Latin America is different from almost all other regions in that neither British colonialism nor the widespread diffusion of the English language has been a major factor in the development of the Anglican church. Anglicanism in Ireland and Australia has been confronted by a strong and cohesive Catholic culture, but in both cases the Anglican church has traditionally been part of the ‘establishment’. Trinidad and Quebec are areas with Catholic majorities which pre-date British rule, but the Anglican church gained prestige once the British took over. Anglicanism in Latin America is numerically weak, even insignificant. According to Anglican statistics, the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil has 103,021 members (out of a population of about 150 million). The Province of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru) has 22,490 members. Episcopal membership in Central America (from Mexico to Ecuador) amounts to perhaps 40,000. Protestants in an overwhelmingly Catholic culture have traditionally faced problems of state hostility. For some Anglicans, particularly from the Anglo-Catholic tradition, there has also been a reluctance to proselytise in a Catholic country. The 1910 Edinburgh conference on world mission excluded Protestant work in Latin America on these grounds, though it was recognised by the International Missionary Council of Jerusalem in 1928.

Anglican work began primarily as a pastoral initiative for British (and later American) expatriates. But it was not confined to expatriates. The South American Missionary Society combined concern for English-speaking people with a missionary zeal to reach the Native American (Indian) peoples.