Latin America- Bolivar | History Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Colonization of Latin America

• Extensive European colonization began in 1492 when a Spanish expedition led by Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus sailed westward in search of a new trade route to the Far East (India) but unintentionally discovered the Americas. Columbus's initial voyages (1492-1493) reached various Caribbean islands, including the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. As the sponsor of Columbus's journeys, Spain emerged as the first European power to establish and colonize vast territories, spanning from North America and the Caribbean to the southern tip of South America. Spanish cities were founded as early as 1496, with Santo Domingo in present-day Dominican Republic being one of the first.
• France also established colonies in the Americas, including parts of eastern North America, several Caribbean islands, and small coastal regions of South America. Portugal focused on colonizing Brazil and attempted early colonization efforts along the coasts of present-day Canada.
• During this period, Europe was preoccupied with internal conflicts and was gradually recovering from the population loss caused by the bubonic plague. The rapid growth in wealth and power that Europe experienced in the following centuries was unexpected in the early 1400s.
• Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere came under the nominal control of European governments, leading to profound changes in its landscape, population, and the introduction of new plant and animal species. In the 19th century alone, over 50 million people emigrated from Europe to the Americas.
• The post-1492 era is known as the period of the Columbian Exchange, characterized by a widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including enslaved individuals), communicable diseases, and ideas between the Americas and the Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following Columbus's voyages.

Early European Explorations and Conquests

• Early explorations and conquests were undertaken by the Spanish and Portuguese soon after their own reconquest of Iberia in 1492. The Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified by the Pope in 1494 following Columbus's return, divided the non-European world between Spain and Portugal along a north-south boundary through the Atlantic Ocean, east of Brazil.
• Based on this treaty and early claims by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513, the Spanish expanded their territories in North, Central, and South America. By the mid-16th century, the Spanish Crown had established control over much of western South America, Central America, and southern North America, in addition to earlier Caribbean territories.
• During this period, Portugal claimed lands in North America (Canada) and colonized much of eastern South America, naming it Santa Cruz and Brazil.
• Other European nations soon contested the Treaty of Tordesillas. England and France attempted to establish colonies in the Americas in the 16th century, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful. However, by the following century, England, France, and the Dutch Republic succeeded in establishing permanent colonies, some on Caribbean islands already conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease, and others in eastern North America, which had not been colonized by Spain north of Florida.
• As more nations became interested in colonization, competition for territory intensified. Colonists often faced threats from neighboring colonies, indigenous tribes, and pirates.

Early State-Sponsored Colonization

• The first phase of well-financed European activity in the Americas began with the Atlantic crossings of Christopher Columbus (1492-1504), sponsored by Spain, which aimed to find a new route to India and China, known as "the Indies." Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. Amerigo Vespucci, working for Portugal between 1497 and 1513, established that Columbus had discovered a new set of continents, leading to the Latinized version of his first name, America, being used for these continents.
• In 1513, Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the New World. In a significant historical action, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and all adjoining lands for the Spanish Crown. It wasn't until 1517 that another expedition, originating from Cuba, visited Central America in search of slaves.
• These explorations were followed, particularly in the case of Spain, by a phase of conquest. The Spaniards, having just completed the Reconquista of Spain from Muslim rule, were the first to colonize the Americas.
• Ten years after Columbus's discovery, the administration of Hispaniola (in the Caribbean) was entrusted to Nicolás de Ovando, a Spanish soldier from a noble family. The encomienda system, a legal framework used by the Spanish crown to regulate Native Americans and reward individual Spaniards for services to the crown, was gradually implemented. Over the first century and a half following Columbus's voyages, the native population of the Americas declined by an estimated 80%, primarily due to outbreaks of Old World diseases.
• In 1532, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor of the Spanish Empire, sent a vice-king to Mexico to curb Hernán Cortés's independent initiatives. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who initiated the first phase of Spanish colonization of the Americas.
• Two years later, Charles V signed the New Laws, prohibiting slavery and forced labor but claiming all American lands and indigenous people as his subjects. In May 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull granting the new lands to the Kingdom of Spain in exchange for the evangelization of the people. Consequently, many priests accompanied Columbus on his second voyage.
• In 1537, a papal bull by Pope Paul III acknowledged that Native Americans had souls, prohibiting their enslavement, although some argued that a rebellious native could be enslaved if captured. The process of Christianization was initially violent; when the first Franciscans arrived in Mexico in 1524, they destroyed places dedicated to pagan cults, alienating much of the local population. In the 1530s, they began to adapt Christian practices to local customs, including building new churches on the sites of ancient places of worship.

