Thomas Jefferson was not sure if Latin American Catholics could be virtuous, civic-minded republicans, but for the United States’ (and presumably humanity’s) sake, he certainly hoped so. Beginning around the time he bade farewell to the White House in 1809, Jefferson watched as independence wars flared throughout Mexico and South America. By the time he died on the nation’s fiftieth birthday on July Fourth of 1826, the entire Spanish American mainland had secured its republican independence, as had monarchical Brazil.