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Latin American Revolutions. Latin American Independence Movements. In the late 1700s, Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas spread from Europe and the United States to Latin America
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Latin American Independence Movements • In the late 1700s, Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas spread from Europe and the United States to Latin America • The success of the American Revolution and the French Revolution showed Latin Americans that foreign and oppressive rule could be overthrown • Beginning in the 1790s, they struggled to gain independence as well as other rights and freedoms
Social Structure • Social classes based on privilege in Latin America • Peninsulares– colonial leaders born in Spain or Portugal • Held all important military and political positions • Creoles - American born Spanish aristocrats, they owned most of the land but were treated like second-class citizens, and were denied political rights • Mestizos – Latin American of mixed Native American and European ancestry • Faced social, political, and economic racism • Worked as servants, unskilled laborers
Haiti • French planters owned large sugar farms called plantations • Nearly half a million enslaved Africans worked and lived in terrible conditions • Free mulattos were granted limited rights
Toussaint L’Ouverture • Dissatisfied creoles led conflict against social system • Well-educated and wealthy • 1791 revolt led by self-educated former slave named Toussaint L’Ouverture • Haitian slaves won their freedom in 1798 • Clashed with Napoleon and won independence from France in 1804
Simón Bolívar • An educated creole, Bolívar led resistance movements against the Spanish • Called ‘the Liberator,’ he vowed to fight Spanish rule in South America and became one of the greatest Latin American nationalist leaders of the period
Simón Bolívar • In 1810, Simón Bolívar started his 12 year struggle with the Spanish • He led campaigns that won independence in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia (named after him!) • He later joined forces with Jose de San Martin • Martin had defeated the Spanish in Argentina and Chile previously
Simón Bolívar • Had dreams of creating a unified South America • Spain’s former empire became divided into separate independent states • Nations faced long struggle to gain stability, achieve social equality, and eliminate poverty
Independence Movements South America, 1790 South America, 1828
