The Spanish American wars of independence
were the numerous wars against Spanish rule
in Spanish America with the aim of political
independence that took place during the early
19th century, after the French invasion of
Spain during Europe's Napoleonic Wars.
Although there has been research on the idea
of a separate Spanish American ("creole")
identity separate from that of Iberia, political
independence was not initially the aim of
most Spanish Americans, nor was it necessarily
inevitable.
After the restoration of rule by Ferdinand
VII in 1814, and his rejection of the Spanish
liberal constitution of 1812, the monarchy
as well as liberals hardened their stance
toward its overseas possessions, and they
in turn increasingly sought political independence.The
violent conflicts started in 1809 with short-lived
governing juntas established in Chuquisaca
and Quito in opposing the government of the
Supreme Central Junta of Seville.
In 1810, numerous new juntas appeared across
the Spanish domains in the Americas when the
Central Junta fell to the French invasion.
Although various regions of Spanish America
objected to many crown policies, "there was
little interest in outright independence;
indeed there was widespread support for the
Spanish Central Junta formed to lead the resistance
against the French."
While some Spanish Americans believed that
independence was necessary, most who initially
supported the creation of the new governments
saw them as a means to preserve the region's
autonomy from the French.
Over the course of the next decade, the political
instability in Spain and the absolutist restoration
under Ferdinand VII convinced many Spanish
Americans of the need to formally establish
independence from the mother country.
These conflicts were fought both as irregular
warfare and conventional warfare, and as wars
of national liberation and civil wars.
The conflicts among the colonies and with
Spain eventually resulted in a chain of newly
independent countries stretching from Argentina
and Chile in the south to Mexico in the north
in the first third of the 19th century.
Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish
rule until the Spanish–American War in 1898.
The new republics from the beginning abolished
the formal system of racial classification
and hierarchy, casta system, the Inquisition,
and noble titles.
Slavery was not abolished immediately but
ended in all of the new nations within a quarter
century.
Criollos (those of Spanish descent born in
the New World) and mestizos (those of mixed
American Indian and Spanish blood or culture)
replaced Spanish-born appointees in most political
governments.
Criollos remained at the top of a social structure
that retained some of its traditional features
culturally, if not legally.
For almost a century thereafter, conservatives
and liberals fought to reverse or to deepen
the social and political changes unleashed
by those rebellions.
The events in Spanish America were related
to the wars of independence in the former
French colony of St-Domingue, Haiti, and the
transition to independence in Brazil.
Brazil's independence, in particular, shared
a common starting point with that of Spanish
America, since both conflicts were triggered
by Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula,
which forced the Portuguese royal family to
flee to Brazil in 1807.
The process of Latin American independence
took place in the general political and intellectual
climate that emerged from the Age of Enlightenment
and that influenced all of the Atlantic Revolutions,
including the earlier revolutions in the United
States and France.
A more direct cause of the Spanish American
wars of independence were the unique developments
occurring within the Kingdom of Spain and
its monarchy during this era.
== Historical context ==
Political independence was not necessarily
the foreordained outcome of the political
turmoil in Spanish America.
"There was little interest in outright independence."
As historians R.A.
Humphreys and John Lynch note, "it is all
too easy to equate the forces of discontent
or even the forces of change with the forces
of revolution."
Since "by definition, there was no history
of independence until it happened," when Spanish
American independence did occur, explanations
for why it came about have been sought.
There are a number of factors that have been
identified.
First, increasing control by the Crown of
its overseas empire via the Bourbon Reforms
of the mid-eighteenth century introduced changes
to the relationship of Spanish Americans to
the Crown.
The language used to describe the overseas
empire shifted from "kingdoms" with independent
standing with the crown to "colonies" subordinate
to Spain.
In an effort to better control the administration
and economy of the overseas possessions the
Crown reintroduced the practice of appointing
outsiders, almost all peninsulars, to the
royal offices throughout the empire.
This meant that Spanish American elites were
thwarted in their expectations and ambitions
by the crown's upending of long-standing practices
of creole access to office holding.The regalist
and secularizing policies of the Bourbon monarchy
were aimed at decreasing the power of the
Roman Catholic Church.
The crown had already expelled the Jesuits
in 1767, which saw many creole members of
the Society of Jesus go into permanent exile.
Later in the eighteenth century the crown
sought to decrease the privileges (fueros)
of the clergy, restricting clerical authority
to spiritual matters and undermining the power
of parish priests, who often acted as agents
of the crown in rural parishes.
By desacralizing power and frontal attacks
on the clergy, the crown, according to William
B. Taylor, undermined its own legitimacy,
since parish priests had been traditionally
the "natural local representatives of their
Catholic king."In the economic sphere, the
crown sought to gain control over church revenues.
In a financial crisis of 1804, the crown attempted
to call in debts owed the church, mainly in
the form of mortgages for haciendas owned
by the elites.
