Latin American Revolutions: World History Crash Course #31
Available at https://youtu.be/ZBw35Ze3bg8 or just youtube/google “Crash Course World History 31”
1. What were the three institutions that
characterized Latin American society
exercised control over the population?
1. Spanish Crown/Portuguese Crown
2. Catholic Church
3. Patriarchy
2. Latin America led the world in transculturation, or cultural blending. Whites from Spain
were called Peninsulares and whites born in the Americas were called creoles. By 1800,
roughly a quarter of people were mixed race of people were mixed race.
3. Brazil was ruled by Portugal. When Napoleon took over Portugal in 1807, the entire
Portuguese royal family decamped to Brazil. After Napoleon was defeated at the Battle
of Waterloo, King Joao eventually returned to Portugal in 1821, leaving his son Prince
Pedro behind.
4. How did Brazil manage to achieve independence after that?
The Brazilian party convinced prince Pedro to become king of Brazil and achieve
independence from Portugal.
5. In 1820, Spain had a real liberal revolution with a new constitution that limited the power
of the Church.
6. Venezuela had a cadre of well-trained creole revolutionaries, who by 1811 had formed a
revolutionary junta that had seized power in Caracas and formed a Republic. But the
interior of Venezuela was home to mixed-race cowboys called Llaneros who supported the
king; they kept the Caracas revolutionaries from extending their power inland.
a. Simon Bolivar, “el Libertador”, realized that the only way to overcome the class
divisions was to appeal to a common sense of South American-ness.
7. By 1825, almost the entire Western hemisphere was free from European rule.
8. What is one way in which the revolutions in Latin America differed from those in France
and America?
They differ because with in France, revolutions were more violent and cause lots of
deaths, including the common folk, and in America (USA) there was violence with
different battles against the Brits. However, in Latin America, it was more of a
peaceful revolution and not much war/conflict that resulted in a mass death count.