Music in Latin America

After the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese in the New World, several different cultures began fusing together, creating a unique genre of music in South and Central America. This new "Latin American" culture (so called because, as Romance languages, both Spanish and Portuguese evolved naturally from Latin) was a synthesis of Native Pre-Columbian musical traditions with the musical traditions of Sub-Saharan Africa brought to the continent by the Atlantic slave trade, and combined with the musical traditions of Western Europe.

These cultures fused differently in different places, and Latin American music varies greatly by country. In Mexico, ranchera and mariachi music, featuring guitars, violins, trumpets, and singers became popular. In Cuba, salsa music became dominant. The genres of samba and, later on, bossa nova, developed in Brazil.

(As an historical note, not all of these genres were fully developed in the eighteenth century, so the musical examples here may be a bit anachronistic. However, in some form, many of these musical elements would have been nascent and recognizable.)