February 28, 2017 - Latin American Independence

February 28, 2017

Latin American Independence

Raised in Texas, I am as patriotic as the next.  I know all the stories of America’s quest for independence, as well as Texas.’  I never dreamed that those two revolutions were the beginning and the end of a move of independence across the Americas.  It covered a period of 60 years, but Spain lost its empire in just 20.  I know why the United States desired independence and Texas, but what happened in Spanish America that caused Spain to lose its vast empire in a span of 20 years?

Imagine, if you will, the extent of the Spanish Empire.  In the north, it included all those states who have names of Spanish origin, like Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Louisiana, Arizona, California, Nevada, and Oregon.  It included all of Mexico and Central America.  South America, except for Brazil, was Spanish.  The Caribbean, though for a century other European powers were taking an island here or there, was Spanish.  That is why almost every island in the Caribbean has a Spanish name (Trinidad, Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, etc.)  The empire also included the Philippines, which traded with Spain across the Pacific, through the port of Acapulco, Mexico.  It was a huge empire.  It was never duplicated until the British Empire of the 1800s.

The first reason for revolution was the Spanish lack of respect for the Creoles.  These are people of Spanish decent, the white people who had been encouraged to emigrate to the New World and make it more Spanish.  Just like the British did not respect the American-born Brits in America, the Spanish did not respect their white cousins in the colonies.  Important positions always went to someone who had been born in Spain, never a better qualified man born in the Americas.

The second reason had to do with free trade, one of the same reasons the British colonies rebelled.  Spain demanded that the colonies only trade with Spain, even if they could get better prices selling to France or the British colonies.  Imagine Colombian coffee being sold to Spain, who then sells it to England, who sells it to their colony in Virginia.  Dumb, right?  These guys wanted to make money off the goods they produced.  They had to break the law to take the shortcut.  You would think the Spanish would have learned a lesson watching the American Revolution, but they were stubborn.

By 1810, when the revolutions began, the creoles observed the results of revolution in the British colonies and the one in Haiti.  That becomes the third reason.  They did not want to become like Haiti, fearing what happened there, might happen in their land, especially those with large slave populations.  At the same time, they observed what happened with the creation of the United States.  They admired the new country and wanted to emulate it.  It is not surprising that almost every American nation has a constitution based on the Constitution of the United States.

The fourth reason has to do with war in Europe.  Spain supported Napoleon and the British fought back, including an invasion of Argentina that the mother country could not repel.  Shortly thereafter, Napoleon decided to add Spain to his empire and the colonies were completely cut off from Spain. They were forced into self-rule, and they liked it.

The last has to do with racism.  I’m not talking about black versus white, or white versus Hispanic.  In this case, it was white versus white.  Those in Spain felt that if you were born in the Americas, you were inferior to one born in Spain.  It didn’t matter how well-educated you were, or how wealthy you were.  A sheep farmer in Castile was better than the landowner of the largest ranch in Venezuela.

In 1810, revolution began in Mexico and soon spread across Latin America.  By 1825, when Bolivia gained its independence, Spain was ousted from the Americas, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico.  The year 1836, when Texas gained its independence, could be called the last revolution, Mexico had other revolutions to deal with, including the loss of the Yucatan.  The vast empire of the Spaniards was gone, in the blink of an eye.  Spain would never recover from the loss.

I will share a few more bits of history this year.  As I am learning about this beautiful land of Bolivia, I am discovering heroes as great as any told in the history classes of my youth.

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