INDEPENDENCE IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE

CARIBBEAN 1780-1830
I
n 1800 (map 1) few people, either in Europe or the
Americas, could have anticipated that 25 years later all
of Spain's mainland American colonies would be inde-
pendent republics. Several colonial rebellions had occurred
during the late 18th century, but they had all been defeated,
and should not be interpreted as antecedents of indepen-
dence. The most significant of these uprisings, in Peru, was
interesting for what it revealed about the fundamental alle-
giances of Spanish American Creoles (those of Spanish
descent, born in the colonies). In 1780 a Creole revolt
against Spanish tax increases was superseded by an anti-
Spanish rebellion among the American Indians, led by
Tupac Amaru. The small minority of Creoles hastily jetti-
soned their own protest in favour of helping the colonial
authorities to suppress this revivalist Inca movement - at
the cost of 100,000 lives, most of them Indian.

T In 1800 the majority of Latin America
was under Spanish control, administered by
viceroys and captains-general. The
Portuguese were still in control of Brazil and
the British ruled in Guiana, where they had
temporarily expanded to take over the
adjacent Dutch territory (now Surinam).
The French had taken control of Santo
Domingo from the Spanish but were to lose
it in 1809. They had already lost the colony
of Saint Domingue in 1804, when it became
independent Haiti. The Spanish territory
was rich in minerals and included Potosi,
the silver-mining capital of the world,
although its resources were by now on
CREOLE ALLEGIANCE
The Creoles' fear of the African, Indian and mixed-race
peoples, who made up approximately 80 per cent of
Spanish America's population in the late 18th century,
meant that many of them looked to Spain to defend their
dominant social and economic position. This rationale was
strengthened after a slave revolt in the French Caribbean
colony of Saint Domingue in 1791 led to the founding, in
1804, of Haiti, the first African-Caribbean republic in the
Americas. Most Creoles calculated that their interests
ultimately depended on Spain, despite an expanding list of
grievances against the mother country. It was not until
Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, and installed Joseph
Bonaparte in place of the Bourbon King Ferdinand, that
some Creoles began to reconsider their options. They were
presented with three main choices: to support Joseph
Bonaparte; to declare allegiance to the provisional Spanish

A Venezuelan-born Simon Bolivar was of Peru at the Battle of Junin. In this he

involved in two failed insurrections before his
successful campaigns against the Spanish in
New Granada in 1817-22, resulting in the
creation of a new Republic of Gran Colombia.
During this time Jose de San Martin, aided
by Bernardo O'Higgins, had been liberating
Chile. Leaving O'Higgins behind as president
of the new state of Chile, San Martin travelled
north to take Lima and to attempt to liberate
what was to become Peru. In 1822 he was
forced to seek help from Bolivar, and in
September 1822 retired from command.
Bolivar subsequently completed the liberation
was aided by Antonio Jose de Sucre, who
went on to win the final battle against the
Spanish at Ayacucho in 1824.
The following year Bolivar made a
triumphal visit to the region, during which
he established the independent republic of
Bolivia, which was named in honour of the
"Great Liberator". Bolivar himself returned to
Colombia but was unable to hold together the
republic he had created, and in 1830 (the
year of his death) it broke up into the three
modern-day states of Venezuela, Colombia
and Ecuador.

