Similarities Between 'Death, Dismemberment And Memory'

The readings, “Death’s Patriot” in Death, Dismemberment, and Memory by Christon Archer speaks on the Mexican Revolution and the article by Franklin Knight on Haiti speaks on the Haitian Revolution. Throughout History, we have seen many revolutions all over the world. But, specifically, the Mexican Revolution and the Haitian Revolution were both similar because they had similar social and political issues and goals when going against the Europeans. In the Aztec Empire what is now Mexico, Cuauhtemoc tried his best to defend the Aztec capital from the Spaniards, but was then captured and executed, and since then the Spanish have had control of Mexico which they called, New Spain (Johnson: 207). The Spanish wanted to convert the Aztecs into Catholics, and take their gold and silver. The Spanish not only took what the Aztecs had, but also brought disease. The Spanish tried to profit off from the land of the Indians and make them trade with other countries which was something the Indians did not like to do. Haiti had a population before the colonization happened, but as soon as the Europeans appeared, there was disease, and harsh labor to come. Then France had control of this colony and named it Saint Domingue. Since there wasn’t enough people to do the plantation work for free, the Europeans decided to bring slaves to the colony to do free labor and make the colony rich, which is what happened. The Mexican Revolution began in 1810, by a Catholic priest named, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla who started the revolution with, “Cry of Dolores” (Archer:64). The royalist of Spanish descent and conservatives were the cause of the Mexican revolution. At the time the Spanish had been living in Mexico. The Spanish had become “superior” when compared to the people of Mexican or Indian descent. Therefore, the Insurgent group that was made up of Father Miguel Hidalgo and his supporters wanted to get equal rights and become independent from Spain (Archer:72). On the other hand, the Haitian Revolution began in 1791 in what was Saint Domingue, but now known as Haiti, which was when slavery was very important to the French. Haiti was a French colony that provided goods such as sugar, cotton, coffee, and indigo. Haiti was a rich island that brought profit for the French because of their great plantation production. Once, the French Revolution happened and slavery was outlawed, that was when the slaves in Haiti thought would be a good idea to revolt and fight for independence from France. In Mexico, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla had his followers, but the way he took the role of being a leader was not very good. For example, Lorenzo de Zavala thought, “Hidalgo needed to present the basis for a new social system, to organize and discipline his forces…” (Archer: 72). Lorenzo’s opinion was an idea that many people agreed on because of the fact that there were groups that were considered followers of Hidalgo that attacked and killed European Spaniards. The movement was not seen very clean and well thought out because of the unnecessary chaos that was caused by it. The chaos caused by the groups that killed European Spaniards recklessly later fell on Hidalgo when he was taken to court. Even though Hidalgo did not lead the revolution as others may have wanted, he is still respected and admired for what he was able to accomplish. Some historians now, do try to make Hidalgo and Morelos be recognized as great leaders of Mexico. In Haiti, Bryan Edwards (an English planter) criticized the revolution due to the fact that he wanted to keep the privileges …show more content…
The people who were on the side of fighting for independence were tired of being belittled by the Spaniards. The people fighting for independence wanted to develop their own political and economic beliefs which was something the Europeans prevented them from doing (Germariartiel). Also, there was sentiment, which caused people to want to find their own Mexican identity and be on their own away from the European’s control who had conquered the land they called, “New Spain” which is now