Revolutions and new nations

Revoluciones y nuevas naciones

1808–1898. Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 set off a crisis across the Spanish world.

What happened

Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 set off a crisis across the Spanish world. In Spain it brought war and the Constitution of Cádiz; in the Americas, wars of independence that by 1826 had left Spain only Cuba and Puerto Rico there. The new republics spent the century building states, fighting over borders and land, and writing national literatures of their own. The century closed in 1898, when Spain lost its last colonies in the Americas and Asia.

Within it

• Constitutions, wars and a lost empire (1808–1923)
• The wars of independence (1808–1826)
• The new republics (1826–1898)

Its events

1. 6 September 1815: Bolívar writes the Jamaica Letter
2. 17 December 1819–17 November 1831: Gran Colombia, Bolívar's republic
3. 27 February 1844: Dominican independence from Haiti
4. October 1886: The abolition of slavery in Cuba
5. 24 February 1895–1898: José Martí and the Cuban War of Independence
6. 1898: The Disaster of '98