The Act of Consolidation simultaneously threatened
the wealth of the church, whose capital was
mainly lent for mortgages, as well as threatening
the financial well-being of elites, who depended
on mortgages for acquiring and keeping their
estates.
Shortening the repayment period meant many
elites were faced with bankruptcy.
The crown also sought to gain access to benefices
elite families set aside to support a priest,
often their own family members, by eliminating
these endowed funds (capellanías) that the
lower clergy depended on disproportionately.
Prominently in Mexico, lower clergy participated
in the insurgency for independence with priests
Miguel Hidalgo and José María Morelos.
The reforms had mixed results.
In some areas—such as Cuba, Río de la Plata
and New Spain—the reforms had positive effects,
improving the local economy and the efficiency
of the government.
In other areas, the changes in the crown's
economic and administrative policies led to
tensions with locals, which at times erupted
into open revolts, such as the Revolt of the
Comuneros in New Granada and the Rebellion
of Túpac Amaru II in Peru.
The loss of high offices to Criollos and the
eighteenth-century revolts in Spanish South
America were the direct causes of the wars
of independence, which took place decades
later, but they have been considered important
elements of the political background in which
the wars took place.Other factors may include
Enlightenment thinking and the examples of
the Atlantic Revolutions.
The Enlightenment spurred the desire for social
and economic reform to spread throughout Spanish
America and the Iberian Peninsula.
Ideas about free trade and physiocratic economics
were raised by the Enlightenment in Spain
and spread to the overseas empire and a homegrown
Spanish American Enlightenment.
The political reforms implemented and the
many constitutions written both in Spain and
throughout the Spanish world during the wars
of independence were influenced by these factors.
== Creation of new ruling institutions in
Spain and Americas, 1808–1810 ==
=== Collapse of the Bourbon dynasty ===
The Peninsular War was the trigger for conflicts
in Spanish America in the absence of a legitimate
monarch.
The Peninsular War began an extended period
of instability in the worldwide Spanish monarchy
that lasted until 1823.
Napoleon's capture of the Bourbon monarchs
precipitated a political crisis in Spain and
Spanish America.
Although the Spanish world almost uniformly
rejected Napoleon's plan to place his brother,
Joseph, on the throne, there was no clear
solution to the lack of a king.
Following traditional Spanish political theories
on the contractual nature of the monarchy
(see Philosophy of Law of Francisco Suárez),
the peninsular provinces responded to the
crisis by establishing juntas.
The move, however, led to more confusion,
since there was no central authority and most
juntas did not recognize the claim of some
juntas to represent the monarchy as a whole.
The Junta of Seville, in particular, claimed
authority over the overseas empire, because
of the province's historic role as the exclusive
entrepôt of the empire.This impasse was resolved
through negotiations between the several juntas
in Spain counted with the participation of
the Council of Castile, which led to the creation
of a main government: the "Supreme Central
and Governmental Junta of Spain and the Indies"
on September 25, 1808.
It was agreed that the kingdoms of the peninsula
would send two representatives to this Supreme
Central Junta, and that the overseas kingdoms
would send one representative each.
These kingdoms were defined as "the viceroyalties
of New Spain (Mexico), Peru, New Granada,
and Buenos Aires, and the independent captaincies
general of the island of Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Guatemala, Chile, Province of Venezuela, and
the Philippines."
This plan was criticized for providing unequal
representation to Spanish America; nevertheless,
throughout the end of 1808 and early 1809,
the regional capitals elected candidates,
whose names were forwarded to the capitals
of the viceroyalties or captaincies general.
Several important and large cities were left
without direct representation in the Supreme
Junta.
In particular Quito and Chuquisaca, which
saw themselves as the capitals of kingdoms,
resented being subsumed in the larger Viceroyalty
of Peru.
This unrest led to the establishment of juntas
in these cities in 1809, which were eventually
quashed by the authorities within the year.
An unsuccessful attempt at establishing a
junta in New Spain was also stopped.
=== Spanish institutional revolution ===
The escape to Cádiz and the dissolution of
the Supreme Central Junta on January 29, 1810,
because of the reverses suffered after the
Battle of Ocaña by the Spanish forces paid
with Spanish American money, set off another
wave of juntas being established in the Americas.
French forces had taken over southern Spain
and forced the Supreme Junta to seek refuge
in the island-city of Cádiz.
The Supreme Junta replaced itself with a smaller,
five-man council, called the Regency, or the
Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies.
Next, in order to establish a more legitimate
government system, the Regency called for
the convening of an "extraordinary and general
Cortes of the Spanish Nation": the "Cádiz
Cortes".
The plan for the election of the Cortes, based
on provinces, and not kingdoms, was more equitable
and provided more time to determine what would
be considered an overseas province.
