European imperial control of the Western Hemisphere began in the Caribbean and continued there for centuries. Today, some Caribbean islands remain the possessions of European countries or the United States. The longevity and intensity of colonial rule in the Caribbean, in turn, inspired a variety of forms of resistance and rebellion by local peoples. Illustrators for periodicals recorded major rebellions and the rise of independent nation-states in the region.
The revolt of enslaved Africans in French San Domingue in 1791 led to the emergence of Haiti, in 1804, as the second independent nation-state in the Americas. The Dominican Republic achieved independence from Haiti in 1844, was re-colonized by the Spanish in 1861 and became independent again in 1865.
In 1871 a U.S. commission (which included an artist) conducted an extensive survey of the Dominican Republic, with an eye toward possible annexation. In 1865 artists documented the Jamaican Morant Bay rebellion, a major assault on British colonial rule in the Caribbean.
Illustrators and photographers also recorded the Cuban wars of independence from Spain during the nineteenth century and U.S. involvement in the battles of 1898.
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