Colonisation by Spain

• Colonial expansion was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Catholic faith through indigenous conversions. 
• Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus and continuing for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across half of South America, most of Central America and the Caribbean Islands, and much of North America. 
• In the early 19th century, the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the emancipation of most Spanish colonies in the Americas, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico, which were finally given up in 1898, following the Spanish-American War, together with Guam and the Philippines in the Pacific. Spain’s loss of these last territories politically ended the Spanish colonization in the Americas.

Demographic impact: 

• It has been estimated that in the 16th century about 240,000 Spaniards emigrated to the Americas, and in the 17th century about 500,000, predominantly to Mexico and Ecuador.In Hispaniola the indigenous population of several hundred thousand declined to sixty thousand by 1509.The population of the Native Amerindian population in Mexico declined by an estimated 90% by the early 17th century.In Peru the indigenous Amerindian population of around 6.5 million declined to 1 million by the early 17th century.The indigenous Californian population at first contact, in 1769, was about 310,000 and had dropped to 25,000 by 1910. The vast majority of the decline happened after the Spanish period, in the Mexican and American periods of Californian history (1821–1910).

Cultural impact: 

• The Spaniards were committed, by Royal decree, to convert their New World indigenous subjects to Catholicism. However, often initial efforts were questionably successful, as the indigenous people added Catholicism into their long standing traditional ceremonies and beliefs. The many native expressions, forms, practices, and items of art could be considered idolatry and prohibited or destroyed by Spanish missionaries, military and civilians. Though the Spanish did not force their language to the extent they did their religion, some indigenous languages of the Americas evolved into replacement with Spanish.

Liberation from Colonial Rule of Latin America

• After three centuries of colonial rule, independence came rather suddenly to most of Spanish and Portuguese America.
• Between 1808 and 1826 all of Latin America except the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico slipped out of the hands of the Iberian powers who had ruled the region since the conquest. The rapidity and timing of that dramatic change were the result of a combination of long-building tensions in colonial rule and a series of external events.
• The reforms imposed by the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century provoked great instability in the relations between the rulers and their colonial subjects in the Americas. In an effort to better control the administration and economy of the overseas possessions the Crown reintroduced the practice of appointing outsiders, to the various royal offices throughout the empire. This meant that Spanish Americans lost the gains they had made in holding local offices as a result of the sale of offices during the previous century and a half. In some areas—such as Cuba—the reforms had positive effects, improving the local economy and the efficiency of the government.
• In other areas, the changes in crown’s economic and administrative policies led to tensions with locals, which at times erupted into open revolts, such as the Revolt in New Granada and the Rebellion in Peru. Many Creoles (those of Spanish parentage but who were born in America) felt Bourbon policy to be an unfair attack on their wealth, political power, and social status. Others did not suffer during the second half of the 18th century; indeed, the gradual loosening of trade restrictions actually benefited some Creoles in Venezuela and certain areas.
• However, those profits merely whetted those Creoles’ appetites for greater free trade than the Bourbons were willing to grant. More generally, Creoles reacted angrily against the crown’s preference for peninsulars in administrative positions and its declining support of the caste system and the Creoles’ privileged status within it. After hundreds of years of proven service to Spain, the American-born elites felt that the Bourbons were now treating them like a recently conquered nation.
• These factors were not the direct causes of the wars of independence, which took place decades later, but they were important elements of the political background in which the wars took place.
• A more direct cause of the Spanish American wars of independence were the unique developments occurring within the Kingdom of Spain and its monarchy during this period. In cities throughout the region, Creole frustrations increasingly found expression in ideas derived from the Enlightenment.
• Imperial prohibitions proved unable to stop the flow of potentially subversive English, French, and North American works into the colonies of Latin America. Creole participants in conspiracies against Portugal and Spain at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century showed familiarity with such European Enlightenment thinkers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
• The Enlightenment clearly informed the aims of dissident Creoles and inspired some of the later, great leaders of the independence movements across Latin America. They were influenced by the examples of the Atlantic Revolutions. The Enlightenment spurred the desire for social and economic reform to spread throughout Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Ideas about free trade and physiocratic economics were raised by the Enlightenment in Spain. The political reforms implemented and the many constitutions written both in Spain and throughout the Spanish world during the wars of independence were influenced by these factors. Still, these ideas were not, strictly speaking, causes of independence.
• Creoles selectively adapted rather than simply embraced the thought that had informed revolutions in North America and France. Leaders in Latin America tended to shy away from the more socially radical European doctrines. Moreover, the influence of those ideologies was sharply restricted; with few exceptions only small circles of educated, urban elites had access to Enlightenment thought. At most, foreign ideas helped foster a more questioning attitude toward traditional institutions and authority.
• European diplomatic and military events provided the final catalyst that turned Creole discontent into full-fledged movements for Latin American independence. When the Spanish crown entered into an alliance with France in 1795, it set off a series of developments that opened up economic and political distance between the Iberian countries and their American colonies.