The Cádiz Cortes was the first national assembly
to claim sovereignty in Spain.
It represented the abolition of the old kingdoms.
The opening session was held on 24 September
1810, in the building now known as the Real
Teatro de las Cortes under the siege of French
army.
It met as one body and its members represented
the entire Spanish empire.
=== Response in Spanish America ===
Most Spanish Americans saw no reason to recognize
a rump government that was under the threat
of being captured by the French at any moment,
and began to work for the creation of local
juntas to preserve the region's independence
from the French.
Junta movements were successful in New Granada
(Colombia), Venezuela, Chile and Río de la
Plata (Argentina).
Less successful, though serious movements,
also occurred in Central America.
Ultimately, Central America, along with most
of New Spain, Quito (Ecuador), Peru, Upper
Peru (Bolivia), the Caribbean and the Philippine
Islands remained in control of royalists for
the next decade and participated in the Spanish
Cortes effort to establish a liberal government
for the Spanish Monarchy.
== Civil wars for disputed sovereignty, 1810–14
==
The creation of juntas in Spanish America,
such as the Junta Suprema de Caracas on April
19, 1810, set the stage for the fighting that
would afflict the region for the next decade
and a half.
Political fault lines appeared, and were often
the causes of military conflict.
On the one hand the juntas challenged the
authority of all royal officials, whether
they recognized the Regency or not.
On the other hand, royal officials and Spanish
Americans who desired to keep the empire together
were split between liberals, who supported
the efforts of the Cortes, and conservatives
(often called "absolutists" in the historiography),
who did not want to see any innovations in
government.
Finally, although the juntas claimed to carry
out their actions in the name of the deposed
king, Ferdinand VII, their creation provided
an opportunity for people who favored outright
independence to promote their agenda publicly
and safely.
The proponents of independence called themselves
patriots, a term which eventually was generally
applied to them.The idea that independence
was not the initial concern is evidenced by
the fact that few areas declared independence
in the years after 1810.
The congresses of Venezuela and New Granada
did so in 1811 and also Paraguay in same year
(14 and 15 of May 1811).
Some historians explain the reluctance to
declare independence as a "mask of Ferdinand
VII": that is, that patriot leaders felt that
they needed to claim loyalty to the deposed
monarch in order to prepare the masses for
the radical change that full independence
eventually would entail.
Nevertheless, even areas such as Río de la
Plata and Chile, which more or less maintained
de facto independence from the peninsular
authorities, did not declare independence
until quite a few years later, in 1816 and
1818, respectively.
Overall, despite achieving formal or de facto
independence, many regions of Spanish America
were marked by nearly continuous civil wars,
which lasted well into the 1820s.
In Mexico, where the junta movement had been
stopped in its early stages by a coalition
of Peninsular merchants and government officials,
efforts to establish a government independent
of the Regency or the French took the form
of rebellion, under the leadership of Miguel
Hidalgo.
Hidalgo was captured and executed in 1811,
but a resistance movement continued, which
declared independence from Spain in 1813.
In Central America, attempts at establishing
juntas were also put down, but resulted in
significantly less violence.
The Caribbean islands, like the Philippines
on the other side of the world, were relatively
peaceful.
Any plots to set up juntas were denounced
to the authorities early enough to stop them
before they gained widespread support.
=== Major cities and regional rivalries ===
Major cities and regional rivalry played an
important role in the wars.
The disappearance of a central, imperial authority—and
in some cases of even a local, viceregal authority
(as in the cases of New Granada and Río de
la Plata)—initiated a prolonged period of
balkanization in many regions of Spanish America.
It was not clear which political units should
replace the empire, and there were no new
national identities to replace the traditional
sense of being Spaniards.
The original juntas of 1810 appealed first
to a sense of being Spanish, which was counterposed
to the French threat; second, to a general
American identity, which was counterposed
to the Peninsula lost to the French; and third,
to a sense of belonging to the major cities
or local province, the patria in Spanish.
More often than not, juntas sought to maintain
a province's independence from the capital
of the former viceroyalty or captaincy general
as much as from the Peninsula itself.
Armed conflicts broke out between the provinces
over the question of whether some cities or
provinces were to be subordinate to others
as they had been under the crown.
This phenomenon was particularly evident in
South America.
This rivalry also led some regions to adopt
the opposite political cause to that chosen
by their rivals.
Peru seems to have remained strongly royalist
in large part because of its rivalry with
Río de la Plata, to which it had lost control
of Upper Peru when the latter was elevated
to a viceroyalty in 1776.
The creation of juntas in Río de la Plata
allowed Peru to regain formal control of Upper
Peru for the duration of the wars.
=== Social and racial tensions ===
Underlying social and racial tensions also
had a great impact on the nature of the fighting.
Rural areas were pitted against urban centers,
as grievances against the authorities found
an outlet in the political conflict.
