Could the ripples of an intellectual movement stretch a world away? The Enlightenment took place in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries and inspired numerous reforms and revolutions, from France to the United States. Several countries in Latin America are great case studies for understanding the Enlightenment's various impacts in the New World. The independence movements in Venezuela, Haiti, and Brazil were influenced by Enlightenment philosophy, although by different aspects of thought and to different degrees.

While Enlightenment ideals played a role in the Venezuelan independence, Napoleon's destabilization of Spain influenced the independence movement to a greater extent. The Venezualan War of Independence occurred from 1810 to 1823, and was a conflict between the Spanish Empire and revolutionaries led by Simón Bolivar. Like many other creoles, Bolivar had traveled to Europe and was exposed to the ideas of the Enlightenment. These ideals can be summarized in the famous phrase from the French Revolution “liberty, equality, and fraternity”. Bolivar saw that these ideals were far from being enacted under Spanish rule and Venezuela was motivated to achieve them. However, it would be a mistake to think that these ideals were the only cause, or even the primary cause of the conflict— Napoleon's destabilization of Spain through his invasion provided an opening for those wanting change. Additionally, it is unclear whether other creoles found motivation in these Enlightenment ideals. Bolivar was shown to be overly idealistic in his goal to unite South America under one state, Gran Colombia, since it later collapsed.

While Enlightenment ideals were responsible for the enlargement of political rights of gens de couleur (free blacks), the subsequent political actions by the French government and the pre-existing social tensions played a larger role in Haiti's independence. Haiti was a crucial French colony, producing large amounts of sugar on plantations run using approximately 500,000 slaves. The tensions between the grand blancs (wealthy whites), petit blancs (poor and middle-class whites), gens de couleur, and black slaves were driven by the unequal distribution of political, economic, and social power. The new French government following the French Revolution was sympathetic to the value of equality from the Enlightenment and so instituted more equal political rights for the gens de couleur. White Haitians felt threatened by this change and so sought more autonomy from France, leading to a series of revolts and bloody uprisings. However, France's attempts to regain control of the colonies—first after the initial uprisings, and second after Toussaint L'Ouverture's authoring of a constitution for the island—were truly responsible for the beginnings of a successful black Haitian independence movement.

While Enlightenment ideals did not result in social or political structures changing, economic Enlightenment ideals resulted in a change in economic system for the new independent Brazil. The independence of Brazil was significantly less violent than the conflicts in both Haiti and Venezuela as there was very little resistance from the colonial power Portugal. Because of this, many historians refer to Brazil's independence as the “bloodless revolution”. The leaders of Brazil saw the need for full independence and succeeded in splitting from Portugal relatively peacefully. At first glance, suggesting that Enlightenment values were involved in Brazil's independence seems odd. There was not an overthrow of traditional power structures; the new emperor of Brazil was the son of the king of Portugal—both of whom relocated to Brazil to escape from Napoleon—and slavery would be not abolished for many years. The main causes of the desire for independence came from the economic desire to abandon mercantilism and other colonialist restrictions. These economic concerns were connected to the ideas of free trade that were championed by Adam Smith and other Enlightenment thinkers. Therefore, economic Enlightenment ideals played a major role in the transition to independence.

Haiti, Venezuela, and Brazil illustrate the effects of Enlightenment ideals in differing ways and to differing extents. The primary revolutionary of the Venezuelan independence movement, Simon Bolivar, was directly influenced by Enlightenment ideals. Similarly, Brazil's independence was partially driven by economic concerns inspired by Enlightenment philosophy. In contrast, the spark of Haiti's independence was indirectly caused by the new French government, which itself was guided by Enlightenment ideals. Even though there were many ways that it manifested itself, it is clear that the Enlightenment's impact reached far and wide, from Europe all the way to the Americas.