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Latin Americans usually conceive the Western Hemisphere as a single continent. Geographically, the notion is no more, or less, arbitrary than Anglo-Americans' mapping of two continents separated by the Panamanian isthmus. But the Latin American viewpoint highlights the most basic and distinctive historical commonality of the Americas: they are a "New World," a continent populated by arrivals from all the other continents. Its "indigenous" population came from Asia long after the rest of the globe had been settled by hominids, including Homo sapiens. About 15,000 years later, others began to arrive from the opposite direction. Close to three million came from Europe between the beginning of the colonial enterprise in the Americas in 1492 and its near end in 1820. Three times as many were brought against their will from Africa during the same period. 1

In this article I analyse how transcontinental migrations, the various forms that these took (Paleolithic first settlement, conquest and colonialism, slavery, free mass movements, and mercantile diasporas), and the way these interacted in the receiving environments, shaped the historical formation of Latin America. The article shows how these interactions explain the key apparent contradictions of Latin America: that it is both the most racially diverse and the most culturally homogeneous region in the world; that it has the highest crime/homicide rates but also the lowest levels of civil and international wars, holocausts, and other forms of collective violence; and that it has the highest levels of social inequality in the world but also some of its historically most egalitarian areas.

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