This document provides an overview of the colonial political, social, and economic structures that existed in Latin America under Spanish and Portuguese rule. It then discusses the revolutionary influences, such as the Enlightenment and other revolutions, that prompted independence movements in Latin America. Several independence movements are summarized, including those in Mexico, Haiti, and South America. The establishment of new political entities in the aftermath of independence, such as the First Mexican Empire, is also briefly outlined.

1. Latin American
Revolutions

2. Colonial Political Structures
Council of the Indies – Spanish royal advisors with
absolute power of the Americas
viceroys - direct representatives of the king
• Spain:
o New Spain (modern Mexico, Southwest United
States, and Central America)
o New Granada (modern Colombia, Panama,
Venezuela, and Ecuador)
o Peru (modern Peru and Chile)
o Rio de la Plata (modern Argentina, Bolivia,
Paraguay, and Uruguay)
• Portugal:
o Brazil
audiencia - royal court of appeals

3. modern political borders

4. Colonial Social Structure
sistema de castas – caste system
peninsulares – whites born in Europe
creoles – whites born in the Americas;
owned land and dominated Latin American
economies
mestizos - mixed European and native ancestry
mulattos - mixed European and African ancestry
zambos – mixed African and native ancestry

5. Colonial Economic Structure
encomienda - grant of Indian laborers made to Spanish conquerors and settlers in
Mesoamerica and South America; basis for earliest forms of coerced labor in Spanish colonies
haciendas - rural estates in Spanish colonies in New World; produced agricultural products for
consumers in America; basis of wealth and power for local creole aristocracy

6. Colonial Economic Structure
mining – Cerro Potosi, Peru (modern Bolivia) and Zacatecas, Mexico
Cerro Rico and the Imperial
Municipality of Potosí,
Gaspar Miguel de Berrío (1758)

7. Colonial Economic Structure
mining – American silver funded global trade with Asia

8. Revolutionary Influences
creoles were inspired by Enlightenment ideas
Latin American revolutions were prompted by
the American and French Revolutions and the
Napoleonic occupation of Spain and Portugal

9. Revolutionary Influences
creole elites:
• resented state control of colonial trade
• resented social dominance of peninsulares
• resented exclusion from government positions
• were attracted by ideas of a free press, free
trade, and legal equality
amigos del pais - clubs and associations
dedicated to improvements and reform in Spanish
colonies; called for material improvements rather
than political reform
18th century silver water heater from Bolivia used for drinking maté and coca-leaf teas;
this would have been used by elite creoles and peninsulares

10. Haitian Revolution
1789: St. Domingue (western
Hispaniola) was the world’s
most profitable colony.

11. Haitian Revolution
452,000 enslaved persons
(2/3 African-born) controlled
by 32,000 whites produced
~40% of sugar and ~60% of
coffee consumed in Europe.
Many of the 16,000 gens de
couleur and 12,000 freedmen
were prosperous, well-
educated artisans,
shopkeepers or landowners,
but did not have the same
rights as white Frenchmen.
Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants by Agostino Brunias (late 1700s)

12. Haitian Revolution
August 1789: During the French Revolution, the new
National Assembly issued The Declaration of the
Rights of Man and Citizen which recognized that
France was a nation of equal citizens with natural
rights governed by popular sovereignty.

13. Haitian Revolution
Julien Raimond, a slave-
owning gen de couleur, argued
before the French National
Assembly for the repeal of
racially discriminatory colonial
laws and extension of voting
rights to free men of color.
“Mortals are equal, it's not birth it's only virtue that makes the difference.”

14. Haitian Revolution
March 1790: The French
National Assembly granted
colonies the right to form
local governments.
Vincent Oge, a wealthy free
man of color, fought for the
political inclusion of free gens
de couleur in the new
government of Saint-
Domingue.
When his demands were
unmet, he organized a failed
revolt. His execution
convinced gens de couleur
that newly won rights would
be limited to whites only, and
racial tensions rose.
Oge was brutally executed in the public square of the colonial capital
through use of a breaking wheel like this 16th century German criminal.