By siding with France, Spain pitted itself against England, the dominant sea power of the period, which used its naval forces to reduce and eventually cut communications between Spain and the Americas. Unable to preserve any sort of monopoly on trade, the Spanish crown was forced to loosen the restrictions on its colonies’ commerce. Spanish Americans now found themselves able to trade legally with other colonies, as well as with any neutral countries such as the United States. Spain’s wartime liberalization of colonial trade sharpened Creoles’ desires for greater economic self-determination.

• Occurrences in Europe in the early 19th century created a deep political divide between Spain and its American colonies. In 1807 the Spanish king, Charles IV, granted passage through Spanish territory to Napoleon’s forces on their way to invade Portugal. The immediate effect of that concession was to send the Portuguese ruler, Prince Regent John, fleeing in British ships to Brazil. Arriving in Rio de Janeiro with some 15,000 officials, nobles, and other members of his court, John transformed the Brazilian colony into the administrative centre of his empire.
• When Napoleon turned on his Spanish allies in 1808, events took a disastrous turn for Spain and its dominion in the Americas. Shortly after Charles had abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand, Napoleon had them both imprisoned. In the process he set off a political crisis that swept across both Spain and its possessions. The Spanish political tradition centred on the figure of the monarch, yet, with Charles and Ferdinand removed from the scene, the hub of all political authority was missing.
• In 1810 a Cortes (Parliament) emerged in Cádiz to represent both Spain and Spanish America. Two years later it produced a new, liberal constitution that proclaimed Spain’s American possessions to be full members of the kingdom and not mere colonies. Yet the Creoles who participated in the new Cortes were denied equal representation. Moreover, the Cortes would not concede permanent free trade to the Americans and obstinately refused to grant any degree of meaningful autonomy to the overseas dominions.
• Having had a taste of freedom during their political and economic isolation from the mother country, Spanish Americans did not easily consent to a reduction of their power and autonomy. Two other European developments further dashed the hopes of Creoles, pushing them more decisively toward independence. The year 1814 saw the restoration of Ferdinand to the throne and with it the energetic attempt to reestablish Spanish imperial power in the Americas. Rejecting compromise and reform, Ferdinand resorted to military force to bring wayward Spanish-American regions back into the empire as colonies. The effort only served to harden the position of Creole rebels.

In 1820 troops waiting in Cádiz to be sent as part of the crown’s military campaigns revolted, forcing Ferdinand to agree to a series of liberal measures. That concession divided and weakened loyalist opposition to independence in the Americas.

The Wars of Independence, 1808–26

• The ultimate triumph of Latin American patriots over Spain and the diminishing loyalist factions began in 1808 amidst a political crisis in Spain. With the Spanish king and his son Ferdinand captured by Napoleon, Creoles and peninsulars started to vie for power across Spanish America.
• During the period of 1808–10, juntas emerged to govern in the name of Ferdinand VII. In places like Mexico City and Montevideo, caretaker governments were established by loyal peninsular Spaniards keen on countering Creole threats. Conversely, in cities such as Santiago, Caracas, and Bogota, it was the Creoles who dominated the provisional juntas.
• Although not all these governments were long-lasting, with loyalist troops swiftly suppressing Creole-led juntas in La Paz and Quito, by 1810, a clear trend was emerging. Without denouncing Ferdinand, Creoles across most of the region were moving towards establishing their own autonomous governments.
• Transforming these early initiatives into a definitive break from Spanish control required immense sacrifice. Over the next fifteen years, Spanish Americans had to defend their movement towards independence with arms.

