Eduardo Galeano

Open Veins of Latin America

Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

Translated by Cedric Belfrage

Monthly Review Press
New York and London

1973

Originally published as Las venas abiertas de America Latina by Siglo XXI Editores, Mexico, 1971.

Galeano, Eduardo H. (1940-)

"We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity."
-- From the Revolutionary Proclamation of the Junta Tuitiva, La Paz, July 16, 1809.


Contents

Introduction: 120 Million Children in the Eye of the Hurricane 11
Part I: Mankind's Poverty as a Consequence of the Wealth of the Land
1. Lust for Gold, Lust for Silver 21
2. King Sugar and Other Agricultural Monarchs 71
3. The Invisible Sources of Power 149
Part II: Development Is a Voyage with More Shipwrecks than Navigators
4. Tales of Premature Death 191
5. The Contemporary Structure of Plunder 225
Index 305


Acknowledgment

This book would not have been possible without the collaboration, in one form or another, of Sergio Bagu, Luis Carlos Benvenuto, Fernando Carmona, Adicea Castillo, Alberto Couriel, Andre Gunder Frank, Rogelio Garcia Lupo, Miguel Labarca, Carlos Lessa, Samuel Lichtensztejn, Juan A. Oddone, Adolfo Perelman, Artur Poerner, Carlos Quijano, German Rama, Darcy Ribeiro, Orlando Rojas, Julio Rossiello, Paulo Schilling, Karl-Heinz Stanzick, Vivian Trias, and Daniel Vidart. To them, and to the many friends who have encouraged me in the task of these recent years, I dedicate the result, of which they are of course innocent.

Montevideo, 1970