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Revolutions Unit: Part II
Atlantic Revolutions: From Haiti to Latin America
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This packet will cover the Haitian Revolution and the Latin America revolutionary
moment.
Haitian Revolution:
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The Enlightenment ideas promoted by the American and French revolutions—
freedom, equality, and popular sovereignty—appealed to the peoples throughout
Europe and the Americas.
Slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose against their overlords and
established the independent republic of Haiti.
The slave revolt was the only successful slave revolt in history.
It took place in the wake of the French Revolution.
The island of Hispaniola was divided into the French colony (Saint-Domingue or
present day Haiti) and the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (or Dominican
Republic).
Saint Domingue was one of the richest of all European colonies in the Caribbean:
sugar, coffee, and cotton produced there accounted for 1/3 of France’s foreign trade.
Revolution:
 The island was made up of three groups:
o 40,000 white colonials—European born Frenchmen who monopolized
administrative posts, plantation owners (aristocrats who hoped to return to
France as soon as possible), and lower class whites (artisans, shopkeepers,
slave dealers, day laborers).
 Rich whites: Grands Blancs
 Lower class whites: Petit blans
o 28,000 gens de couleur libres (free people of color in French). Most were
mulattoes and some were black.
 Many were artisans, domestic servants, overseers.
o 500,000 slaves: some were mulattoes but most were African born.
 Slave conditions were brutal.
 Plantation owners lived in fear of revolt
 Many slaves fled to the mountains and created communities that were armed.
 Revolution began in 1791 as an echo of the French Revolution.
 Some 12,000 slaves began killing white settlers.
 100,000 slaves joined their ranks. The island descended into
chaos.
 French troops arrived in 1792 to restore order, and British and
Spanish forces intervened in 1793 in hopes of benefiting from
France’s difficulties.
 Slave forces eventually overcame white settlers and those of the
mixed race.
 Francois Dominique Toussaint: changed his name to
L’ouverture (the opening). Learned to read and white from the
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Catholic priests. He was well educated. He rose to the position of livestock overseer
on a plantation. He became a free man in 1776. When the rebellion broke out he
helped his masters escape to safe haven. Then he left and joined the attacks.
o He was a skilled organizer and by 1793 he had built a strong, disciplined
army.
o He played French, British, and Spanish forces against one another.
o By 1797 he led an army of twenty thousand that controlled most of the land.
He created a constitution in 1801 and granted equality and citizenship to all
residents of the colony.
Results of the Revolution:
 Socially, the last had become the first. This was remarkable. The slaves became
equal, free, and independent citizens.
 Politically, they had thrown out French colonial rule. They were the second
independent republic in the Americas and the first non-European state to emerge
from Western colonialism.
 They renamed the country Haiti meaning mountainous in a native African language.
 Economically: the country’s plantation system, oriented toward the export of sugar
and coffee, had been largely destroyed.
 As whites fled or were killed, both private and state lands were redistributed among
former slaves and free blacks. Haiti became a nation of small-scale farmers
producing mostly for their own needs with fewer exports.
 Haitian independence came on January 1, 1804.
 Haiti was and still is bitterly divided internally. Race, color, and d class contribute to
Haiti’s continuing poverty.
 Originally the revolution had been a source of hope.
 Ironically, slavery gained steam after this in the Caribbean.
Without Haiti, other islands increased their sugar
production.
o Also the Louisiana Territory, which Napoleon ceded
to the U.S. as a result of instability in Haiti, created
many North American slave states
Latin America:
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The American and French revolutions inspired revolutionaries in Latin America. The
trigger for change was French intervention in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and
Portugal).
Their revolutions were shaped b the preceding events of North America, France, and
Haiti as well as by their own distinctive societies and historical experience .
As in British North America, native-born elites in the Spanish colonies (creoles)
were offended and insulted by the Spanish monarchy’s efforts during the 18th
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century to exercise greater power over its colonies and to subject them to heavier
taxes and tariffs.
Creole intellectuals had become familiar with republican government, personal
liberty, and popular sovereignty, similar to in North America.
In Latin America, the colonies controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese were
comprised of a governing class of 30,000 peninsulares, 3.5 million Creoles, and 10
million less privileged classes including black slaves, indigenous people, and those
of mixed racial backgrounds.
The Creoles were a wealthy class from the plantation economy and trade, but they
had grievances about the administrative control and economic regulations of the
colonies.
They did not seek social reform, but rather sought to displace the powerful
peninsulares.
Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Portugal in 1807 weakened the authority of those
countries in the colonies, and by 1810, revolts were occurring in Argentina,
Venezuela, and Mexico.
In Mexico, a peasant rebellion was led by Father Miguel de
Hidalgo.  Pictured
o He raised support among Indians and mestizos.
o Under Augustin de Iturbide, the creoles joined the
uprising and in 1824 Mexico gained its independence.
