Independence movements in the Americas (1763–1860)

Britain's debt from the Seven Years' War (1756–1763); Parliament wanted colonists to help pay for their own defence.

Colonists argued Parliament had no right to tax them since they had no elected members representing them in it.

Stamp Act (1765), Townshend Acts (1767), Tea Act (1773).

British soldiers fired into a crowd of protesters, killing five colonists; used as propaganda against British rule.

Natural rights and the social contract: government rules only with the people's consent and can be overthrown if it violates rights.

Sold over 100,000 copies; shifted public opinion from seeking reform to demanding full independence.

An 18th-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, natural rights, and government by consent.

Intellectual contribution: drafted the Declaration of Independence (1776), building on Lockean natural rights.

Military contribution: commanded the Continental Army, survived Valley Forge (1777–78), won the decisive Battle of Yorktown (1781).

Jefferson provided the intellectual/written justification for independence; Washington provided the military force that made independence achievable.

Adams organised the Sons of Liberty and committees of correspondence; Paine's writing converted ordinary readers to the cause of independence.

Some argue ideas (Locke, Paine) were most important; others argue British political/economic overreach (taxes, Intolerable Acts) was the real trigger — strongest essays show the two reinforced each other.

Early volunteer militias were repeatedly defeated by Spain's disciplined troops; professional, trained armies with European veteran officers could hold their own in sustained campaigns.

The llanos are Venezuela's vast tropical grassland plains; Bolívar recruited its tough cavalrymen (llaneros), led by José Antonio Páez, turning a former royalist stronghold into a decisive patriot fighting force.

San Martín led the Army of the Andes across the mountains into Chile, achieving total surprise and defeating royalist forces at the Battle of Chacabuco.

Bolívar and San Martín met privately to decide who would complete the liberation of Peru; San Martín chose to withdraw from politics, leaving Bolívar to finish the campaign.

It forced King Ferdinand VII to abdicate, triggering a legitimacy crisis across the empire and draining Spanish resources into the Peninsular War instead of the Americas.

In 1816, independent Haiti gave Bolívar refuge, ships, and weapons in exchange for his promise to free enslaved people in the territories he liberated.

Bolívar wanted a strong, sometimes lifetime president and one unified Gran Colombia, fearing federalism would cause fracture; federalists wanted power shared between regions, appealing to local elites — the clash caused prolonged instability.

A viceroyalty was a large territory ruled on the Spanish king's behalf by a viceroy; when independence came, these old administrative lines became new international borders that rarely matched ethnic or economic reality.

Bolívar's attempt to unite the new American republics into a league of states failed, as most delegates did not even attend — showing how weak regional unity remained even at its most hopeful moment.

Gran Colombia dissolved into Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador by 1831 after Bolívar resigned; it shows his centralist state-building project largely failed despite his military success.

Centuries of loyalty to the Spanish king, local towns, or social class (not a nation); and the inheritance of arbitrary colonial borders that did not match ethnic or economic reality.

Whether Spain's own collapse (Napoleon's invasion, the Peninsular War, the 1820 constitutional crisis) explains victory more than the military skill and cooperation of patriot leaders like Bolívar and San Martín.

War debt from borrowing to fund the fighting, wrecked mines and farms, collapsed trade networks, and a weak tax base that left treasuries empty.

A regional military strongman who ruled through personal loyalty and force rather than constitutional authority — common across post-independence Latin America.

Soldiers who were not paid became loyal instead to ambitious generals (caudillos), turning armies into private political tools and fuelling civil wars.

It collapsed by 1830 into separate republics (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama) because regional leaders refused to accept one central authority.

Many lost communal land protections that had existed (unevenly) under Spanish colonial law, and forced labour continued in some regions despite promises of equal citizenship.

Slavery was abolished only gradually, often decades after independence, and freed people continued to face poverty and racism.

Independence leaders were mostly Creoles (American-born of Spanish descent) who replaced Spanish-born officials as the new ruling elite, gaining political power for themselves.

An 1823 US declaration opposing further European colonization or interference in the Americas — largely symbolic since the US lacked the navy to enforce it.

A meeting called by Bolivar to unite the new Latin American republics; US commitment was weak, with delegates arriving late or not at all.

The US offered mainly moral/diplomatic support (recognition, Monroe Doctrine) with little military or trade power; Britain's navy and trade dominance had far more real influence in deterring European intervention and shaping the economy.

Supporters point to the Monroe Doctrine and early recognition; critics note the US had no navy to enforce the Doctrine and that Latin American states had already defeated Spain militarily before 1823.

Whether independence was a genuine social liberation for all groups, or mainly a transfer of power from Spanish-born officials to American-born Creole elites.