Time Line of US-Latin American Relations


for HI 453/553 Students of Professor Richard W. Slatta
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    Nineteenth-Century

  • 1819-22 * US pushes Spain to relinquish its claim to Florida, which becomes a territory of the US. For more see the timelines of British-Spanish conflict in Florida
  • 1823 * Monroe Doctrine warns against recolonization of newly independent Latin American republics
  • 1835-45 * Anglo-American settlers in Texas revolt against Mexico, establish an independent nation, and finally join the United States.
  • 1840s * Rise of Manifest Destiny, the belief by many Americans that westward and outward expansionism represented God's plan for the nation.
  • 1846 * Mexican War of expansion
  • 1848 * Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo cedes northern half of Mexico to the US
  • 1850 * Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in which Great Britain and the US agree to maintain as neutral any Central American canal
  • 1853 * With the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, US acquires route for a railroad through southern Arizona and New Mexico.
  • 1854 * Ostend Manifesto urges that the US acquire Cuba from Spain, by force in necessary.
  • 1855 * U.S. filibuster William Walker and his mercenaries invade and occupy Nicaragua. Walker declares himself president, rules for 2 years * US forces sent to Uruguay to protect American lives and property
  • 1857 * Tired of Walker's dirsuption of his business interests, US entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt funds the war against Walker, and hires American mercenary Sylvanus M. Spencer to lead Costa Rican forces.
  • 1860 * British forces capture Walker and turn him over to Honduras. He is shot by a Honduran firing squad on September 12.
  • 1865 * US mobilizes troops along the Mexican border as a threat to the French occupying army of Louis Napoleon, whose troops arrived there in 1862.
  • 1889 * First Inter-American Conference held in Washington, DC
  • 1895 * US forces Great Britain into arbitration in its boundary dispute with Venezuela, asserting US dominance in the Western Hemisphere. * In one of its first acts of "gunboat diplomacy," the US sends the USS Wachusett to Guatemala to defend North American lives and property.
  • 1898 * Spanish-American War / US intervention in Cuba US takes control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

