The Colonial Heritage of Latin America Author:Stanley J. Stein, Barbara H. Stein In 1492 Spain and Portugal were economic dependencies of Europe and, despite their creation of overseas empires in the sixteenth century and their control of such areas until about 1824, they remained dependancies. This anomalous status as colony and empire shaped the histories of the Iberian and their colonial possessions. It conditioned coloni... more »al society, economy, and politics, and indeed the course of Latin American history to modern times.« less