Spanish America

The Southern Movement in South America

• From the north, the movement led by Simon Bolivar, known as the Liberator, gained prominence. From the south, another powerful force was directed by Jose de San Martin, a more cautious leader. After difficult conquests in their home regions, these two movements spread the cause of independence through other territories, eventually meeting on the central Pacific coast. From there, troops under northern generals extinguished the last remnants of loyalist resistance in Peru and Bolivia by 1826.
• The struggles for independence in the south began even before Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal and Spain. In 1806, a British expeditionary force captured Buenos Aires. When Spanish colonial officials failed to effectively respond to the invasion, a volunteer militia of Creoles and peninsulars organized resistance and expelled the British.
• In May 1810, prominent Creoles in Buenos Aires, having competed with peninsulars for power in the intervening years, compelled the last Spanish viceroy to consent to a cabildo abierto, an extraordinary open meeting of the municipal council and local notables. Although pretending loyalty to Ferdinand, the junta produced by that session marked the end of Spanish rule in Buenos Aires and its hinterland.
• After the revolution of May 1810, the region was the only one to resist reconquest by loyalist troops throughout the period of the independence wars. However, independence in the former Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata faced significant challenges in the years following 1810. Central authority was unstable in Buenos Aires, with an early radical liberal government led by Mariano Moreno giving way to a succession of triumvirates and supreme directors.
• More troubling were the intense rivalries emerging between Buenos Aires and other provinces. From the outset, Buenos Aires’ aim of bringing all former viceregal territories under its control sparked waves of discord in the outlying provinces. At stake was not only political autonomy but also economic interests; the Creole merchants of Buenos Aires, who initially sought the liberalization of colonial trade restrictions in the region, later aimed to maintain their economic dominance over the interior.
• A constituent assembly in 1813 adopted a flag, anthem, and other symbols of national identity, but this apparent unity soon fractured. This was evident in the assembly that finally declared independence in 1816; that body received no delegates from several provinces, even though it was held outside Buenos Aires. Distinct interests and long-standing resentment of the capital led different regions in the south to pursue separate paths.
• Across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires, Montevideo and its surroundings became the separate “Eastern State,” (later Uruguay). Caught between the loyalism of Spanish officers and the imperialist ambitions of Buenos Aires and Portuguese Brazil, regional leader Jose Gervasio Artigas formed an army of thousands of gauchos. By 1815, Artigas and this force dominated Uruguay and had allied with other provinces to oppose Buenos Aires.
• Buenos Aires achieved similarly mixed results in other neighboring regions, losing control of many while spreading independence from Spain. Paraguay resisted Buenos Aires’ military and embarked on a path of relative isolation from the outside world. Other expeditions carried the cause to Upper Peru, the region that would become Bolivia. After initial victories there, forces from Buenos Aires retreated.
• By the time Bolívar’s armies completed the liberation of Upper Peru, the region had long since separated itself from Buenos Aires.
• The main thrust of the southern independence forces found much greater success on the Pacific coast. In 1817, San Martín, a Latin American-born former officer in the Spanish military, led 5,000 men in a dramatic crossing of the Andes and struck at a point in Chile where loyalist forces had not anticipated an invasion. In alliance with Chilean patriots under Bernardo O’Higgins, San Martín’s army restored independence to a region whose highly factionalized junta had been defeated by royalists in 1814.
• With Chile as his base, San Martín then faced the challenge of liberating the Spanish stronghold of Peru. After establishing naval dominance in the region, the southern movement advanced northward. However, the task was formidable. Many Peruvian Creoles, having benefited from colonial monopolies and fearing the social upheaval threatened by the late 18th-century revolt, were reluctant to break with Spain. As a result, San Martín’s forces could only maintain a tenuous hold on Lima and the coast. The final eradication of loyalist resistance in the highlands required the intervention of northern armies.