This was the case with Hidalgo's peasant revolt,
which was fueled as much by discontent over
several years of bad harvests as with events
in the Peninsular War.
Hidalgo was originally part of a circle of
liberal urbanites in Querétaro, who sought
to establish a junta.
After this conspiracy was discovered, Hidalgo
turned to the rural people of the Mexican
Bajío to build his army, and their interests
soon overshadowed those of the urban intellectuals.
A similar tension existed in Venezuela, where
the Spanish immigrant José Tomás Boves formed
a powerful, though irregular, royalist army
out of the Llaneros, mixed-race slave and
plains people, by attacking the white landowning
class.
Boves and his followers often disregarded
the command of Spanish officials and were
not concerned with actually re-establishing
the toppled royal government, choosing instead
to keep real power among themselves.
Finally, in the back country of Upper Peru,
the republiquetas kept the idea of independence
alive by allying with disenfranchised members
of rural society and native groups, but were
never able to take the major population centers.
Increasingly violent confrontations developed
between Spaniards and Spanish Americans, but
this tension was often related to class issues
or fomented by patriot leaders to create a
new sense of nationalism.
After being incited to rid the country of
the gachupines (a disparaging term for Peninsulares),
Hidalgo's forces indiscriminately massacred
hundreds of Criollos and Peninsulares who
had taken refuge at the Alhóndiga de Granaditas
in Guanajuato.
In Venezuela during his Admirable Campaign,
Simón Bolívar instituted a policy of a war
to the death, in which royalist Spanish Americans
would be purposely spared but even neutral
Peninsulares would be killed, in order to
drive a wedge between the two groups.
This policy laid the ground for the violent
royalist reaction under Boves.
Often though, royalism or patriotism simply
provided a banner to organize the aggrieved,
and the political causes could be discarded
just as quickly as they were picked up.
The Venezuelan Llaneros switched to the patriot
banner once the elites and the urban centers
became securely royalist after 1815, and it
was the royal army in Mexico that ultimately
brought about that nation's independence.
== King's war against independence, 1814–20
==
By 1815 the general outlines of which areas
were controlled by royalists and pro-independence
forces were established and a general stalemate
set in the war.
In areas where royalists controlled the main
population centers, most of the fighting by
those seeking independence was done by isolated
guerrilla bands.
In New Spain, the two main guerrilla groups
were led by Guadalupe Victoria in Puebla and
Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca.
In northern South America, New Granadan and
Venezuelan patriots, under leaders such as
Simón Bolívar, Francisco de Paula Santander,
Santiago Mariño, Manuel Piar and José Antonio
Páez, carried out campaigns in the vast Orinoco
River basin and along the Caribbean coast,
often with material aid coming from Curaçao
and Haiti.
Also, as mentioned above, in Upper Peru, guerrilla
bands controlled the isolated, rural parts
of the country.
=== Restoration of Ferdinand VII ===
In March 1814, following with the collapse
of the First French Empire, Ferdinand VII
was restored to the Spanish throne.
This signified an important change, since
most of the political and legal changes made
on both sides of the Atlantic—the myriad
of juntas, the Cortes in Spain and several
of the congresses in the Americas, and many
of the constitutions and new legal codes—had
been made in his name.
Before entering Spanish territory, Ferdinand
made loose promises to the Cortes that he
would uphold the Spanish Constitution.
But once in Spain he realized that he had
significant support from conservatives in
the general population and the hierarchy of
the Spanish Catholic Church; so, on May 4,
he repudiated the Constitution and ordered
the arrest of liberal leaders on May 10.
Ferdinand justified his actions by stating
that the Constitution and other changes had
been made by a Cortes assembled in his absence
and without his consent.
He restored the former legal codes and political
institutions and promised to convene a new
Cortes under its traditional form (with separate
chambers for the clergy and the nobility),
a promise never fulfilled.
News of the events arrived through Spanish
America during the next three weeks to nine
months, depending on time it took goods and
people to travel from Spain.Ferdinand's actions
constituted a definitive de facto break both
with the autonomous governments, which had
not yet declared formal independence, and
with the effort of Spanish liberals to create
a representative government that would fully
include the overseas possessions.
Such a government was seen as an alternative
to independence by many in New Spain, Central
America, the Caribbean, Quito, Peru, Upper
Peru and Chile.
Yet the news of the restoration of the "ancien
régime" did not initiate a new wave of juntas,
as had happened in 1809 and 1810, with the
notable exception of the establishment of
a junta in Cuzco demanding the implementation
of the Spanish Constitution.
Instead most Spanish Americans were moderates
who decided to wait and see what would come
out of the restoration of normalcy.
In fact, in areas of New Spain, Central America
and Quito, governors found it expedient to
leave the elected constitutional ayuntamientos
in place for several years in order to prevent
conflict with the local society.
Liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, nevertheless,
continued to conspire to bring back a constitutional
monarchy, ultimately succeeding in 1820.
The most dramatic example of transatlantic
collaboration is perhaps Francisco Javier
Mina's expedition to Texas and northern Mexico
in 1816 and 1817.Spanish Americans in royalist
areas who were committed to independence had
already joined the guerrilla movements.
However, Ferdinand's actions did set areas
outside of the control of the crown on the
path to full independence.
The governments of these regions, which had
their origins in the juntas of 1810, and even
moderates there, who had entertained a reconciliation
with the crown, now saw the need to separate
from Spain if they were to protect the reforms
they had enacted.
=== Royalist military ===
During this period, royalist forces made advances
into New Granada, which they controlled from
1815 to 1819, and into Chile, which they controlled
from 1814 to 1817.
Except for royalist areas in the northeast
and south, the provinces of New Granada had
maintained independence from Spain since 1810,
unlike neighboring Venezuela, where royalists
and pro-independence forces had exchanged
control of the region several times.
To pacify Venezuela and to retake New Granada,
Spain organized in 1815 the largest armed
force it ever sent to the New World, consisting
of 10,500 troops and nearly sixty ships.
(See, Spanish reconquest of New Granada.)
Although this force was crucial in retaking
a solidly pro-independence region like New
Granada, its soldiers were eventually spread
out throughout Venezuela, New Granada, Quito,
and Peru and were lost to tropical diseases,
diluting their impact on the war.
More importantly, the majority of the royalist
forces were composed, not of soldiers sent
from the peninsula, but of Spanish Americans.
Overall, Europeans formed only about a tenth
of the royalist armies in Spanish America,
and only about half of the expeditionary units,
once they were deployed in the Americas.
Since each European soldier casualty was replaced
by a Spanish American soldier, over time,
there were more and more Spanish American
soldiers in the expeditionary units.
For example, Pablo Morillo, commander in chief
of the expeditionary force sent to South America,
reported that he had only 2,000 European soldiers
under his command in 1820; in other words,
only half the soldiers of his expeditionary
force were European.
It is estimated that in the Battle of Maipú
only a quarter of the royalist forces were
European soldiers, in the Battle of Carabobo
about a fifth, and in the Battle of Ayacucho
less than 1% was European.
The American militias reflected the racial
make-up of the local population.
For example, in 1820 the royalist army in
Venezuela had 843 white (español), 5,378
Casta and 980 Indigenous soldiers.
=== Pro-independence advances ===
Towards the end of this period the pro-independence
forces made two important advances.
In the Southern Cone, a veteran of the Spanish
army with experience in the Peninsular War,
José de San Martín, became the governor
of the Province of Cuyo.
He used this position to begin organizing
an army as early as 1814 in preparation for
an invasion of Chile.
This was an important change in strategy after
three United Provinces campaigns had been
defeated in Upper Peru.
San Martín's army became the nucleus of the
Army of the Andes, which received crucial
political and material support in 1816 when
Juan Martín de Pueyrredón became Supreme
Director of the United Provinces.
In January 1817, San Martín was finally ready
to advance against the royalists in Chile.
Ignoring an injunction from the congress of
the Río de la Plata not to move against Chile,
San Martín together with General Bernardo
O'Higgins Riquelme, later Supreme Director
of Chile, led the Army over the Andes in a
move that turned the tables on the royalists.
By February 10, San Martín had control of
northern and central Chile, and a year later,
after a war with no quarter, the south.
With the aid of a fleet under the command
of former British naval officer Thomas Cochrane,
Chile was secured from royalist control and
independence was declared that year.
San Martín and his allies spent the next
two years planning an invasion of Peru, which
began in 1820.In northern South America, after
several failed campaigns to take Caracas and
other urban centers of Venezuela, Simón Bolívar
devised a similar plan in 1819 to cross the
Andes and liberate New Granada from the royalists.
Like San Martín, Bolívar personally undertook
the efforts to create an army to invade a
neighboring country, collaborated with pro-independence
exiles from that region, and lacked the approval
of the Venezuelan congress.
Unlike San Martín, however, Bolívar did
not have a professionally trained army, but
rather a quickly assembled mix of Llanero
guerrillas, New Granadan exiles led by Santander
and British recruits.
From June to July 1819, using the rainy season
as cover, Bolívar led his army across the
flooded plains and over the cold, forbidding
passes of the Andes, with heavy losses—a
quarter of the British Legion perished, as
well as many of his Llanero soldiers, who
were not prepared for the nearly 4,000-meter
altitudes—but the gamble paid off.
By August Bolívar was in control of Bogotá
and its treasury, and gained the support of
many in New Granada, which still resented
the harsh reconquest carried out under Morillo.
