Editing History of the Americas (section)

===Decolonization===
{{details|Decolonization of the Americas}}
The formation of sovereign states in the New World began with the [[United States Declaration of Independence]] of 1776. The [[American Revolutionary War]] lasted through the period of the [[Siege of Yorktown]]—its last major campaign—in the early autumn of 1781, with peace being achieved [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|in 1783]]. In 1804, after the French of [[Napoleon|Napoleon Bonaparte]] were defeated during the [[Haitian Revolution]] under the black leadership of [[Jean-Jacques Dessalines]] declare the colony of [[Saint-Domingue]] independence of the [[Haitian Declaration of Independence]] as he renamed the country ''Ayiti'' meaning (Land of Mountains), [[Haiti]] became the world's [[Afro-Haitians|first black-led republic]] in the New World, the first [[Caribbean]] state as well as the first [[Latin America]]n country and the second oldest independent nation in the [[Western Hemisphere]] after the United States to win independence from [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] in 1783.

The Spanish colonies won their independence in the first quarter of the 19th century, in the [[Spanish American wars of independence]]. [[Simón Bolívar]] and [[José de San Martín]], among others, led their independence struggle. Although Bolivar attempted to keep the Spanish-speaking parts of Latin America politically allied, they rapidly became independent of one another as well, and several further wars were fought, such as the [[Paraguayan War]] and the [[War of the Pacific]]. (See [[Latin American integration]].) In the Portuguese colony [[Pedro I of Brazil|Dom Pedro I]] (also Pedro IV of Portugal), son of the Portuguese [[monarch|king]] [[John VI of Portugal|Dom João VI]], proclaimed the country's independence in 1822 and became Brazil's first [[Emperor]]. This was peacefully accepted by the crown in Portugal, upon compensation.