The Caribbean and Latin America 

 
The Age of Revolution was not confined to North America and Europe. Just as in British North America,
dissatisfaction with colonialism was common in the Caribbean and Spanish America, and it led to
revolutions and wars of independence in these regions in the early 1800s. The first successful movement
to overthrow colonialism came in Haiti, where slaves of African ancestry fought their way to power. Many
Central and South American countries also eventually won their independence by the 1820s.

Spanish and Portuguese America's Colonial Heritage

The Spanish and Portuguese ruled much larger American empires than did the British. By 1810, some 18
million diverse people lived under Spanish rule from California in the north to the southern tip of South
America. This population included Europeans, Indians, Africans, and people of mixed descent. The
empire was divided into four administrative units based in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina, each
supervised by Spanish governors. Corruption ran deep, but the planters, ranchers, mine owners,
bureaucrats, and church officials who benefited from Spanish rule or profited from exploiting the economic
resources opposed any major change. They preferred a system that sent raw materials, such as silver
and beef, to Spain rather than one that developed domestic institutions and markets.
CHRONOLOGY
The Caribbean and Latin American Revolutions, 1750–1840
1791–1804 Haitian Revolution
1808 Move of Portuguese royal family to Brazil
1810–1826 Wars of independence in Spanish America
1810–1811 First Mexican revolution
1816 Argentine independence
1819 Founding of Colombian republic by Bolívar
1822 Mexican independence; Dom Pedro emperor of Brazil
1830 Independence of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador
1839 Division of Central American states

  
Political Structure
The Spanish ruled their colonies differently than did the British in North America, allowing little self-
government, maintaining extractive monocultures, and imposing Roman Catholicism. Only a small
minority shared in the wealth produced by the mines, plantations, and ranches. Latin American social
conditions did not promote unity or equality. The creoles—whites born in the Americas—resented
influential newcomers from Spain, but they also feared that resistance against Spain might get out of
control and threaten their privileges. The great majority of the population, a dispossessed underclass of
Indians, enslaved Africans, and mixed-descent people, faced growing unemployment and perhaps the
world's most inequitable distribution of wealth.

In contrast to British America, Latin America, dominated by a rigid Catholic Church that was wary of
dissent, enjoyed little intellectual diversity. The Inquisition denounced as seditious any literature
espousing equality and liberty for all people and punished people it considered to be heretics. Local critics
accused the government and church of “placing the strongest fetters on Enlightenment and [keeping]
thought in chains.”5 Yet one successful dissenter was the Mexican creole Jose Antonio Alzate y Ramirez
(1738–1799), who published a magazine that promoted science and Enlightenment rationalism.

Colonial Revolts
Given the political and social inequalities, various revolts punctuated Spanish colonial rule. The largest
revolt spread over large parts of Peru in the 1700s and was led by Tupac Amaru II (1740–1781), the
wealthy, well-educated mestizo who claimed to be a descendant of an Inca king. Although the better-
armed Spanish defeated the rebel bands and executed Tupac and his family, the Tupac Amaru revolt
paved the way for larger upheavals across South America several decades later.
“By 1810, some 18 million diverse people lived under Spanish rule from California in the north to the
southern tip of South America.”
Portuguese Brazil also experienced dissent. By the late 1700s, Brazil was the wealthiest part of the
Portuguese colonial realm, but only a small, mostly white minority enjoyed the prosperity. Because Brazil
was the major importer of slaves, accounting for one-quarter to one-third of all Africans arriving in the
Americas, blacks vastly outnumbered Native Americans in Brazil, in contrast to Spanish-ruled Mexico and
South America. Disgruntled
 
Afro-Brazilians demanded a better life, but they faced many setbacks; in 1799, one revolt seeking social
equality and political freedom was crushed in the northeastern state of Bahia (buh-HEE-uh).

Caribbean Societies and the Haitian Revolution

Most of the small Caribbean islands and the Guianas in northeast South America were colonies of Britain,
France, or the Netherlands and were inhabited chiefly by African slaves and their descendants, most of
whom worked on sugar plantations. The Afro-Caribbean peoples appropriated European cultural forms
and languages, welding them with retained African forms. In British-colonized islands such as Jamaica,
Barbados, and Antigua, most slaves adopted Christianity and Anglo-Saxon names. The African influences
that shaped slave life included musical influences such as drumming, improvisation, and varied rhythms.
Slave Revolts
Slave revolts were common throughout the colonial era, but only one, the Haitian Revolution, overthrew a
regime. In 1791, some 100,000 Afro-Haitian slaves, inspired by the French Revolution and its slogans of
liberty and equality, rose up against the oppressive society presided over by French planters, thus
beginning years of war and bloodshed. Toussaint L'Ouverture (too-SAN loo-ver-CHORE) (1746–1803), a
freed slave with a vision of a republic composed of free people, became the insurgent leader.

South American Independence Wars

As in North America and Haiti, dissatisfaction in Spanish-ruled South America exploded into wars of
national independence. In 1800, the Spanish colonial hold on its empire seemed secure, but resentments
simmered, especially among creoles, who criticized Spain for its commercial monopoly, its increasing
taxes, and the colonial government's favoritism toward those born in Spain. Creoles also often felt more
loyalty toward their American region than to distant Spain, and some were influenced by the
Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. The British, who were pressuring the Spanish
and Portuguese to open Latin American markets to British goods, also secretly aided anticolonial groups.
At the same time, Spain was experiencing political problems at home, including French occupation during
the Napoleonic wars, which weakened the country's ability to suppress unrest in Latin America.

Consequences of Victory
But these victories over the colonial regimes did not always meet the expectations of the liberated or the
liberators. The wars damaged economies and caused people to flee the fighting. In addition, the creoles
who now governed these countries often forgot the promises they had made to the Indians, mestizos,
mulattos, and blacks, who had often provided the bulk of the revolutionary armies. And although some
slaves were freed, slavery was not abolished. Women also experienced disappointment, especially those
who had enthusiastically served the revolution as soldiers and nurses, such as Policarpa Salavarrieta,
who was captured by the Spanish. Before she was executed in Bogota's main plaza, she exclaimed:
“Although I am a woman and young, I have more than enough courage to suffer this death and a
thousand more.”7 Despite such sacrifices, women soon found that they still lived in patriarchal societies
that offered them few new legal or political rights. Finally, unlike the founders of the United States, Latin
America's new leaders were largely unable to form representative and democratic governments. Simón
Bolívar could not hold his own country together, and in 1830 it broke into Colombia, Ecuador, and
Venezuela. Meanwhile, Uruguay and Paraguay split off from Argentina, and Bolivia separated from Peru.
Disillusioned, Bolívar concluded that Latin America was ungovernable.

Source: Lockard, C. (2011). The Age of Revolution: the Caribbean and Latin America in World, Bolume 2:
Since 1450. Pages 494 to 497. United States, Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.