It’s somewhat difficult to find good books about Latin America: Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Or maybe I just don’t know where to look. I have only a handful of historical fiction books to recommend that are set in Latin America and also not many books about the history of Latin America, although there are lots of books about explorers and exploration. There are a few more that cover culture and geography, usually part of a series, but in general I think Latin American history in books for children has been neglected.

Enter New Found World by Katherine Binney Shippen. Published in 1945 and updated in 1964, the book is still somewhat dated. And I found a few mistakes, including the inaccurate statement that Moses Austin came to Texas with a group of settlers in 1823 (p.216). Moses Austin died in 1821, and his son Stephen was the one who carried out Moses’ dream of bringing American settlers to Texas. Please. I know my Texas history, as should anyone who is writing about it.

Nevertheless, I found New Found World to be a fascinating and engrossing look at he history of Latin America from Texas in the north to the tip of Argentina in the south. Shippen writes about the Inca, Aztec, Maya, Carib, Arawak, and other groups of Native Americans, with respect and as much detailed information as would fit into an overview of the region. She does use the currently disused term “Indians” to refer to the entire haplogroup (got that word from my current binge-watch of Finding Your Roots) of Native Americans, but since the book was published mid-twentieth century, I don’t think we should hold that against her. When she is talking about distinct tribes or kingdoms, she uses the correct-for-that-time term to refer to them.

I learned lots of things that were new to me:

• The Native Americans had no domesticated animals, except for few pet dogs and llamas used as beasts of burden in South America. They also had not invented the wheel as a machine to enable transportation.
• Cortes was only thirty-five years old when he set out for the New World in command of a fleet of ships to conquer new territory for Spain.
• Pizarro never even learned to read or write.
• The Inca (king) Atahualpa paid the Spaniards a large ransom of gold and silver to get them to go away and leave the Inca people alone. The Spanish took the treasure and murdered Atahualpa.
• Simon Bolivar wanted to unite all of South America into a country he called El Gran Colombia. But according to Shippen, “in 1826 the people of South America were not yet ready for democracy.”
• The island of Hispaniola, especially the part that is now Haiti, was for many years a haven for pirates.

Much, much more is told about the vicissitudes of Latin American history in this volume. It would make a great spine for a year-long study of Latin American history. What books would you use to supplement this one? Historical fiction set in Latin America? History or geography of particular countries? Picture books? Folk tales or Native American lore? Language studies? Do you know of a more recently published survey of Latin American history that would bring that history up to the present day (not a textbook)?

The book ends with John F. Kennedy and the Alliance for Progress which was supposed to “build a hemisphere where all men can hope for the same high standard of living—and all men can live out their lives in dignity and freedom.” It’s sad that those words sound rather quaint and idealistic to me now. All of the Latin American nations, except for Cuba, joined the Alliance for Progress and “agreed to work together to help the depressed people of the southern continent.” What ever happened to the Alliance for Progress? Do you think of South and Central America as “depressed” and in need of our help now? Do they think of themselves that way?