Decolonization of the Americas

Decolonization of the Americas refers to the process by which the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. Decolonization began with a series of revolutions in the late 18th and early to mid-19th centuries. The status quo then prevailed for more than a century, excepting the independence of Cuba (whose war for independence culminated in the Spanish–American War).

Peaceful independence by voluntary withdrawal of colonial powers then became the norm in the second half of the 20th century. However, there are still many British and Dutch colonies in North America (mostly Caribbean islands), and France has fully "integrated" most of its former colonies as fully constituent "departments" of France.

The United States of America declared independence from Great Britain on July 2, 1776 (although the event is now commemorated on July 4, the date when the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted by Congress), in so doing becoming the first independent, foreign-recognized nation in the Americas and the first European colonial entity to break from its mother country. Britain formally acknowledged American independence in 1783 after its defeat in the American Revolutionary War.

Although initially occupying only the land east of the Mississippi between Canada and Florida, the United States would later eventually acquire various other North American territories from the British, French, Spanish, and Russians in succeeding years, effectively decolonizing these areas formerly under European control.

The American and French Revolutions had profound effects on the Spanish, Portuguese and French colonies in the Americas. Haiti, a French slave colony, was the first to follow the United States to independence, during the Haitian Revolution, which lasted from 1791 to 1804. Thwarted in his attempt to rebuild a French empire in North America, Napoleon Bonaparte sold Louisiana to the United States and from then on focused on the European theater, marking the end of France's ambitions of building a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere.

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