This chapter analyses the wars of independence in Spanish America from the perspective of the Caribbean coast of South America, arguing that this stretch of coast (the pardo coast) constituted a cohesive and coherent geographical space with dynamics that resulted from its demographic structure and geographical location. Because people of African descent constituted the majority of the population of Caribbean South America, a focus on the pardo coast reveals the central role they played during the conflicts that led to the creation of Colombia and Venezuela. Because the pardo coast was in such close proximity to the Caribbean islands, the independence process in the area was greatly determined by what its leaders could achieve in Jamaica and Haiti. Because it was the gateway to South America, the pardo coast was at the vanguard of some of the most modern political experiments of the era and was the center of some of the most violent confrontations of the wars. In short, a focus on the pardo coast offers a useful recalibration of scale that makes visible processes that often get lost in analyses that use national frameworks as units of analysis or that are perceived as uniquely local.

As Bernardo Dovizi had said, as long as there was fighting in Italy, Piero was not without hope. So although the new year, 1498, opened with Piero enjoying ‘little reputation and less credit’, renewed fighting in Italy kept his hopes alive for the remaining years of his life.1 Two events helped to change the political scene, principally the succession of Louis of Orleans to the French throne in April, but also the execution of Savonarola the following month. With claims on Milan as well as Naples, King Louis XII forged new alliances in Italy, most notably with Venice and Pope Alexander VI, who used France to further his son Cesare Borgia’s attempts to build a state for himself in central Italy. The destabilisation they created encouraged Piero’s military adventurism, while the final unravelling of Savonarola’s life – his attack on the pope, his last defiant sermons and the aborted Trial by Fire in March and early April 1498 – also helped to revivify Piero by discrediting the Florentine government at home and abroad.2 So Piero’s little-known movements in these years provide a novel outside-in view of Florence’s crisis that helps to explain the threatened coup d’état in 1500 and the life Gonfaloniership two years later.