Quote:
Originally Posted by dc_denizen
Slavery was vastly more widespread and deadly (mortality rates off the charts) in Latin America but nobody in those countries claimed to be enlightened
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It was more deadly because of the climate.
On the other hand, the strict racial segregation practiced in the Anglo territories never had the same hold in Latin America. There was far more mixing among blacks, whites and indigenous. There were large and in some cases prosperous castes of free blacks and mulattos, and of course the natives were not genocidally wiped out or herded onto reservations, thanks largely to the influence of Jesuits.
As for the enlightened bit, the father of Mexican independence, Miguel Hidalgo, declared the abolition of slavery in New Spain on December 6, 1810. In the former South American colonies, Bolivar and San MartÃn did the same as they led racially integrated armies in the fight for independence between 1816-21. Slavery was abolished in the French Empire in 1794, and stayed that way in Saint-Domingue thanks to the Haitian Revolution. Haiti was, of course, the first country where former slaves gained full emancipation and equality in practice as well as by law.
To punish them for such insolence, the US, France and Britain enforced a crippling embargo that lasted until Haiti agreed in 1825 to pay 'reparations' of 120 million francs to its former slaveowners and colonizers. That wasn't enough to satisfy the US, though, which at the behest of Southern plantation owners maintained sanctions against Haiti until 1863.