This article examines aspects of the semantic history of Spanish America in nineteenth-century United States. The analysis of speeches and texts by American politicians, government officials, journalists and intellectuals suggests a tendency to give Spanish America and its habitants some traces opposite to the ones done to the American collective self-image. Those negative qualities cover three "semantic regions": culture, time and race. The article exposes how and when those "regions" have risen and the actions projected from and justified for their articulation.
History of Concepts; Spanish America; United States