USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -During the early 19th century, however, there was a conspicuous exception to the trend of colonial growth, and that was the decline of the Portuguese and Spanish empires in the Western Hemisphere. The occasion for the decolonization was provided by the Napoleonic Wars.

Detailed explanation-2: -After three centuries of colonial rule, independence came rather suddenly to most of Spanish and Portuguese America. Between 1808 and 1826 all of Latin America except the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Puerto Rico slipped out of the hands of the Iberian powers who had ruled the region since the conquest.

Detailed explanation-3: -Spain lost control of its main colonies in America essentially for the same reasons as England lost the US: the colonies liberated themselves. Speaking of the Philippines and small islands, which remained, they were gradually wrestled from Spain by other European countries and the US.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the early 19th century, the Spanish American wars of independence resulted in the secession of most of Spanish America and the establishment of independent nations. Cuba and Puerto Rico were lost to the United States in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, ending its colonial rule in the Americas.