15. Haitian Revolution
August 1791: Slaves met in a secret Vodou religious ceremony at Bois Caïman led by Dutty
Boukman to launch a revolt. Within weeks, 100,000 slaves had burned over 1,000 plantations
and killed thousands of whites. Though Boukman was captured and executed, the self-
emancipated slaves controlled 1/3 of the colony by 1792.
Ceremonie du Bois-Caiman by Andre Normil (1990)

16. Haitian Revolution
Toussaint L’Ouverture emerged as the most prominent
leader of the slave rebellion. By 1801, he controlled the
entire island.
In 1802, he agreed to an armistice if France would end
slavery. However, the French accused L’Ouverture
planning another uprising, arrested him, and tortured
him to death in a French prison.

17. Haitian Revolution
1803: L’Ouverture’s forces, now led by
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, resumed
the fight and defeated the French at
the battle of Vertieres.

18. Haitian Revolution
The defeat prompted
Napoleon’s sale of the
Louisiana Territory to the
United States in 1803.

19. Haitian Revolution
1804: Dessalines was named emperor of newly-independent Haiti
following the most successful slave-revolt in history.
The island’s remaining 3,000 whites were murdered.

20. Peninsular War
1808: Napoleon invaded the Iberian peninsula and installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as
king of Spain. Latin American subjects felt no loyalty the new regime.

21. Mexican War of Independence
1810: Inspired by the French Revolution, Mexican priest
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla urged native peoples and
mestizos to free themselves from Spain.

22. Mexican War of Independence
September 16, 1810: Hidalgo led 80,000 natives and
mestizos in an unsuccessful attack on Spanish forces.
After Hidalgo’s execution, his student, Jose Morelos,
led the fight for Mexican Independence until his own
capture and execution in 1814.
Execution of Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende

23. Mexican War of Independence
Creoles and peninsulares feared the native and
mestizo revolt. They fought to first defeat the
popular uprising, and then overthrew the Spanish.
Creole general Agustin de Iturbide led an alliance
of conservatives and liberals who captured Mexico
City from Spain in 1821.

24. First Mexican Empire
Iturbide proclaimed himself emperor of
the independent First Mexican Empire,
but he was soon deposed in 1823.
Coat of arms of the First Mexican Empire

25. First Mexican Empire
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras,
Nicaragua, and Costa Rica won
independence from Mexico in 1823
and formed the United Provinces
of Central America, a democratic
republic.

26. First Mexican Republic
After Iturbide was overthrown, the
United Mexican States, the first
Mexican federal republic, was
established in 1824.

27. First Mexican Republic
Following independence, Latin
American politics were driven
by a conflict over how to
concentrate political power.
Centralists, conservative
Mexican landowners and
former monarchists, favored
Catholicism and a strong
central government.
Federalists, liberal
republicans, favored
secularism and weak
government power divided
among the federated states.
They wanted economic policies
set by local governments.

28. Centralist Republic of Mexico
In 1835, the conservative caudillo
strongman Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
seized power and proclaimed a new
Centralist Republic of Mexico.
In 1841, the United Provinces of Central
America likewise dissolved due to conflict
between centralists and federalists.

29. South American Wars of Independence
1811: Venezuela declared independence from Spain, but a
revolutionary army led by Simón Bolívar, the Liberator
suffered numerous defeats. He twice went into exile.

30. South American Wars of Independence
1816-1817: Argentina declared independence.
José de San Martín led an army across the
Andes where he joined with forces led by
Bernardo O’Higgins to liberate Chile.
San Martín O’Higgins

31. South American Wars of Independence
1819: Bolívar led a force through the Andes and
took the Spanish army in Bogotá completely by
surprise and won a decisive victory at the Battle of
Boyacá.

32. South American Wars of Independence
Bolívar became president of the independent state of Gran Colombia.

33. South American Wars of Independence
1822: After winning Venezuela’s independence,
Bolívar marched south and met San Martín at the
Guayaquil Conference in Ecuador.

34. South American Wars of Independence
1824: Their united revolutionary forces defeated
the Spanish at the Battle of Ayacucho in Peru,
the last major battle of the war for independence.
Batalla de Ayacucho by Martín Tovar y Tovar

35. South American Wars of Independence
1830: Gran Colombia dissolved over disputes between federalism and centralism into
Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Panama won independence from Colombia in 1903.

36. Empire of Brazil
1807–1820: Portuguese king João VI fled to Brazil during the Napoleonic Peninsular War and
ruled the Portuguese Empire from Rio de Janeiro.
João VI

37. Empire of Brazil
1822: João VI returned to Europe.
His son, Pedro I, was declared
constitutional emperor of Brazil.
Pedro I