AP World History: Latin American Revolutions Period 5: 1750 – 1900 CE

I Before The Revolution in Venezuela A) 1808 Napoleon occupied the Iberian Peninsula, deposed the French Bourbon dynasty, and appointed his brother Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain. *TURNING POINT* B) In New Spain, those born in Spain were known as peninsulares (from the Iberian Peninsula), most of whom ran coffee, cocoa, and sugar plantations. Spaniards born in New Spain were known as creoles. Spain ruled Venezuela as a colony, though town councils allowed the peninsulares and some creoles some political influence over local affairs. Most creoles were less well off than the peninsulares. They largely worked in urban positions as artisans, soldiers, and traders. The majority of the population were mestizos (European and Spanish ancestry); most were peasants. Though mestizos wanted to end the creoles’ white privilege, they did not all want to end slavery. African slaves, made up 20% of the population, and Native Americans made up less than 10%, largely due to European diseases like smallpox.

II Causes of Revolution A) By the 19th century, Spain still needed its colonies for their raw resources, but the plantation owners wanted the freedom to sell their cocoa and coffee on the open world market. B) The Spanish colonial government sought, above all, to preserve Venezuela’s hierarchical social order. Anyone who wanted greater social, political, or economic equality in the colony had, at some level, to oppose Spanish government. C) Napoleon’s 1808 conquest of Spain provided Venezuelan revolutionaries with a window of opportunity. In 1810, the town council of Caracas deposed the Spanish colonial governor and established a junta, or group dictatorship. Simón Bolívar, a wealthy creole influenced by the Enlightenment, traveled to Europe to rally support for the revolution. He brought back with him Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan who had been in exile in England.

Simon Bolivar

Francisco de Miranda Francisco de Miranda was a Venezuelan soldier who had gone to Europe and had become a General during the French Revolution. In his 20s he went to the U.S. and met with American revolutionary leaders including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who influenced his vision for Latin America. He envisioned an independent empire under the leadership of a hereditary emperor from the Incan royal family, with a legislature of two houses. In 1806 he launched an invasion of Venezuela with American volunteer soldiers. He held the town of Coro for about two weeks before Spanish forces drove him out. He was also the lover of Catherine the Great of Russia!

II The Revolution A) On April 19, 1810, Venezuelan Creole patriots held a meeting in Caracas where they declared a provisional independence; they would rule themselves until the Spanish monarchy was restored. The resulting government became known as the First Venezuelan Republic. Radicals within the government, such as Simón Bolívar, José Félix Ribas and Francisco de Miranda pushed for unconditional independence and on July 5, 1811, the congress approved it, making Venezuela the first South American nation to formally sever all ties with Spain. B) When Venezuela formally declared independence on July 5, 1811, Miranda assumed dictatorial powers. The Spanish forces counterattacked, and Miranda, fearing a brutal defeat, signed an armistice with them in July 1812. The other revolutionary leaders, including Bolívar, believed his surrender was treason and handed him over to the Spanish. Transported in chains to Cádiz, he eventually died in his prison cell. Bolívar went into exile.

The Revolution Continued… C) October 1812, Bolívar went to Colombia, where he was given a small force. Bolívar drove the Spanish out. Impressed, the leaders in Cartagena gave him permission to liberate western Venezuela. Bolívar did so and then marched on Caracas, which he took back in August 1813, a year after the fall of the first Venezuelan Republic and three months since he had left Colombia. This became known as the "Admirable Campaign". D) Bolivar established an independent government known as the Second Venezuelan Republic. He had outsmarted the Spanish during the Admirable Campaign, but there were still large Spanish and royalist armies in Venezuela. The Second Venezuelan Republic fell in mid-1814 and Bolívar once again went into exile. E) In 1819, Bolívar was cornered in western Venezuela with his army. He crossed the frosty Andes with his army, losing half of it in the process, and arrived in New Granada (Colombia) in July 1819. New Granada had been relatively untouched by the war, so Bolívar was able to quickly recruit a new army. He made a march on Bogota, where the Spanish Viceroy sent out a force to delay him. At the Battle of Boyaca on August 7, Bolívar scored a decisive victory. He marched into Bogota, and the volunteers and resources there allowed him to recruit and equip a much larger army, and he once again marched on Venezuela.

