Spanish Influence On American Culture

Food is a major part of every culture, some very different and some very similar. American and Spanish cultures are very different because of eating habits, meal times, and how people interact over food. There are several differences between American and Spanish food, but there is one similarity: it brings people closer together like nothing else.

The Haitian revolution was from 1791 to 1804 and it happened when Saint-Domingue(Haiti) was under French rule therefore making it a French colony. Saint-Domingue was a very important colony for France due to its production of sugar as well as coffee. It was also a strategic point due to it being close to North America (Source C). This is why Napoleon Bonaparte’s plans to conquer North America as well as the West Indies and establish France and himself as dominant powers in Europe were centralised around Saint-Domingue (Source E).

In 1789, locations across the globe were affected by the French Revolution. This was a revolt initiated by the people that would change France forevermore, but it also changed Haiti. Unexpectedly, the French Revolution had a significant influence on the Haitian Revolution, a major slave revolt where slaves forcefully took their freedom for the first time in history. The French Revolution impacted the Haitian Revolution by changing the mindsets of the people, inspiring the Haitian Constitution, and initiating the final phase.

Before beginning, a legal code was put in place regarding regulation of slavery in Haiti and surrounding areas. This code, knows as “Black Code”, regulated everything from religion, to food (Doc 1). The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was the France claim of Independence. They believed that “all men were born and remain free and equal in rights”. Haitians believed that this also applied to them, but even though authors Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson believed people in their own countries had God-given rights, Haitian slaves did not because they were African (Doc 2). A helpful extra document would be of a Haitian reaction to France’s independence not being applied to Haiti. Because, they fought for the same thing, they should not be un-included in absolute freedom. Jean-Marie d’Aguay was president of the colonial Assembly in Saint Domingue in 1790, and was quoted saying “We have not brought half a million slaves from the coast of Africa to make them into French citizens.” This quote explicitly shows the amount of racial prejudice that Haitians slaves had to withstand prior to the revolution. (Doc

The Haitian Revolution took place from 1791 to 1804 on the island of Saint Domingue. On this island, an unfair hierarchy took place where Grand-blancs who were at the top of the hierarchy were extremely wealthy while ninety percent of the population were enslaved and abused. Life was set up so that enslaved blacks and wealthy whites were not created equal. The political structure of Saint Domingue was the exact type of political system that Enlightenment Philosophers like Thomas Jefferson and Emmanual Kant advocate against. The Haitian revolution that uprooted this hierarchy therefore did fulfill Enlightenment values because of how Toussaint L’Overture abolished slavery and initiated paid labor and how the Haitian Declaration of Independence

The cause and effects of the Haitian Revolution have played, and continue to play, a major role in the history of the Caribbean. During the time of this rebellion, slavery was a large institution throughout the Caribbean. The success of the sugar and other plantations was based on the large slave labor forces. Without these forces, Saint Domingue, the island with the largest sugar production, and the rest of the Caribbean, would face the threat of losing a profitable industry.

Christopher Columbus is known for being an explorer and is said to have made one of the most important voyages in world history without even wanting to. Something else that is also believed is that he “opened up” the Americas to European nations, which changed the course of American history. Before he went on his voyage though, he was in need of resources. So he asked Portugal, France, Italy among many other countries but they all denied Columbus and thought his statement was incorrect. Columbus’ statement was that he had found a faster way to get to Asia than the Portuguese had, which was going around the continent of Africa. Columbus lived a majority of his life in Spain, so when it came to setting sail for the west, Spain was one of the first nations he asked for funding. Though it took Columbus a little more than a few years to convince a nation to fund his voyage, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand from Spain subsequently granted to endow him in 1492. He would then leave for “Asia” on August 3, 1492. There are many unanswered questions and thoughts on why Spain decided to finally fund Columbus’ voyage, especially since he was an explorer that was born in Italy.

