Editing Napoleonic Wars (section)

===Latin American Revolutions===
{{Main|Spanish American wars of independence|War of Independence of Brazil|Haitian Revolution}}
[[File:America 1794.png|thumb|Political map of the Americas in 1794]]

The abdication of Kings [[Charles IV of Spain]] and [[Ferdinand VII]] of Spain and the installation of Napoleon's brother as King [[Joseph Bonaparte|José]] provoked civil wars and revolutions, leading to the independence of most of Spain's mainland American colonies. In [[Hispanic America|Spanish America]], many local elites formed juntas and set up mechanisms to rule in the name of Ferdinand VII, whom they considered the legitimate Spanish monarch. The outbreak of the [[Spanish American wars of independence]] in most of the empire was a result of Napoleon's destabilizing actions in Spain, and led to the rise of [[Strongman (politics)|strongmen]] in the wake of these wars.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lynch |first=John |title=Caudillos in Spanish America 1800–1850 |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1992 |location=Oxford |pages=402–403 |author-link=John Lynch (historian)}}</ref> The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 caused an exodus of French soldiers into Latin America, where they joined ranks with the armies of the independence movements.<ref name="OreBerg18">{{Cite journal |last=Orellana Billiard |first=Jorge Andrés |year=2018 |title=BERGUÑO HURTADO, Fernando. Los soldados de Napoleón en la Independencia de Chile. 1817–1830 |url=http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2314-15492018000100011 |url-status=live |journal=[[Revista de historia americana y argentina]] |language=es |volume=53 |issue=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522161122/http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2314-15492018000100011 |archive-date=22 May 2020 |access-date=13 July 2019}}</ref> While these officials had a role in various victories such as the [[Capture of Valdivia]] (1820), some are held responsible for significant defeats at the hands of the royalists, as was the case at the [[Second Battle of Cancha Rayada]] (1818).<ref name=OreBerg18/>

In contrast, the Portuguese [[House of Braganza|royal family]] escaped to [[Colonial Brazil|Brazil]] and established the court there, resulting in political stability for Portuguese America. In 1816, Brazil was proclaimed an equal part of the [[United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves]], paving the way to Brazilian independence six years later.

The [[Haitian Revolution]] began in 1791, just before the [[French Revolutionary Wars]], and continued until 1804. France's defeat resulted in the independence of [[Saint-Domingue]] and led Napoleon to sell the territory making up the [[Louisiana Purchase]] to the United States.<ref>For Alexander Hamilton's take on the connection of Saint-Domingue and the Purchase, see {{cite journal|title=Hamilton on the Louisiana Purchase: A Newly Identified Editorial from the ''New-York Evening Post''|journal=William and Mary Quarterly|volume=12|number=2|date=April 1955|pages=268–281|doi=10.2307/1920508|jstor=1920508}} See also {{Cite book |last=White |first=Ashli |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eNf6pyVkAeIC&pg=PA180 |title=Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-8018-9415-2 |pages=180–191 |access-date=3 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210715013853/https://books.google.com/books?id=eNf6pyVkAeIC&pg=PA180 |archive-date=15 July 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>