History and culture of Central American nations on stamps – pt. 1
Lately I’ve been expanding my knowledge about culture and history of Mexico and Central American nations by reading few books about the subject. The reason for this is simply the hunger to know/understand more about the topics, events and characters displayed on stamps of these countries. This write-up is not a history lecture per se, but more of a stamp illustrated list of various historical tidbits I find interesting.
Let’s begin with early steps of civilization… I confess I never really knew (or had blissfully forgotten) that America was the last continent inhabited by man. This happened only about 40,000 years ago in north, and southern tip of Chile was reached as late as only 9,000 years ago.
US 1991. First Americans crossed over from Asia.
I think the era most people recall and recognize best from Central American history are the great Indian civilizations, especially the Mayas and the Aztecs. But I never really understood the real size/extend of these cultures – for example the Toltec culture covered an area from Mexico to Nicaragua. That’s a huge achievement considering the conditions and means people had for moving around.
1965 Nicaragua.
The arrival of white man and the era of Spanish colonialism are very controversial era in history of Central America. In a way I am not surprised that the postage stamps do not give much tribute to acts of Cortes and his fellow conquistadors. Instead, ‘gentler’ stories from this era appear on quite many stamps. Take for example the Bartolomé de las Casas who is displayed on below Guatemala stamp. He was a former conquistador, who turned into priest and early human rights activist. He even went to extreme lengths of creating the worlds first Utopian community while trying to battle against slavery of Indians:
1962/75 Guatemala. Bartolomé de las Casas - protector of Indians. Michel 679 C (perf 12½) and 679 D (perf 13½).
I have often wondered why most Central and South American countries have Spanish relations (with the exception of Brazil and few others), until I finally learned about the treaty of Tordesillas. In 1494 the crowns of Portugal and Spain (Castile) agreed to divide all the land on Earth (outside of Europe of course) between the two of them, irrespective of who was already living there. Pope Alexander VI draw an imaginary (pole-to-pole) line at 370 leagues from the Cape Verdes (because no land had yet been officially discovered outside that range). All land west of this line was appointed to Spain leaving eastern parts to Portugal.
1994 Spain. 500th anniversary of Treaty of Tordesillas.
Of Central American nations, the only exception to this is Belize (former British Honduras). It used to be Spanish property too, but colonial rivalry between Spain and Britain finally led to fact that it became the only country in central America to fall under British regime and laws.
To be continued… As usual, feel free to contribute your thoughts, opinions and comments.
Great topic! you have lots of interesting stories to find about this part of the world!!
One interesting thing is the origin of the term “Latin America” to call everything from Mexico to Argentina.
In XIX century there was no such thing, it was “Spanish America” and Brazil. But when the French invaded Mexico in 1860,they tried to pretend they had more right over these lands than England or the United States. So they called it “Latin America”. As the French language is of latin origin as Spanish and Portuguese, they felt more comfortable with it.
The French failed in their attemp, but they term stayed and is quite common today…
@Pablo… So true. I’ve already got a long list of stamps / topics to write about for next few months
True, but at least the term is inclusive of our Francophone friends in Haiti and French Guiana.
Whenever I visit your blog I learn more! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
@Philaclassic… Thanks
BTW. You’ve got a great start for a blog. The idea reminds a lot what Jim Jackson is doing with his Big Blue 1840-1940
Two comments…
I was unaware of Philaclassic’s new blog about the 1840-1940 era -it does remind me of my own effort, so naturally I think it is great.
As you know Keijo, I was recently in Guatemala. Words don’t do justice to this land of lush green mountains and belching volcanoes (El Fuego was putting on a show).
But even more so, was visiting the indigenous communities in the highlands, and witnessing the beauty of the indigenous Mayan children especially, but also the poverty.
It does strip life to its essentials.
Thank you for paying attention to Central America and its stamps- which definitely has become more real for me with a visit.
