Different Routes to Racial Equality

This pyramid does not necessarily show
size, just the ranking of each race.

This pie chart shows the sizes
of the races in 1800s Latin America.

    Our previous lesson about the Haitian revolution has brought us to a new topic, the revolutions of Latin America. In class, we got into three groups and each was provided with articles on Gran Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. We were asked to make a timeline, and then intermingle with people from other groups and summarize what happened during the revolts of those countries. A common theme throughout this lesson was race and how that effected certain groups on the social pyramid. To the left you can see the pyramid and to the right a pie chart of these races. The Penisulares had the highest rank, they were fully Spanish and from Europe. They had the highest ranking jobs like being a priest or in the government. Next was the Creoles, they were of Spanish blood but born in  Latin America. These people made up about 23% of the population and had jobs in the government, church, or trade. Mestizos had Spanish and Indianan blood; these people were usually shopkeepers or small farmers. Mulattoes made up about 8% of the population and were half black, half Spanish; these people could buy their freedom. Indians made up 50% of the population; they lived in Latin America before the Spanish arrived. By law, they were forced to work as laborers in mines or small farms. The last 11% of the population was made up of slaves, who were considered property and could be bought and sold.
   As a class we noticed there was two commonalities between the three revolts. One being that each country wanted independence from European rule, and the other being that people in power usually didn't stay in power long. We also noticed two difference; the Brazilian revolt was not as violent was the other two, and the  Gran Colombian revolt resulted in multiple independent countries, where the others resulted in one. These three revolutions were all different routes to independence, but they all united different races. In Gran Colombia, the leader Simon Bolivar was creole, but he united everyone who wasn't enslaved to fight against the Spanish for their independence. In Brazil, Pedro became a leader and only let the people who were born in Portugal have high power in the government. The people of Brazil, all races, were dissatisfied with his ways of ruling and he fled back to Portugal. In Mexico a priest, Father Miguel, launched a revolution, one of the reasons was for racial equality. This united all races, because they all wanted more rights.





































  In Florida, a couple years ago an unarmed, black, teenager named Trayvon Martin was shot by a Hispanic policeman, George Zimmerman. One the day Trayvon was fatally shot, he went to visit his fathers fiancee. Other policemen showed up at the scene two minutes after the shooting. Later, Zimmerman was taken into custody and questioned for five hours. The policeman was released because he claimed he was protecting himself. The police were prohibited by law from making an arrest; the police chief also said that Zimmerman had a right to defend himself with a lethal force. Trayvon was just causally walking, not doing anything suspicious and his life was taken for that. Clearly Zimmerman was making a judgement from the color of Trayvon's skin. There have been many revolts to help the issues of racial equality, like the Latin American revolutions, but racism is still an issue in our world today.