"Americans ... who live within the Spanish system occupy a position in society as mere consumers. Yet even this status is surrounded with galling
restrictions, such as being forbidden to grow European crops, or to store
products that are royal monopolies, or to establish factories of a type the
Peninsula itself does not possess. To this, add the exclusive trading
privileges, even in articles of prime necessity ... in short, do you wish to
know what our future held?-simply the cultivation of the fields of indigo,
grain, coffee, sugarcane, cacao, and cotton: cattle raising on the broad
plains; hunting wild game in the jungles; digging in the earth to mine its
gold." Which of the following groups was Bolivar most trying
to influence with this letter?
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