Essay On Spanish American Independence

The United States has faced many conflicts from the 18th century to the mid 20th century on the road to becoming the country it is today. Wars have been part of many conflicts that have broken out between the United States and various other powers during this time. The wars have cost many lives and allowed for the United States to rise to superpower status and stay a powerful nation in today’s world. But, the United States actions caused them to become part of many wars because they increased tensions between themselves and other countries causing war to be inevitable. The United States actions led to war by increasing tensions making war inevitable in many situations from the 18th century to the mid 20th century by the idea of imperialism,

To what extent was Mexico’s independence from Spain a “full-scale assault on dependency”? This essay will investigate how the Mexican independence from Spain was only slightly a “full-scale assault on dependency”, due to several political and social conflicts. Firstly, Mexico remained a monarchy (but not under the control of Spain) after the insurgency. Secondly, there was still an official state religion in Mexico. Another reason is because social conflicts reduced the desire for independence .On the other hand, it assaulted dependency because there were some changes within the social hierarchy, and because Mexico was free from Spain.

With other Latin American uprisings occurring Simon Bolivar led the South American independence. Bolivar was a wealthy Creole born in Venezuela but educated in Spain. Influenced by Enlightenment ideas, Bolivar called for independence for all South Americans. He gained firm control of his native Venezuela in 1819. His armies then turned toward Columbia and Ecuador. In the south Jose de San Martin rallied Argentinean forces against Spain. Bolivar and San Martin met in Peru, which became independent along with Upper Peru (Bolivia) in 1824. Although Bolivar was unsuccessful in uniting South Americans into a single nation, he is known as the continent's "liberator."

Those creoles pushing towards revolution to free themselves from Spanish rule felt that the Spanish crown was only abusing, discriminating and holding them back form growing economically. The elite felt they were not part of a revolution seeing themselves only as people who were All those part of the social context of Latin America, felt differently within Indians, on side of the Spanish King, though great abuse fell through. "Nonetheless, the Indians of New Spain (and elsewhere) enjoyed a set of legal privileges, exemptions, and protection which significantly interferes with their complete integration into colonial society, and kept them in a legal bubble of tutelage ruptured only with the advent of independent Mexican nationhood in the third decade of the nineteenth century (Van Young, 154). The point here is that where these and other legal and administrative remedies were applied in favor of the Indians of colonial New Spain, they were applied in the kings' name. Furthermore, religious and civic ritual of all kinds constantly stressed the centrality of the Spanish king to the colonial commonwealth, and his benevolence and fatherly concern with the welfare of his weakest subjects (Van Young 155). "Situated as they were between the Spaniards and the masses. The creoles wanted more than equality for themselves and less than equality for their inferiors" (Lynch, 44). The creoles discriminated against those in lower classes than themselves.

Charles III, the king of Spain, known as the enlightened monarch initiated the Bourbon reforms. He appointed a visitor general to examine the problems with the colonies and why they were not producing enough revenue. He believed that there needed to be mining reforms, reforms of the church

All of the aforementioned factors contributed to the independence movement of Mexico. However, the main steps towards independence came because of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808. The monarchy was greatly weakened when Napoleon gave the crown to his brother causing the people of Madrid to revolt. With Spain’s back turned, the leaders of New Spain began to argue amongst themselves. The viceroy was forced to allow the Criollos to participate in administration. Then, a group of Peninsulares, those who had been placed in many of the administrative positions, did not like that the Criollos were gaining any influence in the government. They staged a coup d’etat and overthrew the viceregal government.

The Spanish, French, and English all established major settlements in North America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In each colony, settlement revolved around different types of trade: plantations and mining in New Spain, the fur trade in New France, and tobacco and the family farm in British North America. There were many similarities among these countries’ approaches to settling, but also enormous differences.

In the 19th century the scramble for control was under way when the Americans, Japan, and the Germans entered, other countries struggling with their empires. In the late nineteen century became a new age of imperialism in where technology and communications brought empire’s within reach. Many counties were joining the hunt fort new colonies, Americans preferred an indirect imperialism. The concept was first popularized during James K. Polk presidency, where he led the United States into the Mexican-American War of 1846. America’s version was that to “export products, ideas, and influence”, they viewed it as a “pure” version so they can share their values of democracy, and Christianity.

