In the Americas, Enlightenment ideals, which emphasized equality, began to stimulate independence movements. In Latin America, many of the revolutionaries were Creoles. Born in the Americas, rather than in Europe like the peninsulares, they had fewer rights and less opportunity to rise in the social hierarchy of their colonies.

Simón Bolívar was one such Creole. Born in Venezuela but educated in Europe (like many other Creoles), he absorbed the Enlightenment ideals of Rousseau and other thinkers. Taking advantage of the chaos in Europe caused by the Napoleonic Wars, Venezuela declared independence in 1811. It was re-taken by the Spanish, but Bolívar earned the name the “Liberator” when he again drove the Spanish out in 1813 (although its independence remained in the balance until 1821). Bolívar also liberated Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru; Bolivia is named after him.

José de San Martín, like Bolívar, was a Creole. Born in Argentina but educated in Spain, José de San Martín led the liberation of Argentina, and helped in the liberations of Peru and Chile. In Mexico, the path to independence started around the same time (1810), but was led initially by a priest, Miguel Hidalgo, whose followers were largely common people. However, Creoles were also part of the movement, and once again, Enlightenment ideals formed their revolutionary aims.

In the British colonies in North America, parallels to the independence movements of Latin American can be seen. A feeling of second-class status as well as the spread of Enlightenment ideas also motivated North American colonists. Following the Treaty of Paris, which concluded the French and Indian War in 1763, the British increased commitments of British troops in the colonies and began to increase taxation. The taxes were partly to pay for the higher number of troops and partly to pay for the costly war that the British had just fought; nonetheless they were resented by the colonists who were not consulted in matters of taxation. “No taxation without representation” became a demand of the colonists, which consistently fell on deaf ears in Britain. Taxes were imposed on many products including lead, paper, and tea.

The taxes on tea led to destruction of a cargo of tea in Boston Harbor (The Boston Tea Party). This was followed by British reprisals known in America as the Intolerable Acts (1774). The colonies began to come together in resistance, forming Committees of Correspondence to spread information about resistance efforts against the British. In 1775, small battles were fought between colonists and the British redcoats at Lexington and Concord; the Revolutionary War had begun.

Thomas Paine, a colonist, wrote Common Sense, a pamphlet arguing for the necessity of a revolution, and in 1776, Thomas Jefferson authored the Declaration of Independence, in which the Second Continental Congress declared that “we hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.” Following the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), the United States began to extend its territory.

Concern about the power of Russia in the Northwest as well as the possibility that Spain would try to reassert its power in its now-independent colonies led to the creation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 (named after US President James Monroe); the Monroe Doctrine asserted that North and South America (the Western Hemisphere) are no longer open to European colonial interference, and if such interference should occur, the United States would take military action to prevent it.