Nevertheless, Santander found it necessary
to continue the policy of the "war to the
death" and carried out the execution of thirty-eight
royalist officers who had surrendered.
With the resources of New Granada, Bolívar
became the undisputed leader of the patriots
in Venezuela and orchestrated the union of
the two regions in a new state called Colombia
(Gran Colombia).
== Independence consolidated, 1820–33 ==
To 
counter the advances the pro-independence
forces had made in South America, Spain prepared
a second, large, expeditionary force in 1819.
This force, however, never left Spain.
Instead, it became the means by which liberals
were finally able to reinstate a constitutional
regime.
On January 1, 1820, Rafael Riego, commander
of the Asturias Battalion, headed a rebellion
among the troops, demanding the return of
the 1812 Constitution.
His troops marched through the cities of Andalusia
with the hope of extending the uprising to
the civilian population, but locals were mostly
indifferent.
An uprising, however, did occur in Galicia
in northern Spain, and from there it quickly
spread throughout the country.
On March 7, the royal palace in Madrid was
surrounded by soldiers under the command of
General Francisco Ballesteros, and three days
later, on March 10, the besieged Ferdinand
VII, now a virtual prisoner, agreed to restore
the Constitution.Riego's Revolt had two significant
effects on the war in the Americas.
Militarily, the large numbers of reinforcements,
which were especially needed to retake New
Granada and defend the Viceroyalty of Peru,
would never arrive.
Furthermore, as the royalists' situation became
more desperate in region after region, the
army experienced wholesale defections of units
to the patriot side.
Politically, the reinstitution of a liberal
regime changed the terms under which the Spanish
government sought to engage the insurgents.
The new government naively assumed that the
insurgents were fighting for Spanish liberalism
and that the Spanish Constitution could still
be the basis of reconciliation between the
two sides.
The government implemented the Constitution
and held elections in the overseas provinces,
just as in Spain.
It also ordered military commanders to begin
armistice negotiations with the insurgents
with the promise that they could participate
in the restored representative government.
=== New Spain and Central America ===
In effect, the Spanish Constitution of 1812
adopted by the Cortes de Cadiz served as the
basis for independence in New Spain and Central
America, since in both regions it was a coalition
of conservative and liberal royalist leaders
who led the establishment of new states.
The restoration of the Spanish Constitution
and representative government was enthusiastically
welcomed in New Spain and Central America.
Elections were held, local governments formed
and deputies sent to the Cortes.
Among liberals, however, there was fear that
the new regime would not last; and conservatives
and the Church worried that the new liberal
government would expand its reforms and anti-clerical
legislation.
This climate of instability created the conditions
for the two sides to forge an alliance.
This alliance coalesced towards the end of
1820 behind Agustín de Iturbide, a colonel
in the royal army, who at the time was assigned
to destroy the guerrilla forces led by Vicente
Guerrero.
In January 1821, Iturbide began peace negotiations
with Guerrero, suggesting they unite to establish
an independent New Spain.
The simple terms that Iturbide proposed became
the basis of the Plan of Iguala: the independence
of New Spain (now to be called the Mexican
Empire) with Ferdinand VII or another Bourbon
as emperor; the retention of the Catholic
Church as the official state religion and
the protection of its existing privileges;
and the equality of all New Spaniards, whether
immigrants or native-born.
The following month the other important guerrilla
leader, Guadalupe Victoria, joined the alliance,
and on March 1 Iturbide was proclaimed head
of a new Army of the Three Guarantees.
The representative of the new Spanish government,
Superior Political Chief Juan O'Donojú, who
replaced the previous viceroys, arrived in
Veracruz on July 1, 1821, but he found that
royalists held the entire country except for
Veracruz, Mexico City and Acapulco.
Since at the time that O'Donojú had left
Spain, the Cortes was considering greatly
expanding the autonomy of the overseas Spanish
possessions, O'Donojú proposed to negotiate
a treaty with Iturbide on the terms of the
Plan of Iguala.
The resulting Treaty of Córdoba, which was
signed on August 24, kept all existing laws,
including the 1812 Constitution, in force
until a new constitution for Mexico could
be written.
O'Donojú became part of the provisional governing
junta until his death on October 8.
Both the Spanish Cortes and Ferdinand VII
rejected the Treaty of Córdoba, and the final
break with the mother country came on May
19, 1822, when the Mexican Congress conferred
the throne on Iturbide.Central America gained
its independence along with New Spain.
On September 15, 1821, an Act of Independence
was signed in Guatemala City which declared
Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) independent from
Spain.
The regional elites supported the terms of
the Plan of Iguala and orchestrated the union
of Central America with the Mexican Empire
in 1821.
Two years later, following Iturbide's downfall,
the region, with the exception of Chiapas,
peacefully seceded from Mexico on July 1,
1823, establishing the Federal Republic of
Central America.
