"! me! "
why were the spanish more interested in colonizing ecuador, colombia, and venezuela than guyana, suriname, and french guiana?

Some people, especially in the United States, have the misconception that all of Latin America lies south of the U.S. border. In fact, before 1890, Americans in the United States referred to everything south of the border as "Spanish America"; only in the early twentieth century did Americans adopt the term "Latin America." The most common definition holds that Latin America consists of those countries in which the primary language is a Romance language derived from Latin (such as French, Spanish, or Portuguese). Thus, Haiti, where French is the primary language, can be considered a Latin country, as can Brazil, where the primary language is Portuguese. The term "Latin America," which was originally coined by the French Emperor Napoleon III (1808-1873), was originally used by the French in an attempt to justify imperial expansion in Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean islands.