The North and the Culmination of Independence

• Independence movements in the northern regions of Spanish South America began in 1806. The small group of foreign volunteers that the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda brought to his homeland failed to incite the populace to rise against Spanish rule. Creoles in the region wanted an expansion of the free trade that was benefiting their plantation economy. However, they feared that the removal of Spanish control might lead to a revolution that would threaten their own power.
• Creole elites in Venezuela were particularly wary due to the recent massive revolution in the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue. Starting in 1791, a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue escalated into a general insurrection against the plantation system and French colonial authority. This rebellion evolved into a civil war between blacks and whites and an international conflict, with England and Spain backing the white plantation owners and the rebels, respectively. By the early 19th century, the rebels had transformed what was once a model colony into the independent nation of Haiti.
• Partly inspired by events in the Caribbean, slaves in Venezuela also attempted uprisings in the 1790s. While Haiti served as a beacon of hope for the enslaved, it also represented a warning of the potential dangers for elites in cacao-growing regions of Venezuela and other slave societies in the Americas.
• Creole anxieties contributed to the persistence of strong loyalist factions in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, but they did not prevent the emergence of an independence struggle there. In 1810, Creoles organized revolutionary governments that proclaimed some social and economic reforms, and in Venezuela, they openly declared a break with Spain the following year.
• Loyalist forces opposed the Venezuelan patriots from the outset, leading to a pattern where patriot rebels controlled the capital city and its surroundings but could not dominate large areas of the countryside. Some interpreted the earthquake that devastated patriot-held areas in 1812 as a sign of divine disapproval of the revolution.

1812 marked the beginning of a challenging period for the independence cause. Loyalist forces defeated the rebels’ military, forcing Bolívar and others to seek refuge in New Granada proper (the heart of the viceroyalty). Bolívar soon returned to Venezuela with a new army in 1813, launching a campaign marked by the army’s motto, “War to the death.” Despite the passionate and violent response from loyalists and significant support from the common people of mixed ethnicity, the revolutionists achieved only temporary victories.

• The army led by loyalist Jose Tomas Boves showcased the crucial military role that the llaneros (cowboys) would play in the region’s struggle. These highly mobile and fierce fighters turned the tide against independence, pushing Bolívar out of his home country once again.
• By 1815, the independence movements in Venezuela and much of Spanish South America appeared to be faltering. A large military expedition sent by Ferdinand VII reconquered Venezuela and most of New Granada that year. Another invasion led by Bolívar in 1816 ended in failure.
• In 1817, a revitalized independence movement emerged, winning the struggle in the north and pushing into the Andean highlands, largely galvanized by Bolívar. Although Bolívar was a key figure in the movement as an ideologue, military leader, and political catalyst, he did not achieve victory alone. In his famous writing, the “Jamaica Letter” (written during one of his exiles in 1815), Bolívar expressed his unwavering commitment to the cause of independence despite the patriots’ repeated defeats.
• While criticizing Spanish colonialism, the Jamaica Letter also envisioned a future where the former colonies would establish autonomous, centralized republican governments. Although Bolívar had liberal inclinations, he expressed skepticism about his fellow Latin Americans’ ability to self-govern, revealing a socially conservative and politically authoritarian side. He advised choosing a government system that was most likely to succeed rather than the best one.
• Thus, the republic he advocated was effectively oligarchic, with socioeconomic and literacy qualifications for voting and power concentrated in a strong executive. While he supported granting civil liberties to all male citizens and abolishing slavery, Bolívar feared that the deaths of many peninsular soldiers during the wars would lead to “pardocracy,” or rule by pardos (people of mixed ethnicity), which he viewed as a threat to a virtuous governing system.
• Bolívar, known as The Liberator, emerged as a significant military and political force in the struggles that began in 1817. He broadened the movement’s focus, turning his attention to New Granada and garnering support among the casta majority. A group of llaneros of mixed ethnicity led by Jose Antonio Paez proved crucial to the patriots’ military victories in 1818–19.

A major turning point in this success came with the defeat of the loyalist defenders of Bogotá in 1819. After leading his army up the eastern Andes, Bolívar delivered a crushing blow to his enemies in the Battle of Boyacá.

Consolidating victory in the north proved challenging. A congress convened by Bolívar in Angostura in 1819 named him president of Gran Colombia, a union of present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. However, sharp divisions were evident in the region even before Angostura, ultimately undermining Bolívar’s hopes of uniting the former Spanish colonies into a single nation.

