Latin American Revolutions - Issues in Race

In our Latin American Revolutions lesson, we were asked the questions “Why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless of race? How are the events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this social imperative?” - The answers to these questions still matter today, with human rights being a ‘hot topic’ on the news quite frequently nowadays. So to study this, in class, we first split up into 3 groups. Within these groups, we determined what races made up what percent of the population in Latin America at the time. Here's the chart:

Then, packets were passed out. One group had a packet on Mexico, another on Gran Colombia, and another on Brazil. My group had the Brazil packet. Our group read this packet, then devised a timeline of the events that happened in Brazil over the course of the Latin American Revolutions. Here’s the timeline itself:

The revolutions in Mexico and Gran Colombia were similar to Brazil’s in some respects, but quite different in others. All 3 revolutions were in the early 1800s, and, in all of them, the lower class was rebelling against the upper class colonialists that held all the power in their country’s government. The Brazilian revolution, however, was the only one that was against Portugal; the other two were against Spain. Also, The Brazilian revolution was the only revolution of the three that didn’t have much violence in it.

In society today, there definitely still are racial issues. Take the problems in Ferguson, for example. I mean, just look at this link. There’s a whole list of racial issues sprinkled in throughout there. It’s definitely still an issue, and should still be talked about today.

Toussaint Louverture: The Legend of the Liberator

Liberator of Slaves. Ruler of Saint Domingue. Military Commander. Toussaint Louverture, the legendary leader of the Haitian Revolution was one of the most influential military commanders in the late 1700s to early 1800s. He fought against France for the freedom of Haitian slaves, and, through great cunning, guerilla warfare, and sheer military prowess, he succeeded in freeing the slaves of Haiti. The three reasons listed above were his main personal achievements, and what he will forever be remembered as. His strong leadership and morals contributed to how we know him today: a liberator of slaves, ruler of Saint Domingue, and a military commander.

All that Toussaint Louverture did in Saint Domingue (now called Haiti) was towards the effort of making the island a better place to live, mainly by abolishing slavery. Throughout the slave uprising and rebellion that started in 1791, Toussaint Louverture was devoted to do anything needed to end slavery. Louverture didn’t just start out as a commander, however. He joined the rebellion as a doctor, but, due to his intelligence and drive, quickly rose through the ranks and ended up in charge of the rebellion. He gathered many unhappy slaves, all ready to fight for freedom, and went on a crusade against the French. Slaves struck in the night, killing their masters, swiftly and often brutally. The ratio of slaves to wealthy whites was too large for the present French Army to do anything. The Spaniards, who were elated at the fact that someone was fighting their enemy, and also enticed by the possibility of joining Saint Domingue with Santo Domingo (their part of the island), joined sides with the slave uprising and assisted in taking down the French. By now, Louverture was essentially the leader of Saint Domingue. Fearing further uprisings and revolutions in their other colonies, the French caved and finally abolished slavery in Saint Domingue. Louverture made a series of laws that supported his beliefs, and secured the abolishment of slavery in Saint Domingue. Following this, in 1794, Toussaint quickly switched sides to fight for the French against Spain and England (Document A). The French, knowing how cunning of a militant Louverture was, decided to accept his decision and make him a member of their military. Later, after he had served with the French for a while, in 1797, Toussaint learned that the French were on the brink of reinstating slavery in Saint Domingue. Enraged, he informed the French that those who had tasted freedom would now never go back to being slaves, and would fight to the death to maintain their freedom. Toussaint Louverture dared the French to prove him wrong. (Document B). When the French decided to ignore his threats, he rejoined the former slaves and prepared to fight. However, when Louverture was tricked into a meeting and surprise ambush by the French, he was taken away to France and put in jail, where he died. Ironically, he died way behind enemy lines, in enemy captivity, unable to do anything about what mattered to him the most. (Document A)

All that Louverture did was for the slaves, he also did for Saint Domingue. After he succeeded in driving the French to abolish slavery, he knew that he had to make laws (and enforce them) to keep the people of Haiti free.  He, and a group of close associates, created the Constitution of 1801. This document ‘officially’ abolished slavery, but also stressed the fact that people would keep on working, telling farmers that they should keep their old jobs, but making sure they were paid and given enough money for their time. (Document C). Also in (Document C+D), Louverture created laws that helped maintain order on the old (but newly managed) plantations for high productivity, product and profit. Some of these laws seemed a bit harsh, like a penalty for not turning in a runaway worker, making children work as soon as they could, even if it was a small job, and putting people in prison for being vagabond. (Document D) Louverture knew that this was a bit harsh, but he established his leadership and stood by these rules, as the ruler of Saint Domingue. In the end, Louverture knew what he had to do to keep the people free, and would do anything to maintain it.

