All Human Beings Deserve Respect - Latin America Revolutions

The social classes in 1800s Latin America were not equal, with the highest social class making up 1% of the total population.
I made this pie chart with my class in my Evernote account.

It is commonly known that every human should be treated with dignity, regardless of their race, but in the early 1800s, every race was treated differently.  It is important to think about the questions,  Why is it essential to acknowledge human value regardless of race? and, How are the events in the Latin American Revolutions evidence of this social imperative? because they can help anyone appreciate people for being of a different race than themselves.  If everyone knew and understood this information, then groups wouldn't have to revolt for their independence, like the people in Latin America did.  My history class found the answers to these questions by dividing into three groups, one for each of the revolutions of Gran Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil, and analyzing our group's revolution by creating a timeline of events.  Afterwards, we broke apart and shared our revolution timelines with the other groups.  Our exploration of the Revolutions of Gran Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil prove that all human beings deserve dignity and respect, regardless of their race.

This is the timeline of events for the Revolution of Gran Columbia, made by a group in my history class.

The timeline of the Revolution of Gran Columbia (above) shows how the independence of the Republic of Columbia from Spain provided freedom for its people, and shows that people of different races were able to be freed in Latin American countries.  The Revolutions of Mexico, Gran Columbia, and Brazil have commonalities and differences.  All of the revolutions were seeking independence from a mother country, and their mother countries were getting in the way of their independence.  Also, each of the revolutions were successful.  However, they all took place in different parts of Latin America, and involved different rulers fighting for independence.  Simon Bolivar was the leader from Gran Columbia, while Pedro was the Brazilian leader, and Miguel Hidalgo and Iturbide were the leaders of the Mexican Revolution.  even though independence was achieved in all three revolutions, race influenced the decisions in each of them.  In Brazil, Pedro surrounded himself with Portuguese born ministers because other elites weren't allowed to be part of the government.  During the Gran Columbian Revolution, Bolivar's way of thinking was different from other peoples' because was Venezuelan and came from a family of aristocrats, but was raise by slaves.  In Mexico, under the rule of Iturbide, Mexicans of mixed or pure Indian blood would less rights than the Spaniards or Portuguese.  Even after independence had been achieved in Latin America racial rights were still an issue, and sometimes remain an issue today.

Not as many racial problems exist today as they did in the 1800s, but sometimes people still aren't treated equally because of their race.  It isn't fair that some people are not treated kindly by their government and peers, and sometimes crimes are committed between people of different races.  Occasionally, the government will treat an African American person worse than they treat a caucasian, and this can be fixed.  This problem is still an issue, and everyone should consider the issue of race in their lives.   No one should pay attention to the color of the sin of their peers, because it might affect their opinion on that person.  Being treated in  bad way isn't fun for anyone, so everyone should try to stop racial injustice.  This issue has existed for hundreds of years, like during the Latin American Revolutions, and it is time to bring it to a stop.

The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848: Complete Failures or Not?

This image shows the barricade the French citizens made during the French Revolution of 1848.
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/2-france-revolution-1848-granger.jpg

Link to our Survey Monkey on the French Revolution of 1848: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MJMFW6J

Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded?  To answer this question, my history class split into five groups, and each group analyzed a revolution from that time period.  Next, each group made a survey monkey for their revolution.  A survey monkey is a type of survey you create on an electronic device, which can be taken by anyone else.  After reading documents on the revolutions, we took the surveys.  Finally we ranked each revolution on how good or bad it was.  My classmates learned from my group's Survey Monkey well because most oft the answers were correct, as shown in the images below.  Historians have concluded that these revolutions were all complete failures, but most of them weren't.  I think that the historians were partially wrong, because the revolts were partially successful, and many people that started them got some of the rights they were asking for.

80% of my classmates identified the main idea in our first primary source, after reading  an article on the revolution.

My group studied and created a survey monkey on the French Revolution of 1848.  During this revolution, lower and middle class liberals revolted against the french government because they wanted political, economic, and social reforms.  In the first part of the revolution, February Days, King Louis Philippe created more jobs for the poor, but during the second part, June Days, the upper and middle classes took control and got rid of the working class's jobs.  Louis Philippe gave up his throne and the French people voted for a president.  A primary source written by Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables, describes the barricades made by the french people to defend themselves from the government.  It says, "You saw there, in chaos full of despair, rafters from roofs, patches from garrets with their wall paper, window sashes with all their glass planted in the rubbish, ..." The end results were mixed:  the number of citizens that could vote increased from 200,000 to 9 million, but new president Louis Napoleon declared himself emperor and became too controlling.  Although the economy grew during Louis Napoleon's reign and the number of voters increased, France was still under a monarchy.  Another primary source, written by the National Assembly of France, says that the people of France wanted to become united and not have to live under a monarchy any more: "Citizens: royalty, under whatever form, is abolished; no more legitimism, no more Bonapartism, no regency."  This goal happened because Louis Napoleon became emperor.  The French revolution of 1848 was not a failure as historians have said, because the results were fairly neutral.  

About 70% of my class answered that the middle class liberals wanted moderate political reforms during the French Revolution of 1848.

The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were the Decembrist Revolt, the French Revolution of 1830, the French Revolution of 1848, the Frankfurt Assembly, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and only the first one was a complete failure.  The Decembrist Revolt was a failure because  the peasants of Russia wanted more rights and a new constitution, but didn't receive either of them.  Besides this, all the other revolutions were classified as neutral/failure, neutral, or neutral/success.  For example, during the Frankfurt Assembly, workers wanted national unity for Germany and liberal reforms, and the results were not a complete failure.  The citizens kept trying to get the reforms, and almost succeed, but the king turned them down in the end because he was a conservative.  Also, in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Hungarian nationalists wanted an independent government, the end of serfdom, and a constitution to protect basic rights.  The government agreed to these changes because they were overwhelmed, but they eventually returned to the way they were before.  Although the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 weren't really successes, the revolters received some of their rights.  Historians who believe that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 are total failures are wrong because the revolutions inspired future revolutionists to change the previous revolt techniques, which helped the future revolutions succeeded.  


Primary Source Citations:

1848: Hugo's Description of the Barricade Excerpt from Les Miserables, Victor Hugo 1862
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/la/1848barricade.html

Documents of the Revolution of 1848 in France J. H. Robinson, ed., Readings in European History (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2: 559-562 Hanover Historical Texts Project