this is Crash Course World History

and today things are going to get a little bit confusing,

because we’re going to talk about revolution and independence

in Latin America.

It’s a bit confusing because

1. Latin America is big,

2. It’s very diverse,

3. Napoleon makes everything complicated

and 4. As we’ve seen in the past, sometimes

revolutions turn out not to be

not that revolutionary. [why a solid marketing dept. is key]

Witness, for instance, the New England Revolution,

who instead of, like, trying to form new and better governments

are always just kicking balls around like all the other soccer [futbol] teams.

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Right,

so before independence,

Latin American society was characterized by three institutions

that exercised control over the population.

The first was the Spanish Crown,

or if you are Brazilian,

the Portuguese crown.

So, as far as Spain was concerned,

the job of the colonies was to produce revenue

in the form of a 20% tax on everything that was called “the royal fifth.”

So government administration was pervasive and relatively efficient—

because it had to be in order to collect its royal fifth.

I mean, the church even controlled time

– the church bells tolled out the hours

and they mandated a seven day work week so that people

could go to church on Sunday.

[so HobbyLobby store hours aren't super inconvenient, they're just old skool?]

And finally, there was patriarchy. [yeuup, there's a shocker]

In Latin America, like much of the world,

husbands had complete control over their wives and any

extra-or-pre-marital skoodilypooping was severely punished.

I mean,

when it was the women doing the illicit skoodilypooping.

Men could basically get up to whatever. [RIP Helen Gurley Brown. much love]

This was mainly about property rights

because illegitimate children could inherit their father’s property,

but it was constructed to be about, you know, purity.

To get a sense of how patriarchy shaped Latin American lives,

take a gander at Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,

whose name I’m actually abbreviating.

A child prodigy who spoke five languages by the age of 16,

de la Cruz wanted to disguise herself as a boy so she could attend University,

[plot of 80's flick Just One of the Guys]

but she was forbidden to do so.

Still, she wrote plays and poetry,

she studied math and natural science, [Girls do Get Curves, Danica McKellar!]

and for being one of the leading minds of the 17th century,

she was widely attacked,

and eventually forced to abandon her work

and sell all 4,000 of her books.

That’s a shame because she had a great mind,

once writing that

“Aristotle would have written more if he had done any cooking.”

[oooh, snap!]

Couple other things:

First,

Latin America led the world in transculturation or Cultural Blending.

A new and distinct Latin American culture emerged mixing

1. Whites from Spain called Peninsulares,

2. Whites born in the Americas called creoles,

3. Native Americans,

and 4. African slaves.

This blending of cultures may be most obvious

when looking at Native American and African influences upon Christianity.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, for instance, was still called Tonantzin,

the indigenous earth goddess, by Indians,

and the profusion of blood in Mexican iconography

recalls the Aztec use of blood in ritual.

But transculturation pervaded Latin American life,

from food to secular music to fashion.

Somewhat related: Latin America had a great deal of racial diversity and

a rigid social hierarchy to match.

There were four basic racial categories:

white, black, mestizo –a mix of white and American Indian-

and mulatto, a mix of white and black.

We try not to use that word anymore because it’s offensive,

but that’s the word they used.

And from the 16th century on,

Latin America had a huge diversity of mixed race people,

and there were constant attempts to classify them

and divide them into castes.

You can see some of these in so called casta paintings,

which attempted to establish in a very weird and Enlightenment-y way

all the possible racial combinations.

But of course that’s not how race works, as evidenced by the fact that

successful people of lower racial castes could become “legally white”

by being granted gracias al sacar. [pretty jacked up, white? right, I mean..]

So by 1800,

on the eve of Latin America’s independence movements,

roughly a quarter of the population were mixed race.

So Brazil…

he said as thousands of Argentinians booed him—

is obviously different because it was ruled, not by Spain,

but by Portugal.

But like a lot of revolutions in Latin America,

it was fairly conservative.

The creoles wanted to maintain their privilege

while also achieving independence from the Peninsulares.

And also like a lot of Latin American revolutions,

it featured Napoleon. [forever makes me think of Bill &Ted]

Freaking Napoleon.

You’re everywhere. [except in line for certain roller coasters]

He’s behind me, isn’t he?

Gah.

So when Napoleon took over Portugal in 1807,

the entire Portuguese royal family and their royal court decamped to Brazil.

And it turned out, they loved Brazil.

King Joao loved Brazil so much.

Off topic,

but do you think that J-Woww named herself after King Joao?

I mean, does she have that kind of historical sensibility?

I think she does. [that whole bit really just happened, btw]

So King Joao’s life in Rio was so good

that even after Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo,

he just kind of stayed in Brazil.

