page_title: Latin America
section_title: Independence (1804–1825)
hierarchical_section_title: Latin America / History / Independence (1804–1825)
caption_attribution_description: Español: El Libertador en traje de campaña. 1895. Oleo sobre tela. 240 x 126,5 cm. Asamblea Legislativa del Estado Anzoategui. 1895.
context_page_description: Latin America is a group of countries and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere where Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, and French are predominantly spoken. However, it is often used as a synonym for Ibero-America or Hispanic America in categorizing the New World, thus excluding Latin-language speaking territories such as Quebec. The term is recent in origin and comes from the fact that the predominant languages of the countries originated with the Latin language.
  The term "Latin America" was first used in an 1856 conference with the title "Initiative of the Americas. Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics", by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was used also by Napoleon III's French government in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military expedition into Mexico and consider French-speaking territories in the Americas, along with the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed, including the Spanish-speaking portions of the United States.
context_section_description: In 1804, Haiti became the first Latin American nation to gain independence, following a violent slave revolt led by Toussaint L'ouverture on the French colony of Saint-Domingue. The victors abolished slavery. Haitian independence inspired independence movements in Spanish America.
  By the end of the eighteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese power waned on the global scene as other European powers took their place, notably Britain and France. Resentment grew among the majority of the population in Latin America over the restrictions imposed by the Spanish government, as well as the dominance of native Spaniards (Iberian-born Peninsulares) in the major social and political institutions. Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 marked a turning point, compelling Criollo elites to form juntas that advocated independence. Also, the newly independent Haiti, the second oldest nation in the New World after the United States, further fueled the independence movement by inspiring the leaders of the movement, such as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla of Mexico, Simón Bolívar of Venezuela and José de San Martín of Argentina, and by providing them with considerable munitions and troops.
  Fighting soon broke out between juntas and the Spanish colonial authorities, with initial victories for the advocates of independence. Eventually, these early movements were crushed by the royalist troops by 1810, including those of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in Mexico in the year 1810. Later on Francisco de Miranda in Venezuela by 1812. Under the leadership of a new generation of leaders, such as Simón Bolívar "The Liberator", José de San Martín of Argentina, and other Libertadores in South America, the independence movement regained strength, and by 1825, all Spanish America, except for Puerto Rico and Cuba, had gained independence from Spain. In the same year in Mexico, a military officer, Agustín de Iturbide, led a coalition of conservatives and liberals who created a constitutional monarchy, with Iturbide as emperor. This First Mexican Empire was short-lived, and was followed by the creation of a republic in 1823.
caption: Simón Bolívar, Liberator of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Panama
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D300", "Image XResolution": "500", "Image YResolution": "500", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.3 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2014:04:09 23:11:55", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "908", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10055", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:01:28 11:51:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:01:28 11:51:05", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "3906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "29", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "17", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "17", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "43", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "2105608", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[18, 50, 14/5, 14/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "18.0-50.0 mm f/2.8"}