Also the fact that the Spanish Empire did not see themselves as an empire of intellectuals set on a mission to expand the frontiers of knowledge.
They were about wealth extraction and draining others as fast and unsustainably as possible.
The movements of independence had their origin in Masonic lodges. University founders were either part of the Roman Catholic church, jesuits or masons. All of them known to exclude people for different reasons.
If you were a brilliant woman you would be excluded by masons.
If you were a brilliant person but did not have your sacraments or you were an illegimate child then a Roman Catholic university would likely tell you to go somewhere else. In fact, it is likely that if you died you could not even get a marked grave in a cemetery.
So if you were not wealthy, ethnically european, male or connected to the church or masons then the chances you would be someone in life, and part of the historic record, let alone an intellectual with published works were shit.
And if you somehow surpassed all those barriers and published something then who would buy it? nobody. Because haciendas paid with food, nobody except the Patron would know how to read and the entire continent was all haciendas with indentured servitude until land reforms changed that.
The elites that govern Latin America are not necessarily more altruistic than conquistadors. The difference is closer to Pepsi and Coca-Cola, a bunch of aggrandized cowards that exploit, marginalize people and spend all their day devising new ways to implement structural violence.
Fast forward to 2023, the generation that could make a difference is wasting their time playing Minecraft and Fortnite, or making a stupid TikTok video in their Huawei phones. That is more comforting than getting stabbed in the street.
So yeah, Spanish-speaking Internet is a reflection of that legacy and it is in many cases a sewer of the mind. It is getting better, and there is hope, but we have to say it.