2.32 America: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 29/31)

The story of Haiti is somewhat involved. At the end of the last century Spain had ceded its part of the island, Santo Domingo, to France, but in 1801 the remarkable Negro leader, Toussaint L 'Ouverture conquered it. Although an expedition sent by Napoleon in

1802 failed to retake the island, Touissant was captured by trickery and died in a French prison. But Haiti remained independent and the remaining whites were expelled. Santo Domingo was brought under Haitian control by J.P. Boyer in the 1840s, but actually anarchy persisted, with mulattos fighting against Negroes. The eastern, originally Spanish part of the island never was fully assimilated and eventually out of the turmoil there emerged the Dominican Republic. (Ref. 38 )

South america

From 1815 to 1822 there was an amazing eruption of new nations in South America. In Argentina, after first having to fight off French, Portuguese and Dutch, a revolutionary movement of 1810 gave liberals an opportunity to reform the country socially and economically, but they failed. Jose de San Martin kept the revolutionary flame alive in a remote province and in 1817 led a famous march across the Andes with 3,500 men, to set up a new government in Chile. They then went on by sea to attack Lima, Peru. Back home in Argentina, in mid-century a bloody dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas, took control, giving enormous ranches to his army veterans. Because of his great horsemanship, he him self was a respected gaucho

Chile organized as a republic under the son of an Irish officer, Bernardo O'Higgins, in 1818. The principal result of the Chilean revolution was the transfer of economic and social control fro m a Spanish-led society to one dominated by conservative Creoles, as the people would not give up religious processions, cockfighting and gambling and the aristocracy kept their privileged positions and large estates. As with the other South A m erican nations, civil war occurred in 1829 and 1830 and wars with neighbors developed throughout the century. The greatest of those was the War of the Pacific with Chile fighting against Peru and Bolivia from 1879 to 1884. Chilean troops were everywhere successful and Chile gained possession of the Bolivian littoral and southern Peruvian coast, with rich nitrate territories of great economic importance. This region ran all along the Pacific coast and essentially blocked Bolivia fro m the sea. (Ref. 8 ) The last civil war occurred in 1891 and as the century ended war with Argentina was narrowly averted.