Decolonization of the Americas

The process through which European colonies in the Americas gained independence or otherwise ended colonial rule, chiefly from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries.

American Revolution: The thirteen British colonies’ war for independence, ending in the creation of the United States. It established an early model of colonial separation from a European empire.
Atlantic Revolutions: A group of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century revolutions that reshaped political authority around the Atlantic. American independence formed part of a wider revolutionary wave that influenced later movements.
Monroe Doctrine: An 1823 United States policy opposing new European colonization or intervention in the Americas. It recast independence as a hemispheric principle while advancing United States influence.
Dominion status: A status of substantial self-government within the British Empire, later associated with membership in the Commonwealth. Several settler colonies gained autonomy gradually instead of through revolutionary separation.
Haitian Revolution: The revolt that ended French rule in Saint-Domingue and established independent Haiti in 1804. It overthrew slavery and colonial rule in the Americas through a revolution led by enslaved people.
Creole nationalism: Political identification among American-born people of European descent that promoted claims to local authority. Creole elites often led independence movements while retaining social hierarchies.
Latin American debt crisis: Recurring sovereign debt crises that constrained governments across Latin America, especially after independence. New states faced fiscal weakness and dependence on foreign lenders after imperial rule.
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico: The political status established for Puerto Rico in 1952 as a self-governing territory of the United States. Puerto Rico’s status demonstrates a path that did not produce sovereign independence.
Spanish American wars of independence: The early nineteenth-century conflicts that ended Spanish rule across much of mainland Latin America. They dismantled Spain’s continental American empire across multiple campaigns.
Peninsular War: The 1808–1814 conflict in Iberia against Napoleonic occupation, which destabilized Spanish and Portuguese rule. The crisis of monarchies in Europe weakened imperial authority across Latin America.

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