For Latin America in the mid-19th century, a distinctive feature was the tendency to democracy and equality. Contrary to the European countries, which were starting to build their colonial empires, and the United States with its slavery, people in Latin American countries made claims about the personal freedom of everybody. Intellectuals, politicians, and public speakers in Mexico and Colombia wrote that all people should be treated equally, regardless of race, class, and sex. Such democratic positions were widespread there in the 1840s – 1870s and halted at the end of the century.
In the 1840s, Latin American countries, which were Spanish colonies before, started to build their republics and democratic societies in them. In 1849, Liberal Party became ruling in Colombia and performed many democratic reforms. All men obtained the right to vote, and all citizens gained a long list of rights provided by the government. Intellectual elites of Colombia considered the country the most progressive in America, including the U.S., where, at those time, was slavery.
Mexican government of Benito Juarez in the 1850s – 1860s conducted a wide range of liberal reforms known as La Reforma. When France invaded Mexico in 1862, with the support of Mexican conservatives, it claimed that it came to bring modernity to the country. As Mexican people wrote in those times, in reality, they brought only murder and tyranny. Eventually, Mexico won the war and managed to re-establish its republic. Mexican intellectuals wrote that the 1860s were prominent for spreading and establishing democracy: slavery was abolished in the United States, and European governments became more democratic. They emphasized the role of Mexico and its republican, democratic, and liberal principles in those changes. However, at the end of the 19th century, everything had changed to the opposite: people in Mexico and other Latin American countries stopped considering themselves as the vanguard democratic countries. They started to imitate the political principles in Europe and the U.S.: class inequality started to grow, and governments became more autocratic and less free.