Latin American Revolutions

            The Latin American Revolutions are important to think about because it goes hand in hand with many ideas of independence for each class that are still relevant today. The Latin American Revolutions also brought up the question, "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?"

Race as % of the Population in Latin America

This is the social rank of each group in Latin America social structure

            To go deeper into the essential question, the impact of race on the Latin American Revolutions for independence, we discussed the social ladder in the area. (Part of this was filling out the graph above) We learned that the social ladder has African Slaves on the bottom and Peninsulares on the top. In the middle there are the Indians, the Mulattoes, the Mestizos, and the Creoles. Then, we created a timeline of the Gran Columbia Revolution. Lastly, we compared the similarities and the differences with other groups who covered different revolutions.

Timeline of Key Events of the Gran Columbia Revolution

            My group covered the Gran Columbia Revolution. One commonality my group found in the jigsaw with the other two groups, who covered the revolutions in Brazil and Mexico, was that all of the revolutions ended with independence. Independence was the ultimate goal for all three of the revolutions. Secondly, all of the revolutions were guided by strong leaders. For the Gran Columbia Revolution they had Bolivar. Brazil had Pedro and King John VI. Finally, Mexico had Miguel Hidalgo. We also found some differences between the revolutions. The first difference was that Brazil resulted in an empire and Mexico ended in a republic. Our second difference was that the Portuguese monarchy came to Brazil to rule but Bolivar had dictatorial powers over Caracas. These revolutions all took separate ways to independence but race was always a constant issue in all three. In Gran Columbia Bolivar's main goal was to liberate New Granada from Spanish control. In Brazil Jose was killed at first because he didn't have an elite status. Also, Pedro tried to make Portuguese people the only people with power. Lastly, Miguel called for the end of the 300 years of racial equality.

            We think we have come a long way from these differences caused by race but in  reality almost nothing has actually changed. In today's society we are more judgmental than the revolutions were. They mainly judged based on race. We discriminate based on race, heritage, religion, physical features, personalities, style, etc. November 22, 2014 a Cleveland police officer shot a 12 year old African American boy. He died the next day. The boy was carrying an air-soft gun when the officer fired within two seconds of arriving on the scene. The agreement was that the officer didn't give the boy to explain himself before shooting him in the torso. He shot because he thought the young child was a threat based on the color of his skin. (http://www.vox.com/2014/11/24/7275297/tamir-rice-police-shooting) Based on this story and many other instances similar to this one, I believe the issue of race in our lives is still important to consider. We can't go around making assumptions based on how someone looks because it could end with fatal results. We all deserve the same chances because when it all comes down to it, we are the same on the inside. Why should the outside determine the inside?