The Revolution Continued… F) Spanish officers in Venezuela called for a cease-fire, which lasted until April 1821. Spanish General Miguel de la Torre combined his armies and met the combined forces of Bolívar and General José Antonio Páez at the Battle of Carabobo on June 24, 1821. The patriot victory secured Venezuela's independence, as the Spanish decided they could never pacify and re- take the region. G) With the Spanish finally driven off, Bolívar formed the Republic of Gran Colombia, including present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama. The republic lasted until 1830, when it fell apart into Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador (Panama was part of Colombia at the time). General Páez was the main leader behind Venezuela's break from Gran Colombia. General José Antonio Páez

Jose De San Martin José de San Martín was born to Peninsualares in 1778 in Argentina. He was educated in Spain and joined the Spanish army. In 1811 with Spain under Joseph Bonaparte, he resigned and went to Buenos Aires to fight for independence. In 1817 lead 5,000 men through the Andes to invade Chile. After securing Chilean independence, with a navy fleet, he invaded Peru and declared independence in Lima in 1821, with himself as dictator. Bolivar and San Martin met in Ecuador in 1822. Their meeting was secret (historians are unsure what transpired), but afterwards San Martín resigned, leaving Bolivar in command. The next year he went into exile in Europe, where he would spend almost the last thirty years of his life. “May slavery be banished forever together with the distinction between castes, all remaining equal, so Americans may only be distinguished by vice or virtue... In the new laws, may torture not be allowed.”

III Results of Venezuelan Revolution Upon Bolívar and Miranda’s return, the junta passed radical reforms. Restrictions on trade were lifted. Taxes on food, Indian tribute payments to the government, and even slavery were abolished! The revolution’s gains, however, were rolled back when Spain briefly reconquered Venezuela after Napoleon’s fall in 1814. Slavery was restored, and when Bolívar, having successfully elicited aid from independent Haiti, permanently liberated Venezuela in 1819, it remained intact. Venezuela continued to be ruled, as it had in 1810, by peninsulares and creoles. The revolution did, however, end Spain’s mercantilist restrictions on Venezuelan commerce, and the new republic traded its cocoa and coffee on the open world market.

Simon Bolivar: Letter from Jamaica “Kingston, Jamaica, September 6, 1815 My dear Sir: With what a feeling of gratitude I read that passage in your letter in which you say to me: "I hope that the success which then followed Spanish arms may now turn in favor of their adversaries, the badly oppressed people of South America." I take this hope as a prediction, if it is justice that determines man's contests. Success will crown our efforts, because the destiny of America has been irrevocably decided; the tie that bound her to Spain has been severed. Only a concept maintained that tie and kept the parts of that immense monarchy together. That which formerly bound them now divides them. The hatred that the [Iberian] Peninsula has inspired in us is greater than the ocean between us. It would be easier to have the two continents [Europe and South America] meet than to reconcile the spirits of the two countries…”

San Martin’s Masoleum, Buenos Aries Cathedral

Left: Archduke Maximilian of Austria IV Mexico vs. France A) In 1862, while the US was paralyzed by Civil War, the French under Napoleon III tried to create an empire in Mexico under a puppet ruler, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Left: Archduke Maximilian of Austria Right: Napoleon III (Maximilian’s goal was to grow a navy and dominate the Gulf of Mexico

Mexico vs. France Continued… B) In 1861, a French fleet stormed Veracruz, forcing President Benito Juarez and his government into retreat. 6,000 French troops set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles. From his new headquarters in the north, Juarez rounded up an army and sent them to Puebla. Led by Texas-born General Zaragoza, the 2,000 Mexicans prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, the battle lasted all day. The French lost nearly 500 soldiers to the fewer than 100 Mexicans killed. Zaragoza’s victory at Puebla increased Mexican resistance, and six years later France withdrew. In 1867, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian was captured and executed by Juarez’ forces. Today, Mexicans celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla as Cinco de Mayo, a national holiday in Mexico.

