Of all the continents in the world, South America tasted the benefits of democratic rule last. After the ancient Inca culture, for a long time till the 19th century almost all of the South American countries had been under the rule of European powerhouses. Spain and Portugal were the major invaders of that era. The result: many Portuguese-sounding names in countries such as Uruguay and some of the world’s finest modern fiction in Spanish language, for example, those written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Spain and Portugal left the continent by the first three decades of the nineteenth century.
