Libertà, indipendenza, cittadinanza: Haiti e l’America spagnola, 1790-1820

The article deals with the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Spanish American colonies. If on the one hand it contributed to complete the transformation of Cuba into a slave society and plantation colony, on the other it helped the spreading of new ideas about racial equality and slave emancipation in the Spanish Caribbean region. Several conspiracies and rebellions in Cuba and Tierra Firme (the Venezuelan and Colombian coasts) reveal that the Haitian Revolution expanded the revolutionary language of individual and natural rights among slaves and free people of color. This produced two significant consequences during the Spanish American independence wars a decade later: first, it compelled Creole elites to grant citizenship rights to free African descendants; second, the Haitian model pushed Spanish American patriots to recruit slaves in their armies, thus weakening the institution of slavery in the Spanish American countries.