Transcript Latin America’s Independence Movements

Latin America’s Independence
Movements
What were the causes of
independence?
 Bourbon and Pombaline reforms in Spain and Portugal
 Peninsulares held most of the power over majority people
 Church power became limited
 Increase in taxes
 2 new viceroyalties established: New Granada (Bogota) and La Plata
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(Buenos Aires)
Colonies were limited in manufacturing
Colonial militias divided among race lines
Napoleon eventually takes Spain and colonists don’t recognize his
leadership and proclaim to be autonomous
American and French Revolutions
Castas system
Haitian Revolution-1791-1804
 French Revolution was
catalyst for change
 gens de coleur (free nonwhites) & French
Assembly vs. Whites
 Slave rebellions,
abolishment in 1793
Touissant L’Ouverture and Haiti
 Touissant L’Ouverture
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defeated French, but then
fought the British until 1798
Civil War now: Petit blacks vs.
gens de coleur
Touissant recognized by new
French government as
Governor-General, 1801
1802 Napoleon’s French
troops sent to St. Domingue
Touissant attempted
negotiations, but arrested and
sent to Alps where he died
Haitian Independence Effects
 By 1803, Napoleon evacuated French troops
 January 1, 1804 Republic of Haiti proclaimed, most whites
left
 Jean-Jacques Dessalines crown himself Emperor
 gens de coleur in power while petit blancs back to fields
 All whites were massacred in Haiti
 Assassinated in 1806
 Haitian society kept social classes and gens de coleur replaced
whites as top group!
Haiti Today:
 2004 French and US backed coup ousted elected president
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-France sent troops on the ground
2006 New elections and in 2008 Parliament overthrew the
president, causing riots and long period without a gov’t.
In 2006, Haiti was ranked 1st by Corruptions Perceptions Index
Port Au Prince was named “most dangerous place on Earth” by the
UN
Government is semi-presidential where president and PM work
together and are responsible to Parliament
2010 first elections, still questionable, but Michel Martelly and
Laurent Lamothe lead
Three Years after the earthquake that
killed 315,000:
325,000 living in tents
unemployment at 70%
cholera
outbreak=470,000 cases,
6631 deaths, worst cholera
outbreak in modern history
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improved water and
sanitation needed, the US has
spent over $75 million for
this
 Do we need to have a
collection drive? Send it to
the Red Cross?
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New Spain’s Independence:
Mexican (New Spain)’s Independence
 Father Hidalgo began revolution on
September 16, 1810 *now
Mexico’s independence day!
-wanted to address hunger,
poverty and taxes
 His call to arms led to 80,000
people chaotically fighting, Spain
was able to capture and execute
him in 1811
 Father Morelos continued the fight
and drafted the Constitutional Decree
for the Liberty of Mexico which
established an independent
republic. Executed 1814.
Mexico’s Independence
 Became a prolonged war of
attrition
 Peninsulares, creoles, church
leaders and military leaders
decided to take action and
Augustin Iturbide led movement
which defeated royalists
 Created Plan de Iguala
-independence from Spain
-supremacy of Catholic
Church
-Equality for peninsulares and
creoles
 Treaty of Cordoba recognized
independent Mexico
 Iturbide became emperor and
social order stayed (prelude to
civil war later on!)
Venezuela’s Independence
 Independence claimed in 1806
by Francisco de Miranda
 Creoles established independent
Republic of Venezuela 1811
-power based on property
-eliminate slave trade, but
not slavery (non-whites NOT
included)
 Became a civil war
 Spanish officer, Jose Boves led
mixed race army and took
Caracas that ended republic and
began reign of terror
 Spain sent troops and retook
Caracas 1815
Simon Bolivar and Venezuela
 Reinforced cause of liberation and unity and welcomed all
 Continued fighting against Spanish royalists and an army coup weakened
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Spain to negotiation
Venezuela became part of Gran Colombia-Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia
and Panama!
-1830 Ecuador and Venezuela will secede and be ind.
Bolivar established dictatorship because he feared non-white majority.
-attempted to enforce legal equality
-rewarded military leaders with land where they had local dominance
-but the class system and racial issues remained, much to his dismay
1828 an assassination attempt nearly killed him and by 1830 he died from
TB and exhaustion
Video clip!
San Martin and Chile
 Martin had a different way of
viewing independence from Bolivar;
but both knew it was a continental
cause
 Martin’s army along with Chilean
army under O’Higgins met Spanish
army at Battle of Chacabucho
(outside of Santiago) in 1817
 Martin divided his army in two and
surrounded Spanish
-500 Spanish were killed, 12
Patriots killed
 In 1818 a battle at Maipu settled
Chilean control with independence
 How was this battle different from
previous ones?
Brazil’s Independence
 Napoleon’s war was the catalyst for change
 Portugal installed several similar reforms like Spain
-limited manufacturing, only trade with mother
country, slavery
 Napoleon and Portugal’s monarchy
-Prince Dom Joao fled and remade Rio as capital
-many trade restrictions and manufacturing restrictions
lifted
-Brazil was made equal to Portugal (NOT a colony)
 After Napoleon’s defeat, Portuguese wanted their king back
who refused to return until 1821
Brazil’s Independence
 Prince Dom Pedro was left in
charge of Brazil
 Portuguese attempted to reestablish Brazil as a colony
 Dom Pedro remained,
declared Brazil independent
on September 7, 1822 and
named himself emperor
-May 1823 he
established an assembly with
liberal gov’t
Pedro’s “Constitution”
 Impact of the assembly? Pedro dissolved it as it limited his
power and wrote new Constitution in1824
-bicameral legislature: lower house indirectly elected by
men; upper house selected by emperor for life terms
-emperor held right to dissolve legislature
-emperor held right to appoint cabinet and dismiss
people at will
-Catholicism became state religion and he was head of
church
 1889 Monarchy ended
 What about this independence movement is different?