Throughout history, there have been dozens of times when people were extremely upset with the government that was ruling over them. However, these angry citizens only revolt a fraction of the time, due to fear of the government. Two examples of when people stood up for their rights and revolted are the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution. These revolts are loosely connected, as many say that the Haitian Revolution was inspired by the French Revolution. The French Revolution started in 1789 and continued all the way until 1814. The people in France had discontent with the classes, as 98% of the French population was living in serious poverty. The French people

The Haitian revolution took place in Saint-Domingue, a French colony and one of the richest of all European colonies in the Caribbean, on the western part of the island of Hispaniola, a major center of sugar production with hundreds of prosperous plantations. The population of the colony comprised of three groups, the white colonials, the gens de couleur, and the slaves. Many slaves ran away and established maroon communities that were self-sustained. As more and more slaves ran away, more and more slaves were being imported from Africa and other Caribbean islands, which resulted in the high prices of slaves. Since the French aided the North American colonists in their war for independence, they sent several hundreds of gens de couleur to the colonies. Once they returned to Saint-Domingue, they wanted independence themselves from the French.

The Haitian Revolution is based on the political purpose that France had when they fought to possess Saint-Domingue (now called Haiti). France, like other empires at the time, was trying to extend its wealth and power. Therefore, possessing Haiti, having a lot of gold, sugar, coffee, indigo and others were one way to be strong and powerful. Being driven by the profits that Haiti were emanating, African slaves were continuously brought to Haiti, first to replace the Aboriginals that had died previously, but also to increase their profits. This led to the slaves outnumbering the French colonizers. Later on, the free people of color were demanding more right to the French government and after their refusal, the slaves and the free people of color revolted which led to the Haitian revolution (Simpsons 1942, 487). The French colonizers were already struggling about the equality between themselves because there was a hierarchy present within the White community. Moreover, what created a reaction to help slaves to revolt was the “religious ceremony performed at Bois Caïman by the Maroon voodoo priest Dutty Boukman, which was attended by representative slaves from several plantations” (Laguerre 1989, 1). Boukman called the help of the spirits to revolt against the white colonists. The revolution of Haiti in 1804 was a social and political uprising in the French Colony of Saint-Domingue. Voodoo rapidly became Haiti’s way out of slavery, as it helped them reunite together and gain the

Hence, The Spanish explorations were most notably able to occur due to the King and Queen’s efforts to unify the Spanish nation and the growing competition between the unified Spain and its neighboring country, Portugal (Nardo, 1947). The King and Queen did many other things to improve and fund exploration in Spain, and perhaps the most significant thing they did was sponsor Christopher Columbus after he proposed an exploration to India, guaranteeing that he could discover and establish valuable trade routes from India to Eastern Asia (Nardo, 1947). The King and Queen agreed to sponsor him because Spain often sought out trade opportunities and wanted to find gold and valuable spices from Asia, specifically from India, and this exploration almost guaranteed all of that (Nardo, 1947). Therefore, the reasons for Spanish exploration include the desire to establish trade routes between India and Eastern Asia, to find valuable resources, the empire’s competition with Portugal, and the King and Queen’s unification of their kingdoms and sponsorship of Christopher

American culture is heavily influenced by the Hispanic culture because when Hispanic people move to America they bring their culture with them. Their culture has influenced our religion, cuisine, social media, etc. Hispanic people make up 15.8% of the population in America so it is no surprise that they are the leading minority group to have influence on American culture.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus founded an island in the western Atlantic Ocean and he named it Hispaniola. Hispaniola was inhabited by the Arawaks, and they were the ones responsible for later giving Haiti its name. Haiti soon became one of France’s most prosperous colonies in the America’s, and it also became one of the world’s leading chief coffee and sugar producers. Around the 18th century settlement began to expand here, and Haiti was settled by Creoles, slaves, Frenchmen, and freed blacks. Around this time, the Haitian society was undergoing some tough times and a debate over power had begun. The concern with governmental authority was a major problem, and within a short period of time, a revolt for independence had broken out,

In the 19th century, Enlightenment ideas were spreading all over Europe and Latin American which influents the white elites in Haiti to want a capitalist market and control of it own resources. Latin America’s elite class became anti-imperialist and favored exportation based on capitalism. Also, the white elites in Haiti saw that France was fully engaged in the Napoleonic Wars and seized the

Haiti was the French of Santo Domingo, the most prolific colonial economy in the world. Monopolized by plantation agriculture, mainly to stock coffee and sugar to the world market, practically 90 percent was Haiti’s slave population. African slaves were brought to the island in the Atlantic slave trade. The fragment of the populace subsisted of peoples of European ancestry and of mixed heritage, delineated in the law of the colony as “white” or people of color, proportionately. Both of these groups owned slaves. French bureaucrats subjugated the island. By 1788, the native Indian populace had died out completely as result of