A new exhibition at Tulane University brings these histories together through rare books, manuscripts, maps, newspapers, speeches and early constitutions, revealing independence as a long and contested process rather than a single event.
Spain, Spanish America and the Atlantic World in an Age of Revolution opened Thursday, Sept. 24, at the Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center, on the fourth floor of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library (7001 Freret St.). The exhibition will remain on view through May 2027. Admission is free and open to the public. View exhibition hours.
The exhibition traces six decades of upheaval — from the 1760s through the 1820s — that connected Spain and Spanish America to revolutions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Among the exhibition’s highlights are militia and provisions lists bearing the signature of Mexican independence leader Miguel Hidalgo, the 1813 declaration of the Congress of Anáhuac, the 1814 Constitution of Apatzingán, speeches from Spanish American delegates to the Cortes of Cádiz and the 1814 decree that abolished Spain’s landmark 1812 constitution.
Also on view are proclamations and writings that show Simón Bolívar, the central figure in winning independence for much of northern South America from Spanish rule, as a contested, not universally celebrated figure in debates over governance after independence. Other exhibition highlights include Central America’s 1821 declaration of independence, born of negotiation rather than war, and the founding constitutions of new Latin American republics, described in the exhibition as the “birth certificates of nations.”
“When we think about independence, it’s often compressed into a date, a declaration or a heroic military victory, when in fact it was a long and uncertain struggle over what would replace colonial rule,” said Hortensia Calvo, director, research professor and librarian for the Doris Z. Stone Latin American Library and Research Center. “Breaking with Spain was only one part of the problem. The much harder question was: What kind of political order would replace it? Once the authority of the Spanish monarchy was gone, where did sovereignty reside, and who had the right to exercise it?”
The exhibition also reveals how these movements were connected across the wider Atlantic world. Documents trace the spread of Enlightenment ideas, the political crisis sparked by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, debates surrounding the Constitution of Cádiz and the competing visions that emerged as Spanish American territories moved toward independence.
From Mexico and Central America to present-day Colombia and Venezuela, the materials show communities grappling with questions of sovereignty, citizenship, government and the meaning of independence. New Orleans appears within this larger story as one of many places where these Atlantic currents converged, connecting the history of the Gulf South to the broader political transformations reshaping Spanish America.
The exhibit was curated by Calvo; Teresa Clifton, special collections and engagement librarian; Juan Pablo Gómez, research and instruction librarian; and Christine Hernández, curator of special collections. The curation was done in collaboration with Ashley Reynaga, senior program coordinator, and Verónica Sánchez, library unit coordinator.
The exhibition frames Latin American independence as a prolonged, often bloody process shaped by printers, mapmakers, couriers, spies, lawyers and ordinary people, many of whose voices survive only in the rare newspapers, pamphlets and broadsides on display.
“Latin America is often imagined as a single place with a single history, when in fact it is a vast and extraordinarily varied region, encompassing many languages, cultures, societies and historical experiences. Independence was also profoundly local. Even within the same emerging nation, different cities, provinces and communities experienced the struggle differently and often held competing ideas about what independence should mean,” Calvo said.