Download Revolutions Sweep Across Latin America Note Guide

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Revolutions Sweep Across Latin America-Note Guide
Main Topic: The Enlightenment ideals influenced the Latin American wars for independence. The
French Revolution and Napoleon’s conquests opened an opportunity for the Latin American colonies to
gain independence.
Objective:
Colonial Society Divided-Latin American Colonial Society
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Peninsulares-People who had been born in Spain, which is on the Iberian peninsula.
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Formed a tiny percentage of the population
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Only peninsulares could hold high office in Spanish colonial government
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Creoles-Spaniards born in Latin America, were below peninsulares in rank.
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Creoles could not hold high-level political office, but they could rise as officers in colonial armies.
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Together peninsulares and creoles controlled land, wealth, and power in the Spanish colonies.
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Below the peninsulares and creoles came the mestizos, persons of mixed European and Indian
ancestry.
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Next were the mulattos, persons of mixed European and African ancestry, and enslaved Africans.
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Indians were at the bottom of the social ladder.
Latin American and the Enlightenment
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By 1790, wealthy and educated people in Latin America had read the same Enlightenment writers
that had inspired the American and French Revolutions—Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.
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These Latin Americans had also read the writings of Thomas Jefferson and other Americans.
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They were ready for freedom from European rule.
Haiti and Toussaint-L’Ouverture
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The first Latin American nation to gain independence was Haiti
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The slave population of Haiti rose up in revolt.
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Their leader was Toussaint-L’Ouverture, a former slave.
Other Latin American Nations
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Napoleon’s European conquests helped the colonists in Latin America win their independence.