In 1791, inspired by the French Revolution, slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue revolted. Saint-Domingue was a sugar and coffee-producing colony on the Caribbean Island of Hispaniola. A free black man, Toussaint L’Ouverture, joined the rebels in what became known as the Haitian Revolution. He helped lead them to victory and independence from France. Their struggle, which lasted until 1804, greatly altered the social order in the former colony, which they renamed Haiti.

Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal in 1807 and Spain in 1808 sparked unrest in much of Latin America. With ties to their home country severed, some Spanish colonists began devising their separate governments. Conflict broke out between patriots, who sought independence, and royalists, who opposed splitting with Spain. The patriots tended to be Creoles, American-born descendants of Spanish settlers. They read Enlightenment authors and were inspired by the ideals of liberty and republicanism that came out of the American Revolution. The royalists were mainly peninsulares or Spanish-born colonists whose natural loyalty was to Spain. Creole resistance to Spanish power went back to the late 1700s. Spain had then taken steps to regain control of Spanish America, much as the British had tried to reassert their authority over their North American colonies. They created new administrative units and placed peninsular, not Creoles, in charge. They levied new taxes and took over parts of the economy. The Creoles resented these and other Spanish policies aimed at centralized control.