The new state existed for seventeen years,
centrifugal forces pulling the individual
provinces apart by 1840.
=== South America ===
Unlike in New Spain and Central America, in
South America independence was spurred by
the pro-independence fighters who had held
out for the past half decade.
José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar inadvertently
led a continent-wide pincer movement from
southern and northern South America that liberated
most of the Spanish American nations on that
continent.
After securing the independence of Chile in
1818, San Martín concentrated on building
a naval fleet in the Pacific to counter Spanish
control of those waters and reach the royalist
stronghold of Lima.
By mid-1820 San Martín had assembled a fleet
of eight warships and sixteen transport ships
under the command of Admiral Cochrane.
The fleet set sail from Valparaíso to Paracas
in southern Peru.
On September 7, the army landed at Paracas
and successfully took Pisco.
After this, San Martín, waiting for a generalized
Peruvian revolt, chose to avoid direct military
confrontation.
San Martín hoped that his presence would
initiate an authentic Peruvian revolt against
Spanish rule, believing that otherwise any
liberation would be ephemeral.
In the meantime, San Martín engaged in diplomacy
with Viceroy Joaquín de la Pezuela, who was
under orders from the constitutional government
to negotiate on the basis of the 1812 Constitution
and to maintain the unity of the Spanish Monarchy.
However, these efforts proved fruitless, since
independence and unity of the monarchy could
not be reconciled, so the army sailed in late
October to a better strategic position in
Huacho, in northern Peru.
During the next few months, successful land
and naval campaigns against the royalists
secured the new foothold, and it was at Huacho
that San Martín learned that Guayaquil (in
Ecuador) had declared independence on October
9.Bolívar, learning about the collapse of
the Cádiz expedition, spent the year 1820
preparing a liberating campaign in Venezuela.
Bolívar was aided by Spain's new policy of
seeking engagement with the insurgents, which
Morillo implemented, renouncing to the command
in chief, and returning to Spain.
Although Bolívar rejected the Spanish proposal
that the patriots rejoin Spain under the Spanish
Constitution, the two sides established a
six-month truce and the regularization of
the rules of engagement under the law of nations
on November 25 and 26.
The truce did not last six months.
It was apparent to all that the royalist cause
had been greatly weakened by the lack of reinforcements.
Royalist soldiers and whole units began to
desert or defect to the patriots in large
numbers.
On January 28, 1821, the ayuntamiento of Maracaibo
declared the province an independent republic
that chose to join the new nation-state of
Gran Colombia.
Miguel de la Torre, who had replaced Morillo
as head of the army, took this to be a violation
of the truce, and although the republicans
argued that Maracaibo had switched sides of
its own volition, both sides began to prepare
for renewed war.
The fate of Venezuela was sealed when Bolívar
returned there in April leading an army of
7,000 from New Granada.
At the Battle of Carabobo on June 24, the
Gran Colombian forces decisively defeated
the royalist forces, assuring control of Venezuela
save for Puerto Cabello and guaranteeing Venezuelan
independence.
Bolívar could now concentrate on Gran Colombia's
claims to southern New Granada and Quito.
In Peru, on January 29, 1821, Viceroy Pezuela
was deposed in a coup d'état by José de
la Serna, but it would be two months before
San Martín moved his army closer to Lima
by sailing it to Ancón.
During the next few months San Martín once
again engaged in negotiations, offering the
creation of an independent monarchy; but La
Serna insisted on the unity of the Spanish
monarchy, so the negotiations came to nothing.
By July La Serna judged his hold on Lima to
be weak, and on July 8 the royal army abandoned
the coastal city in order to reinforce positions
in the highlands, with Cuzco as new capital
of the viceroyalty.
On the 12th San Martín entered Lima, where
he was declared "Protector of the Country"
on July 28, an office which allowed him to
rule the newly independent state.To ensure
that the Presidency of Quito became a part
of Gran Colombia and did not remain a collection
of small, divided republics, Bolívar sent
aid in the form of supplies and an army under
Antonio José de Sucre to Guayaquil in February
1821.
For a year Sucre was unable to take Quito,
and by November both sides, exhausted, signed
a ninety-day armistice.
The following year, at the Battle of Pichincha
on May 24, 1822, Sucre's Venezuelan forces
finally conquered Quito; Gran Colombia's hold
on the territory was secure.
The following year, after a Peruvian patriot
army was destroyed in the Battle of Ica, San
Martín met with Simón Bolívar in Guayaquil
on July 26 and 27.
Thereafter San Martín decided to retire from
the scene.
For the next two years, two armies of Rioplatense
(Argentinian), Chilean, Colombian and Peruvian
patriots were destroyed trying to penetrate
the royalist bastion in the Andean regions
of Peru and Upper Peru.
A year later a Peruvian congress resolved
to make Bolívar head of the patriot forces
in the country.
