Why did Latin American leaders decide to fight for their freedom after 1808 versus than at an earlier point?

The Latin Americans were able to begin fighting for independence after 1808 because Napoleon had invaded Spain.

In the year 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and this led to:

With the government in disarray, the Latin American leaders knew that their best chance of getting independence from Spain was at that point and so they launched several rebellions which ended up being successful.

In conclusion, Napoleon invading Spain provided the Latin Americans the perfect opportunity to seek independence.

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A complex Civil War broke out in 1790when free men of color claim that they too were French citizens. After three centuries of colonial rule, independence came rather suddenly to most of Spanish and Portuguese America. Between 1808 and 1826 all of Latin America except the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico slipped out of the hands of the Iberian powers who had ruled the region since the conquest. The rapidity and timing of that dramatic change were the result of a combination of long-building tensions in colonial rule and a series of external events.

The reforms imposed by the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century provoked great instability in the relations between the rulers and their colonial subjects in the Americas. Many Creoles (those of Spanish parentage but who were born in America) felt Bourbon policy to be an unfair attack on their wealth, political power, and social status. Others did not suffer during the second half of the 18th century; indeed, the gradual loosening of trade restrictions actually benefited some Creoles in Venezuela and certain areas that had moved from the periphery to the centre during the late colonial era. However, those profits merely whetted those Creoles’ appetites for greater free trade than the Bourbons were willing to grant. More generally, Creoles reacted angrily against the crown’s preference for peninsulars in administrative positions and its declining support of the caste system and the Creoles’ privileged status within it. After hundreds of years of proven service to Spain, the American-born elites felt that the Bourbons were now treating them like a recently conquered nation.

Explanation:

confederacy: supported slavery, believed states should be able to nullify federal laws, supported low tariffs

union: everything else