 The end result of this political process was the independence of all Hispanic America (with the exception of Cuba and Puerto Rico) within two decades of the Napoleonic invasion through armed revolt. Brazil, by contrast, obtained independence in the same period without bloodshed when the Portuguese prince-regent proclaimed it. This difference in the sequence of political events accounts for the fact that the liberal ideology in Hispanic America was deeply committed to carrying out a radical break with the colonial past while a salient feature of Brazilian liberalism is the continuity of monarchical rule. While liberals in Hispanic American uniformly rejected monarchism and embraced a republican form of government (i.e., non-monarchical) grounded on popular sovereignty, Brazilian liberalism remained monarchical until the closing decades of the century. The egalitarianism implicit in republicanism favored the abolition of slavery and of noble titles in the new republics. By mid-century slavery had been formally abolished in all of them, though practices of slave/serf-like labor continued in some regions, such as Mexico. In Brazil, slavery was finally abolished in 1888 after decades of contestation and gradual decline.