190

authorities that rapidly
developed in resistance to
French rule in the name of
Ferdinand; or to establish
autonomous ruling authorities.
It was the third option that was
adopted by most Creoles, even though
they took care to emphasize that this
was a temporary measure until Ferdinand
regained the Spanish throne.
Creoles were, however, dissatisfied with
Spanish rule on two main counts: commercial
monopoly and political exclusion, both of which
stemmed from attempts in the second half of the 18th
century by the Bourbon kings to extract more revenue from
the colonies. Spain's commercial monopoly had been
tightened up, and Spanish Americans were unable to exploit
legally what they perceived as lucrative trading
opportunities in the British and US markets. Taxes had been
increased and collection vigilantly enforced. A new system
of colonial administration had been introduced that
interfered with well-established informal mechanisms for
allocating power and resources within Spanish American
societies. Bourbon absolutism aimed to strengthen the
position of peninsulares (Spaniards born in Spain) at the
expense of Spanish Americans. By the end of the 18th
century, Creoles accounted for a far smaller proportion of
the upper levels of the colonial bureaucracy than in 1750.
INDEPENDENCE FROM SPAIN
During the first two decades of the 19th century there was a
gradually developing sense among elite Creoles in Spanish
America that their interests might best be served by self-
government. This redefinition of their position was enhanced
by an incipient sense of national identity that had been
developing within creole communities throughout the 18th
century - an idea of being distinct not only from Spaniards
but also from each other. The political ideas of the French
Enlightenment, although probably less influential in the
development of independence movements than was once
thought, were certainly of importance to some of their
leaders, notably the Venezuelan, Simon Bolivar.
During the 1810s, as Spain oscillated between reformist
liberalism and absolutism, Spanish Americans first declared,
and then fought for, their independence (map 2). Never-
theless, the battles between republicans and royalists
remained fairly evenly balanced until events in Spain during
1820-21 provided the final catalyst to the creation of a poli-
tical consensus among Creoles that was needed to secure
independence. Once it had become clear that Spanish liber-
alism, which returned to power in 1821, was bent on
restoring the pre-1808 relationship between Spain and the
American colonies, commitment to independence became
widespread throughout Spanish America - with the excep-
tion of Peru, where memories of the Tupac Amaru rebellion
remained vivid. Peru was eventually liberated in 1824 by
Bolivar's troops, after the retreat of the Spanish had been
initiated by an invasion from the south led by the Argentine
Jose de San Martin. By 1826 the last royalist troops had been
expelled from South America, and Spain's empire in the
Americas was reduced to Puerto Rico and Cuba (map 3).
INDEPENDENCE FROM PORTUGAL
Brazil's independence was partly the result of colonial
grievances, although less severe than those felt by Spanish
Americans. However, in overall terms, it was even more
attributable to events in Europe than was the decoloniza-
tion of Spanish America. The Portuguese monarchy
implemented milder versions of the Bourbon reforms in the
late 18th century, but in general the local elite played a far
greater role in governing Brazil than their counterparts in
Spain's colonies. The main event which triggered an increas-
ing awareness of Brazil's distinct identity was the Portuguese
Prince Regent's establishment of his court in Rio de Janeiro
in 1808, after he had fled from Napoleon's invasion of
THE COLONIZATION OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA 1500-1700 pages 122-23
ATLAS OF W O R L D H I S T O R Y : PART 4
T i n a remarkably short space of time,
from 1818 to 1825, the Spanish were
ousted from Central and South America,
leaving only the strongholds of Cuba and
Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. The ruler of
Brazil, Dom Pedro, had declared its
independence trom Portugal in
1822, crowning himself emperor.
A successful revolt in the southern area
of the country resulted in an independent
Uruguay in 1828.
Portugal. This represented
a shift in political power
from Portugal to Brazil
which was to prove
irreversible. When the
French were ousted from
Portugal in 1814, the
Prince Regent chose to
stay in Brazil, which
was raised to the status
of a kingdom equal to
that of Portugal. As
King John, landowners
resented his bowing to
British pressure to end
the slave trade, while
merchants were unhappy
about increasing British
penetration of the Brazilian
market, but these issues were
causes of disaffection rather than
rebellion. It was attempts by the Portuguese government in
1821 to return Brazil to its pre-1808 colonial status that was
the main cause of its declaration of independence in 1822
under Pedro I - the region's only constitutional monarchy.
Brazil was unique in that it won its independence
largely without the damaging consequences of civil war and
economic collapse that occurred elsewhere in the region.
In Spanish America mineral production plummeted to less
than a quarter of its level before its independence struggles,
industrial output declined by two-thirds, and agriculture by
half. Socially, independence brought relatively little change.
The corporate institutions of Spanish colonialism remained
intact, the Church remained strong, and militarism was A Simon Bolivar was instrumental in the
strengthened. Creoles simply took over the property aban- liberation from Spanish rule of much of
doned by fleeing Spaniards and established themselves as a South America. However, he failed in his
new oligarchy, which regarded the masses with at least as attempts to hold together the Republic of
much disdain as their Spanish predecessors had done. Gran Colombia, and died disillusioned.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 1830-1914 pages 192-93 191
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
POST-INDEPENDENCE 1830-1914
A In the years following independence
most countries became involved in wars over
their boundaries. Argentina lost the Falkland
Islands to the British in 1833, but secured
192
Patagonia in 1881. Both Peru and Bolivia
lost out to Chile in the War of the Pacific in
1879, surrendering territory rich in nitrates
and, in Bolivia's case, an outlet to the sea.
T
he newly independent republics of Spanish America
faced formidable challenges of reconstruction in the
years following their wars of independence. The first
problem was territorial consolidation. Their boundaries
were roughly based on colonial administrative divisions, but
none was clearly defined, and nearly all Spanish-American
countries went to war to defend territory at some point
during the 19th century (map 1). The only nation on the
continent that consistently expanded its territory at the
expense of its neighbours was Brazil.
FOREIGN INTERVENTION
Foreign powers were active in the
region throughout this period, and
acted as a significant constraint
on the ability of the new
states to consolidate their
sovereignty. Spain was
too weak to do much
beyond defending its
remaining colonial
possessions, but it
fought two wars over
Cuban independence
(1868-78 and 1895-98)
before US military inter-
vention in 1898 led to the
Spanish-American War and
the secession of Cuba and
Puerto Rico to the United States.
Following a three-year military
occupation Cuba was declared an
independent republic, albeit with a
clause in its constitution (the "Platt
Amendment") stipulating the right of
the USA to intervene in its internal affairs
Mexico, which achieved independence in
1821 following a civil war, subsequently lost large
amounts of territory to the USA. It was briefly ruled by
the Austro-Hungarian, Maximilian von Habsburg, as
emperor (1864-67), supported by French troops. Britain
had colonies in Guiana and British Honduras, and consoli-
dated its commercial and financial dominance throughout
most of the region, especially in Brazil and Argentina.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS
Throughout the 19th century Latin American economies
remained dependent on the export of raw materials (maps
1, 2 and 3), continuing patterns of production established in
colonial times. Although there has been considerable debate
about the wisdom of this policy, in practice they had little
choice. The colonial powers had left behind scant basis for
the creation of self-sufficient economies, and the indepen-
dent states simply did not have the resources necessary for
such development. Attempts were made to encourage indus-
trialization in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil in the 1830s and
1840s, but they all succumbed to competition from
European imports.
The export of primary products brought considerable
wealth to Latin America, especially once the development of
steamships and railways in the 1860s had modernized
transportation. In the last quarter of the 19th century Latin
American economies were able to benefit from the overall
expansion in the world economy fuelled by European and
US demands for raw materials and markets for their manu-
factured goods (pages 208-9). At the time it made economic
sense for Latin America to exploit its comparative advan-
tage in the world market as a supplier of raw materials.
Although this strategy later proved to be flawed, it did result
in rapid economic growth and a wave of prosperity among
Latin American elites in what became known as "la belle
epoque" of Latin American development (c. 1880-1914).
On the eve of the First World War, the region was producing
18 per cent of the world's cereals, 38 per cent of its sugar
and 62 per cent of its coffee, cocoa and tea.
 ATLAS OF W O R L D H I S T O R Y : PART 4

