ABC Powers

   Argentina, Brazil, and Chile are referred to collectively as the ABC powers because by 1914 they appeared to have achieved domestic tranquility as independent states and demonstrated a desire to submit boundary disputes to arbitration rather than war. Argentina achieved de facto independence from Spain in 1810; Brazil became a kingdom independent of Portugal in 1815; and Chile won independence from Spain in 1818. In each case independence was furthered by the struggles of Spain and Portugal in the Peninsular War in Europe, 1808–1813. In 1898, a boundary quarrel between Argentina and Chile might have resulted in war had the two states not settled it through arbitration. The pacific potential of the ABC powers in their own region and beyond was demonstrated in 1914 when at the Niagara Conference they mediated a settlement in the crisis between the United States and Mexico prompted by American refusal to recognize the Huerta regime in Mexico City and brought to head in the Tampico Incident.

   FURTHER READING:

    Barman, Roderick J. Brazil: The Forging of a Nation, 1798-1852. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988;

    Collier, Simon, and William F. Sater. A History of Chile, 1808-1994. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996;

    Lewis, Daniel K. The History of Argentina. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2001.

   CARL CAVANAGH HODGE