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The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen shields the freedom of speech and of religion and establishes equal treatment before the law. It also asserts that taxes should be paid by all citizens in accordance with their means. -
On 14 July 1789, the Bastille, a fortress and political prison symbolizing the oppressiveness of France’s Ancien Régime was attacked by a crowd mainly consisting of sans-culottes, or lower classes. -
The Haitian Revolution, a series of conflicts between 1791 and 1804, was the overthrow of the French regime in Haiti by the Africans and their descendants who had been enslaved by the French. -
France found itself surrounded by hostile powers while counterrevolutionary insurrections were spreading outward from the Vendée. A combination of food scarcity and rising prices led to the overthrow of the Girondins and increased the popular support of the Montagnards, who created the Committee of Public Safety to deal with the various crises. -
Napoleon first seized political power in a coup d’état in 1799. He eventually abolished the Consulate and declared himself Emperor Napoleon I of France. -
One of Toussaint Louverture’s lieutenants, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, after learning that the French intended to reintroduce slavery, staged an uprising that led to Haiti’s full independence on January 1, 1804, and he followed Toussaint Louverture’s policies as ruler. -
After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Calderón Bridge on January 17, 1811, Hidalgo fled north, hoping to escape into the United States. He was caught on March 21 and executed by a firing squad on July 30, 1811, at age 58. -
Simón Bolívar himself led multiple expeditionary forces against the Spaniards, and between 1819 and 1822 he successfully liberated three territories—New Granada (Colombia and Panama), Venezuela, and Quito (Ecuador)—from Spanish rule. With the help of Argentine revolutionary José de San Martín, Bolívar freed Peru (1824) and what was to become Bolivia (1825) too.