Buy this book on Amazon: A Short History of the World
The American and French revolutions of the 18th century, and the Napoleonic wars in Europe that ran into the 19th century, also had monumental consequences for another part of the world: South America. In 1800 South America remained almost entirely in Spanish and Portuguese hands, yet within 26 years all that remained of these European empires in the New World were the Spanish-held Caribbean islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Even these would become protectorates of the USA after the Spanish-American war of 1898.
Spain's restrictions over economic matters, the authoritarian nature of its government, and the preference given to Spaniards born in Spain over Creoles (those with Spanish parentage but born in the Americas), were just some of the factors that, when put together, alienated much of the local population. Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808 gave such movements the excuse and the impetus they needed to throw off the yoke of their colonial masters.
Led by freedom fighters, such as Simon Bolivar93 – the George Washington of Latin America after whom the country of Bolivia was named – and Jose de San Martin, who led the liberation of Argentina and Chile, most of Spanish-held South America had gained its independence by 1825. Brazil became a republic only in 1889.
As regards Brazil, the local population sought their independence only after Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 and when the Portuguese royal family returned to Lisbon, from where they had fled in 1808. In a relatively bloodless coup, the son of the Portuguese monarch became emperor of an independent Brazil in 1822.
The freedom these people gained was not entirely that which they had hoped for; with little experience of managing their own affairs, the majority of the countries fell rapidly into military dictatorships.