I recently was visited by a good friend who grew up in Paraguay (his parents were missonaries) and who commented on my stamp sorting on the kitchen table (am I the only one who does that?) … anyway I asked him if he’d like to see my modest collection of Paraguayan stamps … he spent the next hour looking over my stamps and telling the story of the events and people represented. I learned more in that hour about South American history than in the previous 53 years of my life!
Thank you for your blog and your ‘history’ lessons!
@Clif… My pleasure
And thanks for sharing an fascinating story.
On my youth, I was living in Caracas (Venezuela) for more than 30 years, I made friends and worked with a lot of colleagues natives. What a wonderful people they are…so different than (we) europeans and with an exquisite culture and love for their things… food, music, art…amazing in deed…
I have to admit, that I’m very proud of my medium size Venezuelan stamp collection (which I’m working this very moment)… and all the memories that this bring to me…happy enough to have a native Venezuelan wife and a mixed race of siblings from that continent…arriba Venezuela,one of the beauties of the world…El Salto Angel (Angel’s Falls)…LOL!
@Fred… You leave me speechless. That’s almost poetic
Thank you, Keijo! It was a way I found to publish a want list of my stamps and have control over my own collection, but also to educate more people in the world of philately!
Do not know the «Big Blue» blog and started following him and follow his blog. Both are excellent blogs and much contribute to the philatelic knowledge!
Best,
Rubens, from Goiânia, Brazil
I think it’s nice how you enhance your general culture using stamps. One thing made me laugh though, when you mentioned those “40,000 years ago”. How did you come by such an incredible amount of years? I understand that you might have read it in some book, but just take few seconds and think what that means. I mean oldest writings are dated 5,000 years ago, Sumerian I believe. People talk about thousand and even millions of years so easy, and we barely remember 3,000 years of history.
@Tavi…
Actually my culture is on the other side of globe. Nowhere as sunny/warm & happy as the one in central Americas
I agree. And I’ve given a lot of thought about it well before (and likely well after) this… Hell, for most westerners ‘modern civilization’ means the same as the era of Internet, mobile phones or color TV. That’s just 20-30-50 years depending on what’s your landmark. And it’s been only 150 years of since electrification started (or when our ancestors stopped hunting/fishing for everyday living). To put things into perspective, for example Maya culture has existed from circa 2,000 BC and it still is around. I very much doubt that western civilization as we know will not be around in year 4,000 AD
And maybe that’s for best of our planet earth 
Hi Keijo-san
That’s as ‘real world’ a message that I’ve ever seen from you. So do you believe that there is an actual existence apart from stamps? Please don’t leave the community and become an activist or politician
@Hadashi… It’s very unlikely that I would become an politician. I’m way too much impatient for that
But I’ve been some kind of ‘activist’ as long as I remember… Instead of armed service I choose to become a conscientious objector (yes, I did 18 months of civil service for that). And I stubbornly refuse to own a car despite living in middle of nowhere. And… That said, I’m not on a one man mission to safe the world. I just object to general stupidity of mankind. This is the only globe we have, and if we want to leave even something of it to our descendants, we really have to learn to live together in more sustainable way. In the end of day it’s really not that difficult – it’s just making small choices/decisions every now and then.
Yeah, Keijo…and I quote here something should make us to think about it:
L O L ! ! !
@Fred…The man was a genius. No doubt about it…. LOL
Hi Keijo-san
Military service was stopped in New Zealand when I was at high school, but I was intending to do the same as you. I am also addicted to my bicycle and have traveled the length of Japan on one, and other countries. The “general stupidity of mankind” is well put. You would think that after several thousand years humans would have organized some better living arrangements than those that we have. A good blog to read, where the author writes a weekly essay on that topic is “The Archdruid Report” http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/. But back to the topic of stamps, do any of your other readers visit only occasionally? If so, then a technique that they might like to use is to make a brief comment. When you return, just search for your name, scroll down, and then easily catch up with all the comments since.
Thank you very much for your reply (#15 above). I appreciate knowing a little more about the man who I’m sending my best Japanese duplicates to
@hadashi… Thanks for the link. A page that has ‘druid’ on it’s title can’t be bad