The last way we should remember Toussaint Louverture is by his military career (as a commander.) In the slave revolt of 1791, Louverture first started as a doctor, then rose through the ranks to become a commander,training rebel slaves in common European fighting styles and guerilla warfare. (Document A). He was key asset in fighting Napoleon's recently landed troops. In a cunning yet brutal act, Louverture defied the French and ordered that the port city the French were to be landing at be burned. Louverture’s army then retreated to the mountains (where they knew the territory), while the French found their foothold destroyed. The French then advanced into the jungles,where they were destroyed by Louverture’s forces, as they did not know the territory (Document F). Furthermore, Toussaint would not hold back if he felt that order in the country was threatened. He wasn’t afraid to employ his militant force against people who defied him. He even arrested and executed of his own nephew, along with all of his fellow rebelling farmers. (Document E) Though he was a cunning and brutal military commander, all that he did was for Saint Domingue, and the people knew it.

Whether he was liberating slaves, ruling Saint Domingue, or commanding his military forces, Toussaint Louverture will forever be remembered for his historic feats of fighting for freedom for his country.

Sources:

Link for the original documents

Picture Details

The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848: Changing the meaning of Revolution

The essential question for our class’ unit on the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 was “Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures, as many historians have concluded. To learn the information needed to produce an answer, our class first looked at how the recent revolutions in France had influenced the revolutions that were sweeping through Europe. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, “We are sleeping on a volcano. Do you not see that the Earth trembles anew? A wind of revolution blows, the storm is on the horizon.” This ‘volcano’ was a metaphor for those who had been oppressed by their current government, people who were increasingly unhappy, those who might organize a coup/rebellion. The ‘wind of revolution’ is the ripples of unease in the aristocrats of Europe after France’s revolution. As you can see in the image below, the recent French revolution really did have an impact on surrounding countries’ mentalities.

With this look into how the revolutions went, we devised a scale, from complete Failure, to Complete success. This scale would determine what our group though of the result of the revolutions.

After our group made the scale, we split into new groups, were assigned revolutions from either 1830 or 1848 (or around there, you get the idea), and summarized them. My group’s was the ‘Frankfurt Assembly Revolution’. Here’s some sourcing + info on it.

Country:

Frankfurt (Germany)

Date:

Throughout 1848

Goals:

Wanted a constitution for the people of Germany, something fair, like maybe a republic or a constitutional monarchy, and whether or not to include Austria in a united German state, as in national unity and some more nationalist reforms

Opponent:

The conservative king (Prussia's Frederick William IV), who thought the liberalists were a serious threat to his rule, rejected their constitution and ideals, also partially because it 'came from the gutter' (the people), and not princes or those of a respectable amount of nobility

Outcome:

Troops were sent in from Prussia to quell the uprisings, and the King dissolved the assembly, thousands of Germans left the country (many moving to the US because if there some of the more rebellious people were killed or sent to prison

Reasons for Success/Failure:

Mostly a failure, because of the intervention by the king of Prussia, (who wasn't their enemy at first, but became their enemy once he rejected their proposal). One upside was that not many people died, and things went back to ‘normal’ pretty quickly afterwards.

Now let’s hit some primary sources.

One of the goals of the Frankfurt Assembly was to create a constitutional Monarchy. The illustration above shows Frederick William IV (along with the military, and other aristocrats, presumably)'shutting the door' to the peoples' demands

Sourcing: Satyrische Zeitbilder - (a contemporary satirical image) - from Hamburg, Germany. This image is in support of the rebels and makes William IV look like a bad guy.

And 2 more:

(Please excuse the light blurs)

Now for our group’s SurveyMonkey, used to test our classmates’ existing knowledge of the Frankfurt Assembly and to teach them more:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MRFT78H

They were given this link to help them out. All the information is on there, this test was more of a reading and understanding exercise.

Here’s the survey results that we got:

http://imgur.com/a/TrGA8

I’d say that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were pretty much failures. None of them really took off, though most weren't complete failures. The Decembrist Revolt was, (most people were brutally killed), but the Frankfurt Assembly was mostly peaceful in the end, though it was a failure. The Hungarian revolution of 1848 seemed like it was going in a good direction for the rebels, but Austrian troops soon crushed them. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time for a revolution, because none of these worked.