Why did creoles rebel against spain

Self-liberated slaves destroyed slavery at home, fought to preserve their freedom, and with the collaboration of mulattoes, founded the sovereign state of Haiti. From the beginning of colonization, white colonists and black slaves frequently came into violent conflict. The French Revolution, which began in , shaped the course of the ongoing conflict in Saint-Domingue and was at first welcomed in the island.

In France, the National Assembly made radical changes in French laws, and on August 26, , published the Declaration of the Rights of Man, declaring all men free and equal. Wealthy whites saw it as an opportunity to gain independence from France, which would allow elite plantation-owners to take control of the island and create trade regulations that would further their own wealth and power.

There were so many twists and turns in the leadership in France and so many complex events in Saint-Domingue that various classes and parties changed their alignments many times. However, the Haitian Revolution quickly became a test of the ideology of the French Revolution, as it radicalized the slavery question and forced French leaders to recognize the full meaning of their revolution.

The plantation owners would be free to operate slavery as they pleased without the existing minimal accountability to their French peers. Raimond used the French Revolution to make this the major colonial issue before the National Assembly of France.

He and an army of around free blacks fought to end racial discrimination in the area. The conflict up to this point was between factions of whites and between whites and free blacks. Enslaved blacks watched from the sidelines. The Revolution in Haiti did not wait on the Revolution in France. The individuals in Haiti relied on no resolution but their own.

The call for modification of society was influenced by the revolution in France, but once the hope for change found a place in the hearts of the Haitian people, there was no stopping the radical reformation that was occurring.

The Enlightenment ideals and the initiation of the French Revolution were enough to inspire the Haitian Revolution, which evolved into the most successful and comprehensive slave rebellion. Just as the French were successful in transforming their society, so were the Haitians. On April 4, , The French National Assembly granted freedom to slaves in Haiti and the revolution culminated in ; Haiti was an independent nation comprised solely of free people.

The activities of the revolutions sparked change across the world. John E. Baur honors Haiti as home of the most influential revolution in history. Haitian Revolution: Battle at San Domingo, a painting by January Suchodolski, depicting a struggle between Polish troops in French service and the slave rebels and freed revolutionary soldiers. While in Europe, he was introduced to the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, which gave him the ambition to replace the Spanish as rulers. Despite a number of hindrances, including the arrival of an unprecedentedly large Spanish expeditionary force, the revolutionaries eventually prevailed, culminating in a patriot victory at the Battle of Carabobo in that effectively made Venezuela an independent country.

Through further military campaigns, he ousted Spanish rulers from Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia which was named after him. He aimed at a strong and united Spanish America able to cope not only with the threats emanating from Spain and the European Holy Alliance but also with the emerging power of the United States.

First was gaining acceptance as undisputed leader of the republican cause. Despite claiming such a role since , he began to achieve acceptance only in , and consolidated his hold on power after his dramatic and unexpected victory in New Granada in His second challenge was implementing a vision to unify the region into one large state, which he believed and most would agree, correctly would be the only guarantee of maintaining American independence from the Spanish in northern South America.

His early experiences under the First Venezuelan Republic and in New Granada convinced him that divisions among republicans, augmented by federal forms of government, only allowed Spanish American royalists to eventually gain the upper hand. Once again, it was his victory in that gave him the leverage to bring about the creation of a unified state, Gran Colombia, with which to oppose the Spanish Monarchy on the continent. At the end of the wars of independence — , many new sovereign states emerged in the Americas from the former Spanish colonies.

During the wars of independence, the fight against Spain was marked by an incipient sense of nationalism. It was unclear what the new states that replaced the Spanish Monarchy should be. For Bolivar, Hispanic America was the fatherland. He dreamed of a united Spanish America and in the pursuit of that purpose not only created Gran Colombia but also the Confederation of the Andes, which was to gather the latter together with Peru and Bolivia. Moreover, he envisaged and promoted a network of treaties that would hold together the newly liberated Hispanic American countries.

Nonetheless, he was unable to control the centrifugal process that pushed in all directions. Gran Colombia was dissolved later that year and replaced by the republics of Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador. For the rest of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, the political environment of Latin America was fraught with civil wars and characterized by a sociopolitical phenomenon known as caudillismo.

This was characterized by the arrival of an authoritarian but charismatic political figure who would typically rise to power in an unconventional way, often legitimizing his right to govern through undemocratic processes.

These caudillos would maintain their control primarily on the basis of a cult of personality, populist politics, and military might. Gran Colombia is a name used today for the state that encompassed much of northern South America and part of southern Central America from to The first three were the successor states to Gran Colombia at its dissolution. Panama was separated from Colombia in Its existence was marked by a struggle between those who supported a centralized government with a strong presidency and those who supported a decentralized, federal form of government.

The two men had been allies in the war against Spanish rule, but by , their differences became public and contributed to the political instability from that year onward. Gran Columbia broke apart in The departments created in were split into 12 smaller departments, each governed by an intendant appointed by the central government. In its first years, Gran Colombia helped other provinces still at war with Spain to become independent: all of Venezuela except Puerto Cabello was liberated at the Battle of Carabobo, Panama joined the federation in November , and the provinces of Pasto, Guayaquil, and Quito in The Gran Colombian army later consolidated the independence of Peru in As the war against Spain came to an end in the mids, federalist and regionalist sentiments that were suppressed for the sake of the war arose once again.

There were calls for a modification of the political division, and related economic and commercial disputes between regions reappeared. Ecuador had important economic and political grievances. Since the end of the 18th century, its textile industry suffered because cheaper textiles were being imported. After independence, Gran Colombia adopted a low-tariff policy, which benefited agricultural regions such as Venezuela. In , Venezuela came close to seceding from Gran Colombia.

