British Latin American
A British Latin American (Spanish and Portuguese: latinoamericano británico) is a Latin American of British ancestry.
British immigration to Latin America occurred mostly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and went primarily to Argentina, Chile and Brazil.
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Argentina
Argentina currently has perhaps the largest population of British Latin Americans, most of it consisting of Anglo-Argentines in the Buenos Aires area. In the mid-1980s they were estimated at 100,000. Famous Argentines of significant or full English ancestry include Jorge Luis Borges and Olivia Hussey, the latter famous for playing Juliet in the movie Romeo and Juliet. Carlos Pellegrini, who was President of Argentina (1890-92), was an English Latin American through his mother, Franco-Italian through his father.[citation needed]
The country has had a Welsh community in the Patagonia since their arrival from Liverpool in 1865. Its creation was an effort by nonconformists to build a "little Wales" away from English speakers.[1] Welsh Argentines currently number around 20,000.[2] Welsh-descended Arturo Rawson was an Army general and, for a few days, President of Argentina, June 4–7, 1943.
A Scottish Argentine population has existed for 180 years.[3] The first Argentine woman to earn a Doctor of Medicine degree was Cecilia Grierson, of Scottish ancestry.[4]
Brazil
The Gracie family, famous for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, was founded by George Gracie, a nineteenth century Scottish immigrant.
Oscar Cox, son of a British diplomat, introduced football to his native city, Rio de Janeiro, a century ago. He founded one of the top teams in Brazil, Fluminense Football Club.
The Brazilian Bawden family branch was initiated by Thomas Bawden, an early nineteenth century Cornish immigrant, who was very successful in gold prospection in the region of Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais province, in the then Brazilian Empire. Following his goldmining enrichment, his daughter Mary Angel Bawden was married to a Brazilian nobleman, the Second Baron of Camargos, whose father, the first Baron of Camargos, was a prominent political figure in the aforementioned province.
Chile
The descendants of English, according to some estimates, would be between 350,000 and 420,000 people.[5] Other books give more of 700,000 for the descendants of British settlers in Chile.[6]
Chile, facing the Pacific Ocean, had a important British presence.[7] Over 50,000 [8] British immigrants settled in Chile from 1840 to 1914, an important number of them settled in the country's southern most Magallanes in Province, especially the city of Punta Arenas when it flourished as a major global seaport for ships crossing the Strait of Magellan from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. Also, around 32,000 of them settled in Valparaíso, influencing the port city up to extent of making it virtually a British colony during the last decades of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th C.[5] However, the opening of Panama Canal in 1914 and the First World War drove many of them off the City.
Some British Chileans are of Scottish and Scotch-Irish origins. Some Scots settled in the country's temperate climate and forested landscape with glaciers and islands, which reminded them of their homeland (the Highlands and Northern Scotland), while English and Welsh made up the rest. The Irish immigrants were frequently confused with English, and arrived as merchants, tradesmen and sailors, settling along with the British in the main trading cities and Ports.
Chileans of British descent include former president Patricio Aylwin; Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, writer and politician; Alejandro Foxley, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Ignacio Walker, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Gustavo Leigh, member of the former Government Junta of Chile; Roberto Valenzuela Elphick, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Juan Williams Rebolledo, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Navy at the beginning of the War of the Pacific; Enrique Mac-Iver; William Thayer; Alberto Blest Gana, writer; members of the Edwards family; Hernán Somerville, banker; Harold Mayne-Nicholls, president of ANFP and Chilean Football Federation; Mary Rose McGill, socialite, Michael Frias, the first husband of novelist Isabel Allende, etc.
The British founded the first football club in Valparaíso, and in Santiago sometime later, such as Santiago Wanderers and Prince of Wales Country Club, among others.[9]
Colombia
Famous Colombians of British descent include Jorge Isaacs, the author of María, who was born to the daughter of a Spanish naval officer and an English Jew.
Peru
See British Peruvian
Other countries
See also
References
- ^ "GO BRITANNIA! Wales: Patagonia". Retrieved 2008-10-13.
- ^ "Chapels, tea houses and gauchos: The Welsh in Patagonia". BBC.
- ^ "Clan Macrae news".
- ^ "Tartan Day Events".
- ^ a b "Inmigración britanica en Chile". Retrieved 2009-01-25.
- ^ "Historia de Chile, Británicos y Anglosajones en Chile durante el siglo XIX". Retrieved 2009-04-26.
- ^ Inmigrantes británicos.
- ^ Noticias LA EMIGRACIÓN DE CHILENOS AL EXTERIOR E INMIGRACIÓN A CHILE.
- ^ Clubes de sello britanico.
- Carlos Pellegrini and the Crisis of the Argentine Elites, 1880-1916 by Douglas W. Richmond.
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