Haiti and the Latin American Wars of Independence [individual assignement]
Haiti and the Latin American Wars of Independence
Revolutionary influence catapulted back across the Atlantic, as the impact of events in France spread far beyond Europe’s borders, and especially to Haiti and Latin America.
Prior to independence, the sugar- and coffee-producing colony of Haiti was called Saint Domingue by the French and Santo Domingo by the Spanish, with each country occupying half the island and relying heavily on slave labor imported from Africa. After 1789, revolution in France threw Saint Domingue into turmoil, largely because the “rights of man and the citizen" were not extended to everyone living in French colonies. Revolutionary freedoms went automatically to Frenchmen and Creoles (those of French descent but born in the colonies) but were not extended to free blacks and mulattos until May 1791. And because France’s revolutionary government decided at that point not to end slavery, the halfmillion slaves of Saint Domingue revolted in August. This began the Haitian Rebellion (1791-1804), the only large-scale slave revolt to succeed in the New World.
By 1793, François Toussaint L’Ouverture, a talented commander known as the “Black Washington,” had come to lead the revolt. Although the French finally abolished slavery in 1794, L’Ouverture’s goal was now full independence and the liberation of slaves on the Spanish side of the island, which he invaded in 1798. For several years, France debated the question of whether to let Haiti go free and establish friendly relations with it (the outcome L’Ouverture hoped for) or to retake it by force. In 1802, Napoleon—who, ironically, as a junior officer in the 1790s, had admired L’Ouverture—sent a large force to end the rebellion. Although L'Ouverture fell into French captivity and died in prison, the French proved unequal to tropical warfare and lost 40,000 soldiers to yellow fever. They went home in disgrace, and the independent nation of Haiti was born in 1804. Not only did the Haitian Rebellion lead to further uprisings in Latin America, it convinced Napoleon that it was strategically wasteful for France to maintain major colonies in the New World. In 1803, he sold the vast Louisiana territory, stretching from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi delta, to the United States at a bargain price. This Louisiana Purchase significantly boosted the young country's chances of eventually mastering the entire continent and can be seen in hindsight as a major shift in global power.
In the meantime, revolutionary impulses were gathering force in Mexico, Central America, and South America, where the Latin American wars of independence would rage from 1810to 1825. Underlying factors here included a growing sense of nationalism and local resentment of Spain’s and Portugal's restrictive economic policies. Also important was the frustration that the criollo ("creole”), or European-descended, upper and middle classes felt at being barred from upward mobility by the rigid social hierarchy that prevailed in Latin American colonies. And for clear examples of how political action could achieve decisive results, discontented Latin Americans had the American Revolution and the Haitian Rebellion close at hand.
It was Napoleon, between 1807 and 1809, who toppled the colonial order in Latin America by invading Spain and Portugal. With the Spanish king under house arrest and Portugal's royal family forced to flee to Brazil, rebellions sprang up throughout Central and South America.
The most influential of these revolutionaries was Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), known as the Liberator. A member of Venezuela’s criollo upper class, Bolivar was inspired by Enlightenment ideals, frustrated by the inefficiency and injustice of Spanish rule, and personally ambitious. In 1810, he took control of the independence movement sweeping across the northern parts of Spanish South America. Unlike many others of the creole elite, who rebelled against Spain for their own narrow interests, Bolivar realized that no revolt could succeed unless it attracted all classes. In a bold stroke, he promised to fight for the rights of mixed- race Latin Americans and the emancipation of slaves. These principles, elaborated in documents like Bolivar's 1815 Jamaica Letter, turned a small and unsuccessful upper- and middle-class rebellion into a mass war of independence. The military turning point of Bolivar's wars came in 1819-1821, when he gained control over present-day Venezuela and Columbia. At this juncture, Bolivar joined forces with another freedom fighter, José de San Martín, a general turned revolutionary. Between 1816 and 1820, San Martin had freed southern areas such as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Despite political differences—San Martin was more conservative—the two decided to cooperate, with Bolivar as leader. By 1825, royalists had been cleared out of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, and Spanish South America was free.
Mexico and Central America liberated themselves as well. The Mexican War of Independence (1810-1823) was complicated by the inability of various social classes to cooperate. It began when the priest Miguel Hidalgo, unfurling the flag of the Virgin of Guadalupe, called for freedom from Spain. Hidalgo was killed in 1811, but his fight was carried on by another priest, José Maria Morelos. Both fought not just for national independence, but also for constitutional rule, equal rights for Indians and mestizos, and the liberation of slaves. Their platform gained mass support from the lower classes, but angered many upper-class Mexicans, even those who wanted independence. In 1815, Morelos was killed like Hidalgo before him, but by conservative Mexicans, not the Spanish. In the end, Mexico’s revolt was completed by the elite, not the lower classes. A right-wing colonel, Agustín Iturbide, overthrew Spanish rule in 1820-1821. He tried to establish himself as a dictator, but was quickly ousted. A Mexican republic was proclaimed in 1823, the same year that the nations immediately to the south established the United Provinces of Central America.
A year earlier (1822), the Brazil Republic freed from the Portuguese was proclaimed.
Questions for experts
1. What were the causes of Haitian and Latin American revolutions? In your opinion, what prevented the colonial empires (France in case of Haiti and Spain in case of Latin America) from compromises with the discontent people and, thus, keeping their authority?
2. What were the main forces of revolutions?
3. What were the main outcomes of the revolutions?
4. Compared to (with) other revolutions, what were the distinct features of the given revolutions? (Before answering, read about other revolutions in the theme 10 section).