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Even though America and Haiti have achieved their independence, Mexico was still under Spanish control. Many people were angered with the rulers on Mexico. In 1808 Napoleon forced the rulers to step down and put his brother in charge. Men gathered and defeated the Spanish army. They took the king and the remainder of the army and killed them. The new leader conducted a series of battles. In 1813 Mexico formally declared independence from Spain.

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Mexican War of Independence | 3 Minute History

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Miguel Hidalgo was a catholic priest. He started the war with a copy of Grito de Dolores. Napoleons occupancy of Spain led him to release his article. He was close to winning, but was defeated and captured and executed

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Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launches the Mexican War of Independence with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores, or "Cry of Dolores." The revolutionary tract, so-named because it was publicly read by Hidalgo in the town of Dolores, called for the end of 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of land and racial equality. Thousands of Indians and mestizos flocked to Hidalgo's banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and soon the peasant army was on the march to Mexico City.

In the early 19th century, Napoleon 's occupation of Spain led to the outbreak of revolts all across Spanish America. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla-"the father of Mexican independence"-launched the Mexican rebellion with his "Cry of Dolores," and his populist army came close to capturing the Mexican capital. Defeated at Calderón in January 1811, he fled north but was captured and executed. He was followed by other peasant leaders, however, such as José María Morelos y Pavón, Mariano Matamoros, and Vicente Guerrero, who all led armies of native and racially mixed revolutionaries against the Spanish and the Royalists.

Ironically, it was the Royalists-made up of Mexicans of Spanish descent and other conservatives-who ultimately brought about independence. In 1820, liberals took power in Spain, and the new government promised reforms to appease the Mexican revolutionaries. In response, Mexican conservatives called for independence as a means of maintaining their privileged position in Mexican society.

In early 1821, Agustín de Iturbide, the leader of the Royalist forces, negotiated the Plan of Iguala with Vicente Guerrero. Under the plan, Mexico would be established as an independent constitutional monarchy, the privileged position of the Catholic Church would be maintained, and Mexicans of Spanish descent would be regarded as equal to pure Spaniards. Mexicans of mixed or pure Indian blood would have lesser rights.

Iturbide defeated the Royalist forces still opposed to independence, and the new Spanish viceroy, lacking money, provisions, and troops, was forced to accept Mexican independence. On August 24, 1821, Spanish Viceroy Juan de O'Donojú signed the Treaty of Córdoba, which approves a plan to make Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy. In 1822, as no Bourbon monarch to rule Mexico had been found, Iturbide was proclaimed the emperor of Mexico. However, his empire was short-lived, and in 1823 republican leaders Santa Anna and Guadalupe Victoria deposed Iturbide and set up a republic, with Guadalupe Victoria as its first president.

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Mexican War of Independence begins | September 16, 1810 | HISTORY

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Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launches the Mexican War of Independence with the issuing of his Grito de Dolores, or "Cry of Dolores." The revolutionary tract, so-named because it was publicly read by Hidalgo in the town of Dolores, called for the end of 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of [...]

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map of mexico from the 1800s - Google Search

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california alta california war mexican american war states mexican war america mexican territory mexican empire territorio mexicano

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Realism

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Romanticism

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Impressionism

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Germany was divided among hundreds on states. Austria was the most powerful of them all. The Germans began volunteering to fight to take over Austria. The wanting of unification was getting stronger and that caused a war. Austria and Prussia worked together to defeat France, but later Prussia. went to war with them and took over Austria and there land.

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Toussaint was freed in 1776 from being a salve. When a slave revolt first began, he was at first not willing to participate. After weeks of debating, he decided to free his old owner and join the revolt. At first many were burning plantations and and killing many people. When he became a leader, he gathered a army and they used guerilla warfare. He was well known for being an amazing war strategist. When he finally decided to retire, he was going to spend his final days at a plantation, but he was captured and was confined.

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Toussaint Louverture, Louverture also spelled L'Ouverture, original name (until c. 1793) François Dominique Toussaint, (born c. 1743, Bréda, near Cap-Français, Saint-Domingue [Haiti]-died April 7, 1803, Fort-de-Joux, France), leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution (1787-99). He emancipated the slaves and negotiated for the French colony on Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), to be governed, briefly, by Black former slaves as a French protectorate.

Rise to power

Toussaint was the son of an educated slave. He acquired through Jesuit contacts some knowledge of French, though he wrote and spoke it poorly, usually employing Haitian Creole and African tribal language. Winning the favour of the plantation manager, he became a livestock handler, healer, coachman, and finally steward. Legally freed in 1776, he married and had two sons. Toussaint was homely, short, and small framed. He was a fervent Roman Catholic, opposed to Vodou (Voodoo). He dressed simply and was abstemious and a vegetarian. Although he slept little, his energy and capacity for work were astonishing. As a leader he inspired awe and adulation.

