Week 5: Caudillos vs. The Nation State

My initial thoughts on this week's reading is a little bit scattered but I'll try my best to arrange them in an order that makes sense. 

I find Bolivar almost a little irritating in a lot of contexts, now knowing his history and background as Creole elite. He spoke with so much optimism about uniting Latin America against the great threat that was the United States, but at his core he was purely an elite fighting for the elites, which is why central authority broke down in post-independence Latin America. You have a group of people who have always been at the top or close to the top of the hierarchy even in a colonial context, now fighting for the top, and you have others who have been completely subjugated and marginalized also fighting to be at the top. Of course there's going to be a war. Each faction believes they deserve a piece of the pie. Bolivar had a romanticised idea of Latin America, which would be ruled by what he called the "intellectuals or educationists" essentially people who he thought deserved to rule Latin America. The "oppressed" elite class, became the biggest oppressors after independence which is why the caudillos rose into power — by influence of the large peasantry class who believed they were being represented.

I understand that often times caudillos ruled with brute force and subjected the peasantry class to abuse but what were the other options? After independence in Latin America almost all the individual countries were thrown into a state of turmoil. The caudillos offered not only stability but central authority. They also represented the ideals of the peasantry even though they weren't necessarily part of the peasantry class, they understood the necessity of having the populace believe in them. The disenfranchised peasants needed representation regardless of how much they had to give up to the caudillos; so it's hard for me to see the caudillos in a black and white type of manner now knowing the nuances and complexities of it. It's also understandable that caudillos fought back against liberalist policies because the "enlightened" scholars attacked a lot of core values held by religious traditionalists with no sense of compromise and vice versa. It's all very complex and hard to wrap my mind around, but I have questions I'm hoping you can answer:

1) If the caudillos did not gain power, who would've represented the peasantry? What other options were there? Would the peasant class do so on their own and seize power?

2) I don't think there's even been a unified Latin America because it's such a large territory and housed within the territory are individual countries, furthermore there are a lot of distinctions and division between peoples, so would there have ever been a unified Latin America like Bolivar talks about?

3) If the caudillos had not represented the peasantry class, what would have probably occurred? A civil war between the elites and peasants? Or would the peasants have remained oppressed?