In November, two assemblies met in Venezuela to discuss the future of the region, but no formal independence was declared at either. Ultimately, political compromises prevented this. The reforms, however, never fully satisfied the different political factions in Gran Colombia, and no permanent consolidation was achieved. He ultimately failed to do so. The federation finally dissolved in the closing months of and was formally abolished in Venezuela, Ecuador, and New Granada came to exist as independent states.

Gran Colombia: A map of Gran Colombia showing the 12 departments created in and territories disputed with neighboring countries. After the Battle of San Lorenzo and time commanding the Army of the North during , he organized a plan to defeat the Spanish forces that menaced the United Provinces from the north, using an alternative path to the Viceroyalty of Peru.

This objective first involved the establishment of a new army, the Army of the Andes, in Cuyo Province, Argentina. Then he sailed to attack the Spanish stronghold of Lima, Peru. The details of the July 22 meeting would be a subject of debate by later historians.

The reasons that he left Spain in to join the Spanish American wars of independence as a patriot remain contentious among historians. The action would seem contradictory and out of character, because if the patriots were waging an independentist and anti-Hispanic war, then he would be a traitor or deserter. There are a variety of explanations by different historians. Some argue that he returned because he missed South America, and the war of independence justified changing sides to support it.

The Argentine War of Independence started with the May Revolution and other military campaigns with mixed success.

The undesired outcomes of the Paraguay and Upper Peru campaigns led the Junta the provisional government after the May Revolution to be replaced by an executive Triumvirate in September They appointed him a lieutenant colonel of cavalry and asked him to create a cavalry unit, as Buenos Aires did not have good cavalry.

The revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar is a good example, as he was born in Caracas to a well-to-do Creole family that had lived in Venezuela for four generations, but as a rule, did not intermarry with the locals. Spain discriminated against the Creoles, appointing mostly new Spanish immigrants to important positions in the colonial administration.

In the audiencia court of Caracas, for example, no native Venezuelans were appointed from to During that time, ten Spaniards and four Creoles from other areas did serve. This irritated the influential Creoles who correctly felt that they were being ignored. The vast Spanish New World Empire produced many goods, including coffee, cacao, textiles, wine, minerals, and more.

But the colonies were only allowed to trade with Spain, and at rates advantageous for Spanish merchants. Many Latin Americans began selling their goods illegally to the British colonies and, after , U. By the late 18th century, Spain was forced to loosen some trade restrictions, but the move was too little, too late, as those who produced these goods now demanded a fair price for them. By , Spanish America could look to other nations to see revolutions and their results. Some were a positive influence: The American Revolution — was seen by many in South America as a good example of elite leaders of colonies throwing off European rule and replacing it with a more fair and democratic society—later, some constitutions of new republics borrowed heavily from the U.

Other revolutions were not as positive. The Haitian Revolution, a bloody but successful uprising of enslaved people against their French colonial enslavers — , terrified landowners in the Caribbean and northern South America, and as the situation worsened in Spain, many feared that Spain could not protect them from a similar uprising. Charles IV was weak and indecisive and mostly occupied himself with hunting, allowing his ministers to run the Empire.

With a weak ruler and the Spanish military tied up, Spain's presence in the New World decreased markedly and the Creoles felt more ignored than ever. After Spanish and French naval forces were crushed at the Battle of Trafalgar in , Spain's ability to control the colonies lessened even more.

When Great Britain attacked Buenos Aires in —, Spain could not defend the city and a local militia had to suffice. There was a growing sense in the colonies of being separate from Spain. These differences were cultural and often a source of great pride among Creole families and regions.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the visiting Prussian scientist Alexander Von Humboldt — noted that the locals preferred to be called Americans rather than Spaniards. Meanwhile, Spanish officials and newcomers consistently treated Creoles with disdain, maintaining and further widening the social gap between them. While Spain was racially "pure" in the sense that the Moors, Jews, Romani people, and other ethnic groups had been kicked out centuries before, the New World populations were a diverse mixture of Europeans, Indigenous people some of whom were enslaved , and enslaved Black people.

The highly racist colonial society was extremely sensitive to minute percentages of Black or Indigenous blood. A person's status in society could be determined by how many 64ths of Spanish heritage one had.

To further muddle things up, Spanish law allowed wealthy people of mixed heritage to "buy" whiteness and thus rise in a society that did not want to see their status change.

This caused resentment within the privileged classes. The "dark side" of the revolutions was that they were fought, in part, to maintain a racist status quo in the colonies freed of Spanish liberalism.

Tired of the waffling of Charles IV and Spain's inconsistency as an ally, Napoleon invaded in and quickly conquered not only Spain but Portugal as well. A Spain ruled by France was an outrage even for New World loyalists. Many men and women who would have otherwise supported the royalist side now joined the insurgents.

Those who resisted Napoleon in Spain begged the colonials for help but refused to promise to reduce trade restrictions if they won. The chaos in Spain provided a perfect excuse to rebel without committing treason. Many Creoles said they were loyal to Spain, not Napoleon. In places like Argentina, colonies "sort of" declared independence, claiming they would only rule themselves until such time as Charles IV or his son Ferdinand was put back on the Spanish throne.

This half-measure was much more palatable to those who did not want to declare independence outright. But in the end, there was no real going back from such a step. Argentina was the first to formally declare independence on July 9, The independence of Latin America from Spain was a foregone conclusion as soon as the creoles began thinking of themselves as Americans and the Spaniards as something different from them. By that time, Spain was between a rock and a hard place: The creoles clamored for positions of influence in the colonial bureaucracy and for freer trade.

Spain granted neither, which caused great resentment and helped lead to independence.