When a sudden slave revolt began in the northern province (August 1791) and soon spread to encompass thousands of slaves across the colony, Toussaint was at first uncommitted. After hesitating a few weeks, he helped his former master escape and then joined the Black forces who were burning plantations and killing many Europeans and mulattoes (people of mixed African and European ancestry). He soon discerned the ineptitude of the rebel leaders and scorned their willingness to compromise with European radicals. Collecting an army of his own, Toussaint trained his followers in the tactics of guerrilla warfare. In 1793 he added to his original name the name of Louverture; the name's exact significance is unknown, but its meaning in French, "opening," may have referred to his tactical ability as a military commander.

When France and Spain went to war in 1793, the Black commanders joined the Spaniards of Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic). Knighted and recognized as a general, Toussaint demonstrated extraordinary military ability and attracted such renowned warriors as his nephew Moïse and two future monarchs of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe. Toussaint's victories in the north, together with mulatto successes in the south and British occupation of the coasts, brought the French close to disaster. Yet, in May 1794, Toussaint went over to the French, giving as his reasons that the French National Convention had recently freed all slaves, while Spain and Britain refused, and that he had become a republican. He has been criticized for the duplicity of his dealings with his onetime allies and for a slaughter of Spaniards at a mass. His switch was decisive: the governor of Saint-Domingue, Étienne Laveaux, made Toussaint lieutenant governor; the British suffered severe reverses; and the Spaniards were expelled.

By 1795 Toussaint Louverture was widely renowned. He was adored by Blacks and appreciated by most Europeans and mulattoes, for he did much to restore the economy. Defying French Revolutionary laws, he allowed many émigré planters to return, and he used military discipline to force the former slaves to work. Convinced that people were naturally corrupt, he felt that compulsion was needed to prevent idleness. Yet the labourers were no longer whipped: they were legally free and equal, and they shared the profits of the restored plantations. Racial tensions were eased because Toussaint preached reconciliation and believed that Blacks, a majority of whom were African born, had to learn from Europeans and Europeanized mulattoes.

Elimination of rivals

Though he worked well with Laveaux, Toussaint eased him out in 1796. Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, a terrorist French commissioner, allowed Toussaint to rule and made him governor-general. But the ascetic Black general was repelled by the proposals of the European radical to exterminate the Europeans, and he was offended by Sonthonax's atheism, coarseness, and immorality. After some devious maneuvers, Toussaint forced Sonthonax out in 1797.

Next to go were the British, whose losses caused them to negotiate secretly with Toussaint, notwithstanding the war with France. Treaties in 1798 and 1799 secured their complete withdrawal. Lucrative trade was begun with Britain and with the United States. In return for arms and goods, Toussaint sold sugar and promised not to invade Jamaica or the American South. The British offered to recognize him as king of an independent Haiti, but, scornful of pompous titles and distrustful of the British because they maintained slavery, he refused.

Toussaint soon rid himself of another nominal French superior, Gabriel Hédouville, who arrived in 1798 as representative of the Directory (the French Revolutionary government). Knowing that France had no chance of restoring colonialism as long as the war with England continued, Hédouville attempted to pit against Toussaint the mulatto leader André Rigaud, who ruled a semi-independent state in the south. Toussaint divined his purpose and forced Hédouville to flee. Succeeding Hédouville was Philippe Roume, who deferred to the Black governor. Then a bloody campaign in 1799 eliminated another potential rival to Toussaint by driving Rigaud out and destroying his mulatto state. A purge that was carried out by Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the south was so brutal that reconciliation with the mulattoes was impossible.

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Toussaint Louverture | Biography, Significance, & Facts

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Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution (1787-99). He emancipated the slaves and negotiated for the French colony on Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), to be governed, briefly, by Black former slaves as a French protectorate.

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map of haiti from the 1800s - Google Search

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saint domingue hispaniola creole physical geography caribbean santo domingo haitian creole haitian revolution slavery st domingue

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Germany was divided among hundreds on states. Austria was the most powerful of them all. The Germans began volunteering to fight to take over Austria. The wanting of unification was getting stronger and that caused a war. Austria and Prussia worked together to defeat France, but later Prussia. went to war with them and took over Austria and there land.

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Germany became a modern, unified nation under the leadership of the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck.  He tricked European rivalries to make Germany a powerful country, but in doing so laid the groundwork for both World Wars.  At the time, Bismarck wisely declined to levy a war indemnity against the Austrians. Seeing the opportunity to unify Germany’s loose confederations against an outside enemy, Bismarck stirred political tensions between France and Prussia, rewriting a telegram from William I to make both countries feel insulted by the other. With Germany unified, William I and Bismarck turned to entrenching their domestic power.

