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NATIONALISM ESSAY In a government, there are at least three attitudes toward political polices. These three attitudes are nationalism, liberalism, and conservation. Nationalism is a feeling of loyalty for one’s own land and people. These people have the belief that one’s greatest loyalty should be to one’s country and to belong to a nation as a whole. Liberalism is a political philosophy of limited government and protection of individual rights and freedoms. It is an attitude toward social, economic, political, and ecclesiastical polices, favoring gradual reform and ordered change rather than reaction or revolution and opposed equally to arbitrary censorship and undue license in dealing with ideas. Conservatism is the philosophy of protecting or conserving the existing traditional forms of government and order of things. The three countries are Mexico, Haiti, and Spanish South America. In Mexico, the important individuals were Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos. Haiti’s individual was Toussaint L’Overture. For Spanish South America its important individuals were Simón Bolívar and Jose de San Martín. Each of these men helped their countries become independent and free to govern itself. Mexico wanted to make a new country. Mexico began its revolt against Spain in 1810. The struggle was first led by two Roman Catholic priests, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos y Pavon.1 Father Miguel Hidalgo was a priest in the small mountain village of Dolores, who was poor but educated. Hidalgo called for the immediate abolition of slavery and an end to taxes imposed upon Native Americans. The effort to overthrow the colonial government soon turned into a social rebellion as tens of thousands of Native Americans near Mexico City – suffering from the effects of rising food prices and declining wages – joined thousands of mestizos in the uprising. Hidalgo recruited an army of at least 60,000 troops and enjoyed some initial military success. When they encountered armed resistance in the city of Guanajuato, the rebels massacred loyalist forces and looted the city. The extreme violence and destruction of the revolt appalled many criollos, and few of them joined the rebellion; many sided instead with the peninsulares, who offered stability.
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