• The Bogotá area, for instance, had previously declined to join in a confederation with the rest of revolutionary New Granada. Moreover, loyalist supporters still controlled much of Venezuela, parts of the Colombian Andes, and all of Ecuador.
• Despite these challenges, the tide had turned in favor of independence, and further military campaigns liberated New Granada and Venezuela by 1821. A constituent congress in 1821 elected Bolívar president of a more centralized Gran Colombia. After leaving his trusted aide, Francisco Santander, to govern in Bogotá, Bolívar continued into Ecuador and the central Andes.
• Here, the southern and northern armies united to eliminate the remaining loyalist strongholds. In 1822, Bolívar and San Martín met in Ecuador. San Martín recognized that only Bolívar and his supporters could complete the liberation of the Andes. From that point, the northerners took charge of the struggle in Peru and Bolivia.
• After allowing Spanish forces to threaten recapturing the lands liberated by San Martín’s armies, Bolívar responded to the appeals of Peruvian Creoles and led his soldiers to victory in Lima. While he organized the government there, his lieutenants set out to conquer the highlands of Peru and Upper Peru. One of them, the Venezuelan Antonio Sucre, led the patriots to victory at Ayacucho in 1824, marking the last major battle of the war.

Within two years, independence fighters eliminated the last of the loyalist resistance, and South America was free from Spanish control.

Mexico and Central America

• The independence of Mexico, like that of Peru, another major center of Spain’s American empire, came late. Mexican cities had a strong segment of Creoles and peninsular Spaniards who benefited from the old imperial system. Mexican Creoles, similar to those in Peru, were motivated to cling to Spain and stability by the fear of a major social uprising.
• For many powerful figures in Mexican society, a break with Spain promised a loss of traditional status and power, along with the possibility of social revolution. What was unique to the Mexican case was that the popular rebellion that erupted in 1810 was the first significant call for independence in the region.
• Between 1808 and 1810, peninsulars acted decisively to maintain Spain’s authority in the region. Rejecting the idea of a congress to address governance in the absence of the Spanish king, peninsulars in Mexico City deposed the viceroy and persecuted Creoles. They then welcomed weaker viceroys whom they could dominate.
• Despite peninsular efforts, an independence struggle emerged. In 1810, the Bajío region witnessed a unique movement led by radical priest Miguel Hidalgo. When officials uncovered the conspiracy that Hidalgo and other Creoles had been planning, the priest appealed directly to the indigenous and mestizo populace. In 1810, he delivered the famous speech, “The Cry of Dolores,” urging the people to protect the interests of their King Fernando VII (captured by Napoleon) by revolting against the European-born Spaniards who had overthrown the Spanish Viceroy.
• The Bajío, a rich agricultural and mining zone, had recently faced economic difficulties that particularly impacted rural and urban workers. Hidalgo attempted to assist the poor by teaching them how to grow olives and grapes, but these crops were discouraged or prohibited by authorities due to Spanish imports. Consequently, many responded eagerly to Hidalgo’s call. Although framed as a resistance to peninsulars, it was effectively a plea for independence.

The enthusiasm Hidalgo stirred among Indians and mestizos alarmed both Creole and peninsular elites. Hidalgo’s untrained army grew to around 80,000 members as it conquered towns and cities, ultimately threatening Mexico City itself. The movement for independence was evolving into a race and class war. Fearing the potential atrocities his troops might commit in the capital, Hidalgo halted the movement from entering Mexico City. Shortly afterward, viceregal government troops caught up with the rebels. After a dramatic military defeat, Hidalgo was captured and executed in early 1811.

• The death of its first leader did not signify the end of Mexico’s initial independence campaign. Another priest, the mestizo Morelos, soon took over the movement. Under Morelos, the rebellion gained clearer objectives of independence and social and economic reform, along with greater organization and a broader social base. However, with Morelos’s defeat and death in 1815, the potential national scope of the movement effectively came to an end. Although smaller forces led by figures like Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria (Manuel Félix Fernández) continued to harass the powerful through guerrilla warfare, the popular movement for independence in Mexico no longer posed a significant threat to elite power.
• Final independence did not result from the efforts of Hidalgo, Morelos, or the forces that constituted their independence drive. Instead, it emerged as a conservative initiative led by military officers, merchants, and the Roman Catholic Church. The liberals who carried out the 1820 revolt in Spain aimed to eliminate the special privileges of the church and military. Concerned about the threat to these two pillars of the Mexican government and newly confident in their ability to manage popular forces, Creoles turned against Spanish rule in 1820–21.
• Two figures from the early rebellion played central roles in liberating Mexico. One, Guerrero, had been an insurgent chief; the other, Iturbide, had been an officer in the campaign against the popular independence movement. They united behind the Iguala Plan, which centered on independence, respect for the church, and equality between Mexicans and peninsulars. This plan garnered support from many Creoles, Spaniards, and former rebels. As royal troops defected to Iturbide’s cause, the new Spanish administrator was soon compelled to accept the inevitability of Mexican independence.
• A year later, in 1822, Iturbide arranged his own coronation as Agustin I, Emperor of Mexico. In 1823, a revolt that included former insurgent Guadalupe Victoria (who, like Guerrero, had abandoned the cause of popular independence) curtailed Iturbide’s reign as monarch. The repercussions of this overthrow extended from Mexico throughout Central America. In Mexico, the rebellion led to the establishment of a republic and the rise of Santa Anna, who played a central role in the nation’s politics for several decades.