    • Twentieth Century

  • 1901 * Hay Pauncefote Treaty in which Great Britain cedes canal-building in Central America to the US.
  • 1901* Platt Amendment to Cuba's new constitution gives the U.S. the unilateral right to intervene in the island's political affairs.
  • 11/1903 * Theodore Roosevelt intervenes to assist Panamanian independence from Colombia. The resulting Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty makes the US sovereign "in perpetuity" in the ten-mile wide Panama Canal Zone.
  • 12/1904 * (Theodore) Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine declares the U.S. to be the policeman of the Caribbean. US forces place the Dominican Republic under a customs receivership.
  • 1905 * US Marines land in Honduras.
  • 1906-09 * Under the Platt Amendment, US forces occupy Cuba and direct its political and economic development.
  • 1909-12 * William Howard Taft promotes "Dollar Diplomacy," based on the erroneous belief that increased US investment will bring stability and economic prosperity to Latin America.
  • 1912 * United Fruit Company begins operations in Honduras and later becomes a major force throughout Central America.
  • 1912-25 * US Marines intervene in Nicaragua.
  • 1914 * Panama Canal opens.
  • 1914 * US forces shell and then occupy Vera Cruz, Mexico.
  • 1915-34 * US Marines invervene in Haiti.
  • 1916 * Pancho Villa raids Columbus, New Mexico.
  • 1916-17 * US Expeditionary Force under Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing unsuccessfully pursues Pancho Villa in northern Mexico.
  • 1916-24 * US Marines occupy the Dominican Republic,
  • 1917 * Zimmermann Telegram revealed in which Germany offers to help Mexico recover territory lost to the US in exchange for support in the First World War.
  • 1918 * US army lands in Panama to protect United Fruit plantations.
  • 1920-21 * US troops support a coup in Guatemala.
  • 1923 * Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes renounces the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctine. US begins moving away from interventionism.
  • 1926-33 * US Marines occupy Nicaragua and fight against the natinalistic forces led by Agusto César Sandino.
  • 1933 * FDR announces "Good Neighbor Policy".
  • 1933 * US offers to intervene in El Salvador to put down a peasant rebellion. The Salvadoran military dictator refuses, then murders thousands of peasants.
  • 1934 * US abrogates the Platt Amendment of 1901.
  • 1936-79 * US supports three different Somozas as dictators of Nicaragua.
  • 1938 * Lazaro Cardenas nationalizes Mexican oil industry, including many US holdings.
  • 1945-89 * Cold War ideology drives US Latin American policy.
  • 1947 * Rio Pact signed, providing for mutual defense against Communism.
  • 1948 * Organization of American States formed
  • 1954 * CIA overthrows constitutional government of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
  • 1956 * US-supported dictator Anastasio Somoza assassinated in Nicaragua.
  • 1957-86 * Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier rule Haiti as dictators, with US support.
  • 5/1958 * Vice President Richard Nixon meets strong anti-American sentiment on his "good will" tour of Latin America.
  • 1/1959 * Dictator Fulgencio Bastista, supported by the US until 1958, flees Castro's revolution in Cuba.
  • 11/1957 * US high school students in the Panama Canal Zone burn a Panamanian flag, sparking riots that kill and injure more than 100 people.
  • 1960- * CIA plots to depose or assassinate Fidel Castro in what is eventually named "Operation Mongoose."
  • 1/1961 * Eisenhower administration breaks diplomatic relations with Castro in Cuba.
  • 4/1961 * Failed Bag of Pigs invasion of Cuba
  • 1961 * US-supported dictator Rafael Trujillo assassinated in the Dominican Republic.
  • 1961-69 *Kennedy's Alliance for Progress tries to bring reform and development to Latin America.
  • 10/1962 * Missile Crisis with Cuba and USSR
  • 1964 * Brazilian President Joao Goulart overthrown by the military, with covert US support.
  • 1965 * US forces, fearing a Communist takeover, occupy Dominican Republic.
  • 1969 * Rich Slatta makes his first trip to Latin America, to Peace Corps training in Puerto Rico and service outside Panama City, Panama.
  • 1970-73 * US and multinational corporations work covertly to overthrew socialist government of Salvador Allende in Chile. He dies in the September 1973 military coup.
  • 1977 * US and Panama sign a new treaty providing for Panamanian control of the canal in 1999.
  • 1977-80 * President Jimmy Carter makes human rights a major goal in his Latin American policy.
  • 1981-86 * Reagan administration officials secretly direct counter-revolutionary (contra) forces against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. More than a dozen Reagan administrator officials are convicted of a variety of crimes in the "Iran-Contra Scandal."
  • 1981-88 * Reagan administration strongly supports the Salvadoran military in their fight against the FMLN guerrillas.
  • 4/1982 * Argentina invades the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, held since 1833 by Great Britain. Reagan administration officials debate for two weeks before siding with Great Britain.
  • 1983 * Reagan orders US forces to invade the island of Grenada to halt Cuban work on an airstrip.
  • 12/1986 * Congress begins investigations of the Iran-Contra scandal
  • 1989- * End of the Cold War diminishes Latin America's significance in US foreign policy.
  • 12/1989 * George Bush orders "Operation Just Cause," the invasion of Panama to capture CIA collaborator and dictator Manuel Noriega.
  • 1992 * NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement * 500th anniversary of Columbus's Caribbean landing gives rise to widespread meetings and protests against imperialism, rejuvenation of indigenous rights movements. Guatemalan Rigoberto Menchú Tum wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
  • 1993 * US, Mexico, and Canada form NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.
  • 1994 * Threatened invasion of Haiti by US troops
  • 12/1994 * Summit of the Americas meeting in Miami
  • 1996 * Helms-Burton Law increases economic boycott of Castro's Cuba.
  • 10/1997 * Bill Clinton visits several South American countries and speaks of extending free trade to more of the region.
  • 11/1997 * Clinton seeks "fast track" authority in negotiating foreign trade. Congressional Democrats resist; Repubicans generally support.
  • 1990s * High levels of drug trafficking, massive foreign debt, economic dependency, rain forest and coral reef destruction, illegal immigration to the US, and other problems continue to face the US and Latin America.
  • 8/1999 Venezuela elects a constitutional assembly that challenges the power of the legislature and creates a political crisis.
  • 12/1999 * Panama begins sole operation of the Panama Canal.
  • 2001-08 * Continued US policy drift in Latin America, economic collapse in Argentina, serious economic problems in Brazil and Uruguay, election of several leftist presidents in South America. Widespread anti-Bush sentiment tarnishes US impage throughout the region.
  • 2001 * US begins Plan Colombia, a multi-million dollar program to fight Colombian guerrillas and drug traffickers.
  • 2003 * Free trade agreement signed between the US and Chile.
  • 2007 * US signs CAFTA, Central American Free Trade Agreement