Document Project 27: Henry Meiggs: Nation Building in Postcolonial Latin America

Henry Meiggs may have sailed for South America out of financial desperation but that does not mean he was an unwelcome or unwanted immigrant. Nor is it an accident that he made his fortune building railroads. Many Latin American leaders had come to believe that railroads were the key to solving their nation’s problems. It was their hope that railroads would overcome barriers of geography and distance, creating links between isolated communities that would accelerate the process of social and economic integration. Moreover, they argued, railroads would serve as engines of industrialization and economic development, much as they had in Europe and the United States. To build railroads, however, Latin American nations would need foreign capital, technology, and expertise. That’s where men like Henry Meiggs came in, as facilitators of nation building, a project that dominated the political and economic agenda of nineteenth-century Latin America.

The documents included in this activity offer an opportunity to place the activities and achievements of Henry Meiggs in the larger context of Latin American nation building. As you examine the descriptions of Latin America’s past and visions of its future included in this activity, pay particular attention to the way the authors treated Latin America’s relationship with Europe and with the United States. Are Europe and the United States presented as adversaries or allies? As models to emulate or enemies to be feared?