Mexico vs. France Continued… General Zaragoza Benito Juarez

V The Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution began with a call to arms on November 20, 1910 to overthrow the dictator Porfirio Díaz Mori. Díaz Mori made a name for himself at the 1862 defeat of the invading French. After failing to get elected president democratically, Díaz seized power in an 1876 coup. Except for one 4 year break, Díaz was the dictator of Mexico until 1911. Díaz Mori wanted to develop Mexico into an industrialized and modernized country with the aid of foreign investors (including the US). Railroad tracks were laid to connect major Mexican cities and ports. However, under Diaz Mori there was also mass corruption; land and power were concentrated in the hands of the elite, and elections were a charade. Following an economic downturn in 1907, even middle and upper-class citizens began to turn on him.

The Mexican Revolution Continued… C) Francisco Madero, who came from a wealthy family of landowners and industrialists, challenged Díaz in the 1910 presidential race. Díaz jailed him. Upon his release Madero fled to Texas, where he issued a call for Mexicans to rise up against their government on November 20, 1910. By May 1911, Díaz fled to France. Porfirio Díaz Mori Francisco Madero

The Mexican Revolution Continued… D) Francisco Madero was a weak leader and was replaced by General Victoriano Huerta who had Madero executed within a week of coming to power. Huerta himself was a dictator and was overthrown by Venustianio Carranza in 1914. He formed the Constitutional Army and a new constitution into which he accepted many of the rebel demands. Carranza was assassinated in 1920. E) The “official” end of the Mexican Revolution is debated. Some say it ended with the creation of the Constitution of Mexico in 1917, but the fighting continued long into the following decade. Victoriano Huerta Venustianio Carranza

Mexican Constitution Land Reforms Article 27: “The property of all land and water within national territory is originally owned by the Nation, who has the right to transfer this ownership to particulars. Hence, private property is a privilege created by the Nation... The State will always have the right to impose on private property constraints dictated by "public interest". The State will also regulate the exploitation of natural resources based on social benefits and the equal distribution of wealth.” – Constitution of Mexico “Article 27… authorized confiscation of large estates to be divided into small properties; it distinguished between the land and subsoil rights pointing out that, though the first may be held as private property, the second is the exclusive, inalienable domain of the nation; it placed conditions on foreign ownership of land and excluded the Church from holding property. This article paved the way for the confiscation, years later, of foreign-owned lands and oil companies.” http://zedillo.presidencia.gob.mx/

Mexican Revolutionaries

VI Monroe Doctrine “President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress contained the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere… The Monroe Doctrine was invoked in 1865 when the U.S. government exerted diplomatic and military pressure in support of the Mexican President Benito Juárez. This support enabled Juárez to lead a successful revolt against the Emperor Maximilian, who had been placed on the throne by the French government. Almost 40 years later, in 1904, European creditors of many Latin American countries threatened armed intervention to collect debts. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the right of the US to exercise an “international police power” to stop it. As a result, U. S. Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915 to keep the Europeans out…” –ourdocuments.gov

The Monroe Doctrine “The American continents…are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” - James Monroe, 1823

HW Questions Fill in Latin Revolutions on your Period 5 chart. *Include Bolivar, San Martin, and Mexico. How should Bolivar be remembered? *Use evidence from the Jamaica Letter. Which Latin American revolution do you think was the most successful? The least? Support your answers with historical evidence. What was the purpose of the Monroe Doctrine and its consequences? What is your opinion of it?

Key Vocabulary Benito Juarez Bernardo O'Higgins Caracas, Venezuela Ferdinand Maximilian Francisco de Miranda General Manuel Belgrano General Zaragoza Jose De San Martin Jose Miguel Carrera Napoleon III New Granada Simon Bolivar Simon Bolivar’s Letter from Jamaica