And then, by 1820, the Portuguese in Portugal were like,

“Hey, maybe you should come back and, like, you know,

govern us, King of Portugal.”

So in 1821,

he reluctantly returned to Lisbon, leaving his son Prince Pedro behind.

Meanwhile,

Brazilian creoles were organizing themselves around the idea

that they were culturally different from Portugal,

and they eventually f ormed a Brazilian Party—

no, Stan

not that kind of party, come on—

yes. That kind.

A Brazilian party to lobby for independence.

Then in 1822,

they convinced Prince Pedro of boring, old Portugal that

he should just become King Pedro of sexy, big Brazil.

So Pedro declared Brazil an independent constitutional monarchy

with himself as king. [as one does, naturally]

As a result,

Brazil achieved independence without much bloodshed

and managed to hold on to that social hierarchy

with the plantation owners on top.

And that

explains why Brazil was the last new world country to abolish slavery,

not fully abandoning it until 1888.

Right, so even when Napoleon wasn’t forcing Portuguese royals

into an awesome exile, he was still messing with Latin America.

Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.

So Latin America’s independence movements began

not with Brazil, but in Mexico when Napoleon put his brother

on the Spanish throne in 1808. [nepotism; always a classy move]

Napoleon wanted to institute the liberal principles of the French Revolution,

which angered the ruling elite of the Peninsulares

in what was then called New Spain.

They were aristocrats and they just wanted to go back to some good old-fashioned divine

right monarchy with a strong church.

So the Mexican Creoles,

seeking to expand their own power at the expense of the Peninsular elite

saw an opportunity here.

They affirmed their loyalty to the new king,

who was French even though he was the king of Spain.

I told you this was complicated.

Then,

a massive peasant uprising began, led by a renegade priest Padre Hidalgo,

and supported by the Creoles because it was aimed at the Peninsulares,

even though they weren’t actually the ones who supported Spain.

This was further complicated by the fact that

to the mestizo peasants led by Hidalgo,

Creoles and Peninsulares looked and acted basically identical—

they were both white and imperious— [preferable to avada kedavrious?]

so the peasants often attacked the Creoles, who were,

technically on their side in trying to overthrow the ruling peninsulares.

Even though it had tens of thousands of supporters,

this first peasant uprising petered out.

But,

a second peasant revolt, led by another priest, Father Morelos,

was much more revolutionary.

In 1813,

he declared independence and the revolt lasted until his death in 1815.

But since he was a mestizo, he didn’t gain much Creole support,

so revolutionary fervor in Mexico began to fade until …

1820, when Spain, which was

now under the rule of a Spanish, rather than a French king,

had a REAL liberal revolution

with a new constitution that limited the power of the church.

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

So, in the wake of Spain’s liberalizing movements,

the Mexican elites, who had previously supported Spain,

switched sides and made common cause with the creoles

in the hopes that they could somehow hold onto their privileges.

And pushing for independence together,

things went very well. [stay together to stay alive, just like L4D!]

The Creole general Iturbide and the rebel mestizo commander

Guerrero

joined forces and won independence

with most of the Peninsulares returning to Spain.

Iturbide

–the whiter of the two generals –

became king of Mexico in 1822

(remember, this was a revolution essentially AGAINST

representative government).

But that didn’t work out

and within a year he was overthrown by the military and a republic was declared.

Popular sovereignty was sort of victorious,

but without much benefit to the peasants

who actually made independence possible.

This alliance between conservative landowning elites and the army -

especially in the face of calls for land reform or economic justice—

would happen over and over again in Latin America

for the next century and a half.

But before we come to any conclusions,

let’s discuss one last revolution.

But,

the interior of Venezuela was home to mixed-race cowboys called llaneros

who supported the king.

They kept the Caracas revolutionaries from extending their power inland.

And that, is where Simon Bolivar,

“el Libertador,” [young portrait w foppish 'stache is fave]

enters the picture.

Bolivar realized that the only way to overcome the various class divisions

(like the one between the Caracas creoles and llaneros)

was to appeal to a common sense of South American-ness.

I mean, after all,

the one thing that almost all South Americans had in common:

they were born in South America,

NOT SPAIN.

So then,

partly through shows of toughness that included, like,

crossing flooded plains and going without sleep,

Bolivar convinced the llaneros to give up fighting for Spain

and start fighting against them.

He quickly captured the viceregal capital at Bogota

and by 1822 his forces had taken Caracas and Quito.

Hold on, hold on.

Lest I be attacked by Argentinians [to get back the plutonium you stole?]

who are already upset about what I said about their really good soccer team,

I want to make one thing clear.

Argentina’s general Jose de San Martin

was also vital to the defeat of the Spanish.

He led an expeditions against the Spanish in Chile

and also a really important one in Lima.