the Europeans have invaded in any consider able numbers the aborigines have been profoundly affected. The importation of slaves from Africa has, likewise, had an important effect on the natives of the coastal regions of Brazil and the coun tries of the north coast. Indians of pure blood still, however, form a large portion of the population, while those of mixed white and Indian blood constitute its chief element except in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil. In Brazil and the countries of the north coast there has been, also, considerable intermixing of In dians, negroes and whites. In the interior, where the whites have penetrated but little, the aborigines are still in very much their original savage state. In some localities, as on the Argentine pampa and in Uruguay, where there has been much recent col onization from Europe, the Indians have practically disappeared. In the Andean countries, where they had reached their highest state of culture at the time of the discovery, they still form the major part of the population and the native Quichua and Aymara tongues are still widely spoken. The countries having the largest Indian population at present are Bolivia, with an estimated 6o 70% of Indians and the remainder mixed Indian and white; Ecua dor, with about 5o% Indians and 45% mixed; Peru with a small white population and the remainder Indian and mixed, together with a considerable number of negroes, Japanese and Chinese among the poorer classes in the cities; Paraguay, with a popula tion mainly Indian; Colombia, with about 15% pure Indians and the remainder chiefly of mixed blood; and Venezuela, with few pure whites, a large majority of mixed blood, and a considerable number of negroes.

Settlement and Industrial Development.

Early coloniza tion began and developed for a long period on a completely dif ferent basis in South America than in North America. Colonists in North America were seeking new homes and, therefore, settled in regions which duplicated as closely as possible the climatic and agricultural conditions that they had known in Europe. The early colonists went to South America, on the contrary, to exploit such natural resources as Europe lacked. Gold and silver were the first attractions, and the Andean regions, where the mining of these metals was already in an advanced state of development by the natives, were the centres of the first intensive invasion. The cen tres of mineral exploitation in the Andes were soon widespread. At an early date gold was being washed in Darien, the Ecuadorean Oriente, the valleys of the Cordillera de Carabaya in Peru, and the Araucanian section of Chile. The mining of silver also attracted large numbers. The silver mines of Potosi and Cerro de Pasco were particularly famous, those at Potosi alone being estimated as having yielded in all over a billion and a half dollars' worth of silver. In the eastern part of the continent the exploitation of mineral deposits began much later than in the Andes. Gold was discovered on the Brazilian plateau in 1693, and, in a few years, Minas Geraes, as the gold-mining region was called, came to be the chief gold-producing region of the world. The mines there reached their greatest productiveness between 1752 and 1761, when the annual yield was worth about six million dollars. The

actual work of mining in the Andes was done mainly by native labour, in Brazil by native labour and imported negroes.

Mining still remains the chief industry of Chile, Bolivia and Peru; but copper has taken the place of gold and silver in Peru, tin and copper in Bolivia, and nitrates and copper in Chile. Ni trates rank first in value among the mineral products and copper second. Considerable gold and silver are still produced, largely in connection with copper mining. The chief mineral product of Colombia is still gold and Colombia is now the leading gold producing country of South America; but her annual thirty-five million dollar coffee crop is seven times as valuable as her annual production of gold. Colombia leads the world in the production of platinum but the annual value of her platinum production is less than that of her bananas. Brazil, which, from the first dis covery of diamonds in the gold districts about 1729 to the dis covery of the South African fields, was the leading diamond pro ducing country of the world, now probably produces less than one million dollars' worth annually, while her coffee crop in normal years is valued at upwards of two hundred million dollars. In fact the whole annual South American production of precious metals and precious stones probably does not exceed twenty-five million dollars, or less than that of a single copper mine at Chuquicamata, Chile. In the Maracaibo basin and the lower Magdalena valley, on the Peruvian coast at Talara, and in the Comodoro Rivadavia region of Argentina, the production of petroleum is rapidly increasing.

Agriculture in the hands of the Spanish colonists, or, as was more commonly the case, agriculture superintended by the Span ish but carried on by native labour on Spanish-owned estates seized from the natives, to which the Indians were bound by a system de rived from the communal organization of the Incas, developed first around the mining centres which supplied their market. In fact the whole life of the Andean region came to be, and still is, cen tred in the mining industry. Farmers and traders found in the mining centres their markets not only for foodstuffs but for pack animals as well. The Andean towns and cities were, and are today, centres of service and supply for the mining districts. In addition, the transportation of minerals from the mines and sup plies to them necessitated that a considerable portion of the popu lation should be engaged in packing over the difficult trails not only to and from the towns of the plateau but to the coast as well. Next in importance to the mines in attracting colonists to South America were the tropical agricultural products. Sugar cane was for long the principal crop, followed later by cotton, indigo, cacao and coffee. The tropical crop colonies developed first in the Bra zilian states of Bahia, Pernambuco and Maranhao, and spread later to the Guianas and northern Venezuela and Colombia. To day only a small part of the world's supply of cotton and sugar comes from South America, mainly from Brazil. Argentina and Peru. Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuela still produce about one third of the world's crop of cacao. Coffee now not only is the leading tropical export of South America but the chief agricultural export of the whole continent, the greater part coming from Brazil but an important amount from Colombia and Venezuela. The export second in importance now is wheat, mainly from Argentina which is also the world's leading producer and exporter of flaxseed.