At this point in history, worldly events are whizzing by at an accelerated pace and the 18th century reveals some tumultuous moments that shaped world history in the Americas. At this point South American was settled by Europeans who were still fighting over boundaries and they shared a craving for power, hence the turbulent conditions fostered by Europeans lead to instabilities in South America. Spain and Portugal claimed large South American land masses, while other nations like France and England made attempts to infiltrate sections for themselves which caused further unrest. European quarrels also seeped and influenced the political atmosphere of South America, for example the French revolution interfered with the governing plans of Spain.

During the 18th and 19th century, from 1776 to 1804, two nations were fighting for their independence. Latin America and America wanted to free themselves from their mother colonies that were dominating them. They had independence movements in which they fought for their freedom. The American Revolution and the Latin American Revolution were similar because they had similar motivations for the causes of their movements. Both of the nations were inspired by ideas of the Enlightenment such as natural rights. Both nations were also experiencing mercantilism by their mother colonies, Spain and Great Britain, and wanted to free themselves and control their own economies. Although they had similar goals, the consequences of these events were different. Americans were more united and had a representative form of government, which granted more equality to their citizens than Latin Americans, who had less unity because of the various ethnic groups, resulting in rigid differences in social class.

Simon Bolivar, who had a reputation of being a liberator, took center stage. The common folk began to trust his words, as he talked about fighting for the resources that were theirs, ideals taken directly from the American Revolution itself. Also with the power struggle created by the Napoleonic wars, uprisings began. The most prominent of this movement was the uprising in Chuquisaca in 1809, which led to the formation of the Government Juntas. This group focused on taking the power from the Spanish and giving it to the people. Seeing the movement in Bolivia take shape, Latin Nations such as Peru began to provide military support to Bolivian liberators. Surprisingly, America didn’t live up to its reputation, having no negative impact on this revolution. Normally, America had been notorious for backing up the dictators or colonial powers and suppressing the Latin liberators. All in all, the combination of a power struggle brought upon by foreign wars, introduction of revolutionary independence ideals, proper leadership, and foreign aid, the Bolivian revolution was successful in liberating the nation from Spanish Colonial power after 16 years of conflict.

They argued that the Spanish had colonized the territories and therefore had the authority to rule the colonies however they pleased (“Simón Bolívar.” UXL Biographies). Even after Bolivar had liberated slaves across the continent, “constant revolts flared up in the republics against unity” (“Simón Bolívar.” UXL Biographies). Many refused to see Bolivar’s vision simply because they had gotten used to inherently being superior to others.

In processes of Independence in South American and Brazil happened very differently. In the Spanish American process of revolution there were lots of movements for rebellion (Chasteen:93). Many of the movements were set in motion when the king of Spain, Carlos IV, and Prince Fernando, were captured by Neapolitan (Chasteen:92). The colonies questioned the leadership of the Spanish crown. In Mexico, two priests sparked different rebellions. Father Miguel Hidalgo gained support from indigenous and mestizo people with the phrase “Americans versus Europeans” (Chasteen:96). This turned into rebellion against the Peninsulars and, unintentionally, creole since it was difficult for the fighters to tell them apart (Chasteen:96). Father José María Morelos

Though the colony was returned to Spain in 1809, weak support led to a decay in colonial infrastructure, leading to a revolt, led by José Núñez de Cáceres and Don Manuel Carvajal, which declared “Spanish Haiti” independent. However, the new nation was vulnerable, and Boyer immediately seized on the opportunity to unite the island for security purposes, seeking to impose “Haitianization” on Santo Domingo economically and politically. Such aspects of “Haitianization” included abolition of slavery, land redistribution, settlement of Haitians, and forced cultivation of crops in a region dominated by cattle ranchers. (Moya Pons 123, 133) An insurrection group named los trinitarios seized on the discontent of the Dominican people in the 1830s and 1840s, leading to independence in 1844. (Black 19)

"American imperialism in 1898 was not a sudden abandonment of anti-colonial tradition but was a logical extension of commercial expansion, something the US had been doing throughout its history" (SparkNotes: The Spanish American War, 1898-1901,: Effects of the Treaty). President McKinley was not interested in wars of conquest or of territorial aggression. His interest in expansion was "to make the United States first in international commerce and as a means to implement its humanitarian and democratic goals" (Faragher, J., Buhle, M. J., & Armitage, S. H. ,2008, Out of Many, A History of the American People, 6th ed., Vol. 2, p. 561). McKinley would eventually be forced to act in a humanitarian effort for the people of Cuba and to protect