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Table of Contents

1. Otto von Bismarck: Early Years

2. Otto von Bismarck: The Iron Chancellor

3. Otto von Bismarck: Kulturkampf, Welfare State, Empire

4. Otto von Bismarck: Final Years and Legacy

Germany became a modern, unified nation under the leadership of the "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), who between 1862 and 1890 effectively ruled first Prussia and then all of Germany. A master strategist, Bismarck initiated decisive wars with Denmark, Austria and France to unite 39 independent German states under Prussian leadership. Although an arch-conservative, Bismarck introduced progressive reforms-including universal male suffrage and the establishment of the first welfare state-in order to achieve his goals. He manipulated European rivalries to make Germany a world power, but in doing so laid the groundwork for both World Wars.

Otto von Bismarck: Early Years

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born April 1, 1815, at his family's estate in the Prussian heartland west of Berlin. His father was a fifth-generation Junker (a Prussian landowning noble), and his mother came from a family of successful academics and government ministers. Throughout his life Bismarck would emphasize his rural Junker roots, underplaying his considerable intellect and cosmopolitan outlook.

Did you know? Although German leader Otto von Bismarck wore a general's uniform in public for much of his later life (and successfully prosecuted three wars as chancellor), his only prior military service was a brief, unwilling stint in a reserve unit.

Bismarck was educated in Berlin and after university took a series of minor diplomatic posts before retiring, at age 24, to run his family's estate at Kneiphof. In 1847 he married and was sent to Berlin as a delegate to the new Prussian parliament, where he emerged as a reactionary voice against the liberal, anti-autocratic Revolutions of 1848.

From 1851 to 1862 Bismarck served a series of ambassadorships-at the German Confederation in Frankfurt, in St. Petersburg and in Paris-that gave him valuable insight into the vulnerabilities of Europe's great powers.

Otto von Bismarck: The Iron Chancellor

William I became Prussia's king in 1861 and a year later appointed Bismarck as his chief minister. Though technically deferring to William, in reality Bismarck was in charge, manipulating the king with his intellect and the occasional tantrum while using royal decrees to circumvent the power of elected officials.

In 1864 Bismarck began the series of wars that would establish Prussian power in Europe. He attacked Denmark to gain the German-speaking territories of Schleswig-Holstein and two years later provoked Emperor Franz-Josef I into starting the Austro-Prussian War (1866), which ended in a swift defeat for the aging Austrian empire. At the time, Bismarck wisely declined to levy a war indemnity against the Austrians.

Bismarck was less circumspect in his conduct of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Seeing the opportunity to unify Germany's loose confederations against an outside enemy, Bismarck stirred political tensions between France and Prussia, famously editing a telegram from William I to make both countries feel insulted by the other. The French declared war, but the Prussians and their German allies won handily. Prussia levied an indemnity, annexed the French border provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and crowned William emperor of a unified Germany (the Second Reich) in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles-a tremendous insult to the French.

Otto von Bismarck: Kulturkampf, Welfare State, Empire

With Germany unified, William I and Bismarck turned to entrenching their domestic power. For much of the 1870s Bismarck pursued a Kulturkampf (cultural struggle) against Catholics, who made up 36 percent of Germany's population, by placing parochial schools under state control and expelling the Jesuits. In 1878 Bismarck relented, allying with the Catholics against the growing socialist threat.

In the 1880s Bismarck set aside his conservative impulses to counter the socialists by creating Europe's first modern welfare state, establishing national healthcare (1883), accident insurance (1884) and old age pensions (1889). Bismarck also hosted the 1885 Berlin Conference that ended the "Scramble for Africa," dividing the continent between the European powers and establishing German colonies in Cameroon, Togoland and East and Southwest Africa.

Otto von Bismarck: Final Years and Legacy

William I died in 1888 and was succeeded by his son Frederick III and then his grandson William II, both of whom Bismarck found difficult to control. In 1890 the new king forced Bismarck out. William II was left in control of a flourishing unified state but was ill-equipped to maintain Bismarck's carefully manipulated balance of international rivalries. Respected and honored by the time of his death eight years later, Bismarck quickly became a quasi-mythic figure invoked by political leaders calling for strong German leadership-or for war.

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We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Otto von Bismarck - Biography, World Wars & Facts

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Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)-also known as the "Iron Chancellor"-was Chancellor of the newly-united German Empire from 1862 to 1890. During his tenure he modernized the nation and helped set the stage for World War I.

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map of germay from the 1800s - Google Search

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map of germany from the 1800s Search instead for map of germay from the 1800s