And that explains why Brazil was the last new world country to abolish slavery, not fully abandoning it until 1888. Right, so even when Napoleon wasn't forcing Portuguese royals into an awesome exile, he was still messing with Latin America. Let's go to the Thought Bubble. So Latin America's independence movements began not with Brazil, but in Mexico, when Napoleon put his brother on the Spanish throne in 1808. Napoleon wanted to institute the liberal principles of the French Revolution, which angered the ruling elite of the Peninsulares in what was then called New Spain. They were aristocrats, and they just wanted to go back to some good old-fashioned divine-right monarchy with a strong church. So the Mexican Creoles, seeking to expand their own power at the expense of the Peninsular elite, saw an opportunity here.