They had been alarmed by the rebellion of the
peasants so the creole landowners, helped by the
Church, raised an army and crushed the insurrection.
o Led by conservative creoles, a monarchy was
established.
Simon Bolivar led the revolts in South America and by 1824
deposed the Spanish armies. His goal was to achieve a United
States of Latin America.
o 1821 saw the creation of the Gran Colombia, under
Bolívar's leadership. This federation included much of what is now
Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Further maneuvers saw him
named Dictator of Peru in 1824, followed by the creation of Bolivia in 1825.
o He’s considered a great liberator.
The Portuguese royal family had fled to Brazil when Napoleon invaded that nation
in 1807. When the king returned in 1821 he left his son, Pedro, to rule. Pedro agreed
to the demands of the Creoles and declared Brazil independent.
As a result of these independence movements, the Creoles became the dominant
class and many of the peninsulares returned to Europe. The society remained quite
stratified and slavery continued. The wealth and power of the RCC remained and the
lower classes continued to be repressed.
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Questions generated from textbook: Pages 510-511: (you can answer them at the end
of the packet)
- How were the Spanish American Revolution shaped by the American, French, and
Haitian revolutions that happened earlier?
- Why did Spanish American struggles for independence occur decades later than those
in British North America?
- Why didn’t Latin America develop similar to the United States of America?
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The settlers in Spanish colonies had little tradition of local self-government such as
in North America. Their society was far more authoritarian and divided by class, and
their culture was informed by the strict Catholicism of the Counter Reformation. In
addition, whites throughout Latin America were vastly outnumbered by Native
Americans, people of African ancestry, or those of mixed race.
o All of these factors help explain the delayed movement for independence,
despite the example of North America.
Creole elites did not so much generate a revolution as have one thrust upon them by
events in Europe- prompted by the actions of Napoleon. With legitimate royal
authority in disarray, Latin Americans were forced to take action. The outcome was
ultimately independence for various Latin American countries. The resulting states
were much different than the United States.
Why was it a longer process?
 The process lasted twice as long as it did in North America.
 Mostly, this is due to the class divisions in Latin America.
 In Latin America, the move toward independence often erupted into domestic
disputes whereas in North America the antagonisms were directed at the British.
Like previously stated, the insurrection in Mexico began with peasant upheaval.
 In most places in Latin America, violent conflict along the lines of race, class,
and ideology, accompanied the struggle against Spain.
 The ongoing dread of social rebellion from below was not matched in North
America. This was more reflected in Haiti and France.
 Incidents like the one in Mexico reminded the whites that they sat amid a highly
explosive society. The oppressed were mostly people of color.
How did Bolivar Succeed?
 Individuals like Bolivar were able to succeed because for the time being, they were
able to unite everybody against the enemy of the Peninsulares. They called
themselves Americanos. They included creoles, Indians, mixed, and free blacks.
 This was challenging because people within the Americano group saw themselves as
quite different from one another.
 Nationalist leaders made efforts to mobilize people of color not the struggle with
promises of freedom, the end of legal restrictions, and social advancement.
 People like Bolivar were inspired by the Enlightenment., the French Revolution etc.
 In the long run promises of social equality were never met after independence was
achieved.
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 “The imperial state was destroyed in Spanish America…but
colonial society was preserved”
Why did Latin America not become the United States of Latin America?
 North America and South America were in many ways opposites.
o North America began as the least desirable lands to be settled and ended up
becoming industrial and wealthy.
o South America were once wealthy developed in the 19th century as
underdeveloped, impoverished, undemocratic, politically unstable, and
dependent on foreign technology and investment.
 Geographic obstacles to effective communication, and distances among the colonies
contributed to the impossibility of joining all Latin American states.
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MAP QUESTIONS 1-3:
1. What was the first Latin American state formed from colonial rule? What year?
2. The Last?
3. What countries did the Spanish Empire maintain?
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4. What was the cause of the Haitian Revolution
5. What was the result of the Haitian Revolution?
6. What irony occurred after the Haitian Revolution?
7. How were the Spanish American Revolution shaped by the American, French, and
Haitian revolutions that happened earlier?
8. Why did Spanish American struggles for independence occur decades later than those
in British North America?
9. Why didn’t Latin America develop similar to the United States of America?
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10. What is meant by: ““The imperial state was destroyed in Spanish America…but
colonial society was preserved”
Choose AT LEAST three Categories of comparison: between the multiple
revolutions
CATEGORY
AMERICAN
FRENCH
HAITIAN
LATIN AMERICAN
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VOCABL
Vocabulary
Saint-Domingue
Grands Blancs
Petit blans
gens de couleur
libres
Toussaint
L’ouverture
Iberian peninsula
Father Miguel de
Hidalgo
Simon Bolivar
Americanos
Definition