CH 8SECTION 1

Latin America fights for Independence

Latin America circa 1800

Division of Latin American society:

Peninsulares – men who were born in Spain. They were the only ones who could hold high office positions in the government.

Creoles – Spanish people who were born in Latin America. They could rise as officers in the Spanish colonial armies.

Mestizos – people of mixed European and Indian ancestry.Mulattos – people of mixed European and African

ancestry.Africans – enslaved and freeIndians – natives to the land, they had little economic

value and were severely oppressed.

Hierarchy of Latin American SocietyPeninsulares

Creoles

Mestizos

Mulattos

Africans

Indians

Divisions of Spanish Colonial Society

7%8%

23%

56%

6%

1789

MestizosMulattosPeninsulares and CreolesIndiansAfricans

HispaniolaAn island in the

Caribbean which was made up of the French land of Saint Dominigue (now Haiti) and the Spanish land Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic.) The majority of the population was enslaved Africans who worked the plantations.

The majority of the population was enslaved Africans who worked the plantations. August 14th, 1791, an African voodoo priest named Dutty Boukman performed a sacrificial ceremony and called for revolution. On August 22nd, 1791 ,more than 100,000 slaves rose up in Saint Dominigue killing all whites they met and setting plantations on fire.

The French, however, quickly captured Boukman, and beheaded him, bringing the rebellion under control. Boukman had inspired the slaves with the belief that he was invincible, so the French displayed his head on a spike to convince them he was really dead.

The French negotiated a peace with him in May of 1802 but later accused him of planning another uprising and arrested him. He was sent to a prison in the French Alps where he died within 10 months in April, 1803.

Toussaint L'Ouverture was the son of an educated slave who witnessed the ineptitude of the rebel leaders of Boukman’s revolt. Collecting an army of his own, L'Ouverture trained his followers in guerrilla warfare. He took the lead in the revolution and by 1801, moved his troops into Spanish Santo Domingo and freed the slaves.

Haitian Emperor

Born around 1758, in Africa, Jean-Jacques Dessalines was enslaved in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. He served as a lieutenant under Toussaint L'Ouverture after the 1791 slave revolt and later helped eliminated French rule. On January 1, 1804, he declared the colony an independent country, named it Haiti and declared himself emperor.

Despised for his brutality, yet honored as one of Haiti’s founding fathers, he was killed in a revolt on October 17, 1806, in Pont Rouge, near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 

The Latin American independence movement was launched in 1808. Napoleon’s Peninsular War unsettled Spanish and Portuguese authority in the colonies.

Bolivar was president of Gran Colombia (1819–30) and dictator of Peru (1823–26).

The Liberator - Simón Bolívar was a wealthy Venezuelan creole born July 24, 1783 in Caracas, New Granada. He was a soldier and statesman who led revolutions against Spanish rule. He declared Venezuela free from Spain in 1811. He fought for 10 more years against the Spanish to free Venezuela and win independence in 1821.

South American Libertadores Jose de San Martin was a liberator who was

born in Argentina but spent much of his time in Spain as a military officer. 1817, San Martin led his Argentine army across the Andes into Chile and joined the forces of Bernardo O’Higgins (son of the former viceroy of Peru) and freed Chile. 1821, San Martin took his troops by sea to Lima, Peru and was outnumbered by the Spanish troops found there. He waited almost a year until the Spanish fled the city to the mountains and San Martin entered Lima. He declared Peru’s independence on July 28, 1821 and assumed title of protector. Fighting against the Spanish would continue for Peru. San Martin privately met with Bolivar in Ecuador in 1822 which resulted in San Martin giving up his protectorship of Peru. Bolivar took over the job of fully liberating Peru with the combined forces and went on to defeat the Spanish at the Battle of Ayacucho (Peru) on December 9, 1824. Bernardo O’Higgins

Jose De San Martin

Mexico Ends Spanish Rule

Miguel Hidalgo was a Mexican Catholic priest in Dolores, Mexico. On September 16, 1810, Father Hidalgo rang the church bell to announce revolution against the Spanish. Indians and mestizos marched with Hidalgo and captured major cities but were halted at the gates of the capital. Hidalgo fled north but was caught and shot in 1811. The anniversary of his call is celebrated as Mexico's Independence Day.

Although Hidalgo was defeated in 1811, another strong leader rose, Padre Jose Maria Morelos. He led the revolution for another four years until he was defeated by a royalist creole officer named Agustin de Iturbide in 1815. He was captured, tried by the Inquisition, defrocked and executed for treason by a firing squad on December 22, 1815.

By 1820, the Mexican independence movement then performed a curious about-face. In reaction to a liberal coup d’état in Spain, the conservatives in Mexico (formerly staunch royalists) advocated immediate independence. However, he lost control of the areas in Central America when they declared independence from Spain and consequently Mexico in 1821. Iturbide assumed command of the rebel army eventually winning independence from Spain on August 24, 1821. On May 19, 1822, Iturbide placed the crown upon his own head and became Agustín I, emperor of Mexico.  Iturbide declared himself emperor but his rule was short lived and was overthrown in 1823.

An arbitrary and extravagant ruler, all parties soon turned against him.  He was executed when he returned from exile to Mexico on July 19, 1824.

1807- Napoleon’s troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula and the Prince Regent John VI (Regent for Queen Maria I of Portugal) and his family along with his court and royal treasury boarded ships and escaped to Brazil. They lived there in exile for 14 years. The royal family preparing to move to

Brazil by Henry L'Evêque.

Brazil’s Royalty

Bloodless Revolution

After Napoleon’s defeat and prompted by economic and political problems, the Portuguese royals returned home in 1821 and expected Brazil to resume being a colony. However, the creoles demanded Brazilian independence in 1822.

8,000 Brazilians signed a petition asking Dom Pedro, King John’s son, to become the ruler and he agreed. September 7, 1822, Brazil achieved independence through a bloodless revolution.

Emperor Pedro I of Brazil in 1834, aged 35.