The provinces of the Kingdom of Guatemala, which included present-day Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, had adhered to Iturbide’s Mexico by 1822. These Central American provinces separated from Mexico following Iturbide’s downfall, forming a federation known as the United Provinces of Central America. This federation lasted only until 1838, when regionalism led to the creation of separate countries in the region.

Brazil

Colonisation of Brazil

• The area now known as Brazil was claimed by Portugal in April 1500 when the Portuguese fleet, led by Cabral, arrived on the shores of Bahia. Upon their arrival, the Portuguese encountered Indigenous nations divided into various tribes.
• Although the Portuguese sailors stayed for only nine days, the indigenous people were intrigued by the iron tools, the Catholic mass service, and the alcoholic beverages they observed. The Portuguese, perceiving this interest in the Roman Catholic religion, assumed that the indigenous people would quickly convert to Christianity with education.
• Initially, Portugal did not recognize Brazil's value, as their main imports came from India and the Far East. It was primarily the New Christians (converted Jews) who scouted and defended the coast, trading in brazilwood and sharing their monopoly contracts with the Portuguese king. This led to a system of royal and private ownership.
• Brazilwood, providing a rich red dye valuable for textiles and clothing, attracted other European nations. The French and Spanish made repeated attempts to invade Brazil, but the Portuguese fiercely defended their territory by dispatching strong fleets and establishing permanent settlements. The first settlement, Sao Vicente, was established in 1532.
• Colonization effectively began in 1534 when King Dom Joao III divided the territory into fifteen hereditary captaincies. However, this system proved problematic, leading to the appointment of a Governor-General to administer the entire colony in 1549.
• Early Portuguese management, influenced by their violent domination in India, clashed with Brazilian locals. The indigenous people resisted the Portuguese, leading the king to take direct control of the colony. Sousa was appointed as the first Governor-General of Brazil in 1549 and declared Salvador as the capital city.
• Sousa waged war against the indigenous people to reduce the threat from the French, who planned to cooperate with the locals. He was instrumental in building towns, sugar mills, and important structures. However, the crown later ordered Sousa to treat the locals well, aiming to convert them to Christianity, with non-converters facing enslavement.
• As cultures and genes intermixed, colonists adopted Brazilian culture, while indigenous people assimilated European culture. Over time, the concept of slavery was disapproved by the crown and bishop of Portugal, leading to a significant drop in the number of slaves in Brazil. The Portuguese assimilated some native tribes, while others disappeared due to wars or diseases brought by Europeans.
• In 1562 and 1563, epidemics of smallpox, measles, and flu devastated the local population, followed by famine. Desperate for food and income, locals resorted to selling themselves as slaves. Investors were needed for land and sugar mills, and positive relationships with locals were crucial.
• By the end of the 1500s, sugar became Brazil's agricultural and financial pillar. As local indigenous populations fled to escape colonial pressures, European settlers began importing slaves from Africa. By the mid-16th century, sugar had become Brazil's most important export due to rising international demand. Over 963,000 African slaves were brought to Brazil by 1700, more than to all other parts of the Americas combined.
• Through conflicts with the French, the Portuguese expanded their territory to the southeast, capturing Rio de Janeiro in 1567, and to the northwest, taking São Luís in 1615. They also sent military expeditions to the Amazon rainforest and conquered English and Dutch strongholds, reaching the far south and founding Sacramento (present-day Uruguay) by 1680.
• At the end of the 17th century, sugar exports declined. However, the discovery of gold in the region later known as Minas Gerais in the 1690s saved the colony from collapse. Thousands of immigrants flocked to the mines from Brazil and Portugal.
• In 1775, the three colonies of Portuguese America (the State of Brazil, the State of Maranhao and Piaui, and the State of Grao-Para and Rio Negro) were united under the State of Brazil. This arrangement lasted until the end of Colonial Brazil, preventing Brazil from splitting into several countries like its Spanish-speaking neighbors.