ELITIST POLITICS on professionals and state bureaucrats. Trade unions among

Politics in 19th-century Latin America was entirely an elite the working classes - most of which were organized by
affair, with electoral contests typically involving at most ten European immigrants to Argentina or Brazil - first became
per cent of the population and dominated by rivalry active during this period, and public education programmes
between liberals and conservatives. Most of the republics were initiated in the larger countries. It was not until after
had adopted liberal constitutions based on that of the the First World War, however, that the political conse-
United States, but these were to prove an inadequate blue- quences of all these socio-economic changes were to
print for the authoritarian reality of Latin American politics. manifest themselves.
The major challenge in most countries was to consoli-
date central state authority over remote and often rebellious
areas. Until well into the 1850s local leaders, known as
caudillos, raised armies to fight for their interests, holding
sway over their followers by a combination of charisma,
blandishment and brutality. In these circumstances, many
liberal statesmen found themselves obliged to pursue
distinctly illiberal policies. As the century wore on, Latin
American liberalism, which came to power in most Latin
American countries during the 1850s and 1860s, took on an
increasingly conservative cast. One distinctive legacy of
liberalism was an appreciable reduction in the wealth of the
Catholic Church, particularly in Mexico, although liberals
did not succeed in diminishing the religious devotion of the
majority of the populations.

SOCIAL CHANGES
Conditions barely improved for the Latin American masses.
Indeed, American Indians had good reason to feel that their
plight had been less onerous under colonial rule, when they
had at least enjoyed a degree of protection from the Spanish
crown against encroachments on their communal lands. The
attempts of liberal governments to turn Indian peasants into
smallholders by forcibly redistributing their lands left most
Indians worse off, particularly those in Mexico.
Slavery was abolished in Central America as early as
1824 (map 3), and in the Spanish South American republics
during the 1850s (map J), but it continued in Portuguese-
dominated Brazil, where a weak emperor was reluctant to
antagonize the powerful plantation owners. Brazil did not
pass legislation to end the trade in slaves until 1850 and it
took until 1888 - the year before Brazil declared itself
a republic - for slavery itself to be abolished. Even in A Mexico was substantially reduced in size United States. (Mexicans rarely need T Most of Central America and the larger
conditions of allegedly "free" labour, however, the lack of during the mid-19th century. It lost Texas to reminding that the California Gold Rush Caribbean islands had gained independence
alternative work meant that many former slaves had little an independence movement in 1836 and began in 1849.) Further territory was ceded by 1910. The smaller islands remained
choice but to join a floating rural proletariat, subject to California, New Mexico and Arizona after in 1850 and again in 1853, as a result of European colonies, while the United States
seasonal work in exchange for pitiful wages. being defeated in the 1846-48 war with the the Gadsden Purchase. retained control of Puerto Rico.
During the middle part of the 19th century the popula-
tions of most Latin American countries more than doubled
(bar chart), and by the end of the century Latin America's
integration into the world economy was beginning to bring
about changes in the socio-economic structure which
independence had not. Urbanization, industrialization and
their consequences continued from the 1880s onwards. The
late 19th century saw the emergence of a middle class based

LATIN AMERICAN POPULATION IN 1820 AND 1880 (in thousands)

A The 19th century saw large population their numbers between 1820 and 1880,
increases in most Latin American countries. while the population in the economically
Many countries experienced a doubling of successful Argentina quadrupled.

INDEPENDENCE IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN 1780-1830 pages 190-9 LATIN AMERICA 1914-45 pages 226-27 193