Latin America, relations with. English activities in Latin America began in 1562–8 when Sir John Hawkins carried three cargoes of slaves from Africa to Spanish possessions in the New World. The third of these voyages precipitated a series of clashes with Spanish forces, sometimes authorized by London and sometimes not, as the English battled for trade and gold. Charles II's commercial treaty with Spain in 1667 finally placed English trade with the colonies on a better footing—although English merchants remained far from satisfied. The treaty of Utrecht (1713) officially opened the colonies to British slave traders, but further incidents led to the so-called ‘War of Jenkins's Ear’ in 1739. Spain's alliance with Napoleon tempted the British to try to seize Buenos Aires in 1806–7. They failed, but Napoleon's intervention in Spain in 1808 was followed by growing unrest in Spain's American colonies. The British tried to strike a balance between the colonists and those Spanish elements which were allied with them against Napoleon in the Peninsula. Later, as Spain's hold on its American colonies weakened, the British, eager to build up their trade and to ensure that the USA did not acquire too much influence and esteem, moved towards de facto and finally de jure recognition in the 1820s. The new states themselves recognized that the British navy was their best defence (rather than the Monroe doctrine) whenever there were suggestions that other European powers might be disposed to assist Spain to recover her colonies.

Britain retained her leading role in trade and investment in much of Latin America until the First World War. Meanwhile Canning in the early 1820s had assisted in the peaceful separation of Brazil from Portuguese colonial rule. Anglo-American rivalry persisted mostly in central America, partly because of British interest in the Mosquito Shore, and partly because both were interested in any project to build a trans-isthmian canal. Their relations were eased in part by the Clayton–Bulwer treaty of 1850 and further negotiations in 1856–60. Later in the century the British were forced to recognize that the balance of power was shifting decisively in favour of the USA. They were rudely reminded of this by US intervention in 1895 in a British frontier dispute with Venezuela. The Hay–Pauncefote treaty of 1901 yielded control of any canal to the USA. But later British retreats and concessions to the Americans did not prevent friction between London and Washington as, for instance, on policy towards Fidel Castro's Cuba in the 1960s. On the other hand, the USA, after some hesitation, supported the British in the war to recover the Falkland Islands after their seizure by Argentina in 1982. Sovereignty over the islands had been in dispute with Argentina since 1833.

C. J. Bartlett