The Spanish attempted to prevent Portuguese expansion according to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, successfully conquering Uruguay in 1777. However, a new treaty that year settled territorial disputes, confirming Portuguese sovereignty over expanded territories, including the Amazon Basin, in exchange for Spanish control over Uruguay, establishing most of Brazil's current borders.

From Colony to United Kingdom

• During Napoleon's invasion of Portugal in 1807, the Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil, establishing Rio de Janeiro as the de facto capital of Portugal. This relocation helped Brazil develop the institutions necessary for independent statehood and allowed it to trade freely with other nations.
• After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, King John VI of Portugal raised Brazil's status to an equal part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, rather than a mere colony, to allay Brazilian fears of returning to colonial status. This arrangement lasted for seven years.

Liberation from Colonial Rule of Brazil

• Brazil’s path to independence shared similarities with Spanish America, both triggered by Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, forcing the Portuguese royal family to relocate to Brazil in 1807. However, Brazil achieved independence with significantly less violence compared to Spanish America.
• Conspiracies against Portuguese rule between 1788 and 1798 indicated that certain groups in Brazil were already contemplating independence in the late 18th century. The administrative reforms attempted by Portugal in the late 18th century were also seen as burdensome by many in the colony. Nonetheless, the push for independence was not as strong in Brazil as it was in Spanish America.
• Portugal, with more limited resources than Spain, had not ruled its American subjects as strictly. Unlike Spain, Portugal did not enforce strict commercial monopolies or exclude American-born individuals from high administrative positions. Many Brazilian-born and Portuguese elites shared similar educations and overlapping economic interests. The reliance of Brazilian upper classes on African slavery also favored continued ties to Portugal, as plantation owners depended on the African slave trade controlled by Portugal.
• The transfer of the Portuguese court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1808 was a crucial step in the relatively bloodless end of colonial rule in Brazil. This transfer concentrated economic and administrative power in Rio de Janeiro, fostering integration and expansion of markets for Brazilian goods. Prince Regent John’s removal of restrictions on manufacturing and the opening of Brazilian ports to direct trade with friendly countries further facilitated Brazil’s emergence as a metropolis.
• Brazil faced a political crisis when groups in Portugal sought to reverse the metropolitanization of their former colony. Following the Napoleonic Wars, calls for John to return to Lisbon intensified. In 1815, John raised Brazil to the status of a kingdom equal to Portugal within the empire he ruled. However, after liberal revolts in Lisbon in 1820, John could no longer resist Portuguese demands.
• In a move that ultimately facilitated Brazil’s break from Portugal, John sailed for Lisbon in 1821 but left his son Dom Pedro behind as prince regent. Dom Pedro, urged by local elites, oversaw Brazil’s final emergence as an independent nation. The rising power of Brazil and Portuguese reaction against it pushed matters towards independence. The Portuguese government, constituted by liberals after 1820, sought to reduce Brazil to its previous colonial condition, threatening the concessions and powers won by the Brazilian elite.
• As tensions escalated, the Cortes demanded Dom Pedro return to Portugal. Instead, Dom Pedro declared his intention to stay in Brazil in a speech known as the “Fico” (“I am staying”). On September 7, 1822, he proclaimed Brazil’s independence and became its first emperor, completing Brazil’s transition from Portuguese colony to autonomous country. While there was some armed resistance from Portuguese garrisons in Brazil, the struggle was brief.
• Independence came at a cost, with Brazil experiencing a series of regional revolts over the next 25 years, some lasting a decade and costing many lives. Dom Pedro I was eventually overthrown in 1831 and succeeded by his son Dom Pedro II. However, the break with Portugal did not lead to the same level of disruption and devastation seen in much of Spanish America.

With its territory and economy largely intact, a government led by a prince from the traditional royal family, and minimal societal changes, Brazil enjoyed continuities that made it remarkably stable compared to other new states in the region.