1. Isn’t It Ironic? (Don’t You Think?) A Snowy Road… …to talk about Latin America No Frills, No Tricks, Just Notes Chapter 15 Section 4

2. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! No Snow in Latin America though (but maybe here soon enough!) Latin American society was rooted in a tiered system of haves and have-nots Peninsulares (Spanish born) Can hold top jobs in gov’t and church Creoles (Euro descendant) Owned haciendas, ranches, mines; resented 2 nd class status Mestizos (Native American and Euro descent) Angry at being denied status, wealth, power available to whites Mullatoes (African and Euro descent) Angry at being denied status, wealth, power available to whites

3. Problems of the Past Native Americans suffered economic misery under the Spanish; the Spanish conquered the lands of their ancestors In the Caribbean and parts of South America, many Africans were enslaved on plantations One of the only common threads between the classes was their dissatisfaction with Spanish rule They worked together vs. the Spanish Once independence was gained, the creoles dominated the gov’t

4. Creolin’ Right Along… The Creoles took the lead in the revolts Spread Enlightenment thinker viewpoints throughout Latin America Watched colonists in N. America throw out the British The Creoles even had the Declaration of Independence and Constitution translated to their language Women were participants in the movement Napoleon conquering Spain in 1808 sparked revolution because Spain was then viewed as weak

5. We Will Be Enslaved No More! Haiti was France’s most valued possession in the 1700s Haiti was no longer a French possession by the early 1800s Half a million enslaved Africans worked on sugar plantations The slaves were overworked and underfed There were also 25,000 free mulattoes, some of whom owned slaves, but they did not have full equality with the French Creoles

6. We Will Be Enslaved No More! France was talking about ending slavery in the West Indies after the French Revolution Slaves wanted action while the French were talking about liberty and equality Led by self-educated former slave Toussaint L’Ouverture, the Haitian slaves sprang into action The war went on from 1791 to 1798 with the Haitian slaves fighting the French, the Spanish, the British, and some loyal Mulattoes Why would the British and Spanish send troops to fight the Haitian rebels?

7. VICTORY! By 1798 the enslaved Haitians were freed Even though Haiti was still a French colony, Toussaint’s forces controlled most of the island When Napoleon came to power in 1802, he sent a large army to reconquer Haiti Toussaint got his people to take up arms once again The Haitians were victorious, due in large part to yellow fever attacking the French In April 1802, the French agreed to a truce with the Haitians Just after the truce, the French captured Toussaint and took him to France in chains where he died ten months later The Haitians declared independence in 1804, fought the French until Napoleon pulled his troops out (because of yellow fever) and became a republic in 1820

8. Will It Work in Mexico? No… Father Miguel Hidalgo tried to get Mexicans to overthrow the Spaniards at a rousing sermon in church Originally, Hidalgo was able to get poor mestizos and Native Americans to fight but as the opposition grew, the rebels lost Hidalgo was captured and executed a year after the “Grito” speech and his followers scattered Jose Morelos took up the Mexican revolutionary cause for four years before he was shot and killed in 1815

9. Will It Work In Mexico? Yes! Things died down until 1820 when liberals in Spain forced the king to issue a constitution This move alarmed Agustin de Iturbide, a conservative creole in Mexico He feared that the new Spanish government might impose liberal reforms on the colonies as well So Iturbide reached out to Mexican revolutionaries in 1821 and they overthrew the Spanish viceroy Mexico was independent Iturbide took the title of Emperor Agustin I Soon after though liberal Mexicans toppled Agustin and set up the Republic of Mexico