An internecine conflict between La Serna and
General Pedro Antonio Olañeta, which was
an extension of the Liberal Triennium, proved
to be the royalists' undoing.
La Serna lost control of half of his best
army by the beginning of 1824, giving the
patriots an opportunity.
Under the command of Bolívar and Sucre, the
experienced veterans of the combined army,
mainly Colombians, destroyed a royalist army
under La Serna's command in the Battle of
Ayacucho on December 9, 1824.
La Serna's army was numerically superior but
consisted of mostly new recruits.
The only significant royalist area remaining
on the continent was the highland country
of Upper Peru.
Following the Battle of Ayacucho, the royalist
troops of Upper Peru under the command of
Olañeta surrendered after he died in Tumusla
on April 2, 1825.
Bolívar tended to favor maintaining the unity
of Upper Peru with Peru, but the Upper Peruvian
leaders—many former royalists, like Casimiro
Olañeta, nephew of General Olañeta—gathered
in a congress under Sucre's auspices supported
the country's independence.
Bolívar left the decision to Sucre, who went
along with the congress.
Sucre proclaimed Upper Peru's independence
in the city which now bears his name on August
6, bringing the main wars of independence
to an end.As it became clear that there was
to be no reversal of Spanish American independence,
several of the new states began to receive
international recognition.
Early, in 1822, the United States recognized
Chile, the United Provinces of the Río de
la Plata, Peru, Gran Colombia, and Mexico.
Britain waited until 1825, after the Battle
of Ayacucho, to recognize Mexico, Gran Colombia,
and Río de la Plata.
Both nations recognized more Spanish American
states in the next few years.
=== Last royalist bastions ===
The Spanish coastal fortifications in Veracruz,
Callao and Chiloé were the footholds that
resisted until 1825 and 1826 respectively.
In the following decade, royalist guerrillas
continued to operate in several countries
and Spain launched a few attempts to retake
parts of the Spanish American mainland.
In 1827 Colonel José Arizabalo started an
irregular war with Venezuelan guerrillas,
and Brigadier Isidro Barradas led the last
attempt with regular troops to reconquer Mexico
in 1829.
The Pincheira brothers moved to Patagonia
and remained there as royalist outlaws until
defeated in 1832.
But efforts like these did not reverse the
new political situation.
The increasing irrelevance of the Holy Alliance
after 1825 and the fall of the Bourbon dynasty
in France in 1830 during the July Revolution
eliminated the principal support of Ferdinand
VII in Europe, but it was not until the king's
death in 1833 that Spain finally abandoned
all plans of military reconquest, and in 1836
its government went so far as to renounce
sovereignty over all of continental America.
During the course of the 19th century, Spain
would recognize each of the new states.
Only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish
rule, until the Spanish–American War in
1898.
== Effects of independence ==
=== 
Economics ===
The nearly decade and a half of wars greatly
weakened the Spanish American economies and
political institutions, which hindered the
region's potential economic development for
most of the nineteenth century and resulted
in the enduring instability the region experienced.
Independence destroyed the de facto trade
bloc that was the Spanish Empire - Manila
galleons and Spanish treasure fleets in particular.
After independence, trade among the new Spanish
American nations was less than it had been
in the colonial period.
Once the ties were broken, the small populations
of most of the new nations provided little
incentive to entice Spanish American producers
to recreate the old trade patterns.
In addition, the protection against European
competition, which the Spanish monopoly had
provided to the manufacturing sectors of the
economy, ended.
Due to expediency, protective tariffs for
these sectors, in particular textile production,
were permanently dropped and foreign imports
beat out local production.
This greatly affected Native communities,
which in many parts of Spanish America, specialized
in supplying finished products to the urban
markets, albeit using pre-industrial techniques.
The wars also greatly affected the principal
economic sector of the region, mining.
Silver production in Bolivia halved after
independence and it dropped by three quarters
in Mexico.
Cities dependent on seaborne trade like Valdivia
plunged into depression as the intracolonial
trade system collapsed.Foreign trade policies
varied among the new countries, some like
the United Provinces of Río de la Plata and
Peru applied initially protectionist policies
while Chile was more open to foreign trade
while still applying a kind of neomercantilism.To
compensate for the lack of capital, foreign
investment—in particular from Great Britain—was
courted, but it was not sizable enough to
initiate an economic recovery.
Finally the new nations entered the world
economy after the end of the French Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars, when the economies of
Europe and the United States were recovering
and aggressively seeking new markets to sell
their products after more than two decades
of disruption.
Ultimately Spanish America could only connect
to the world markets as an exporter of raw
materials and a consumer of finished products.
=== Society ===
In addition to improving the economy, the
lower social classes also had to be integrated
into the new body politic, although they often
got few rewards from independence.
The political debate seeking answers to these
questions was marked by a clash—at times
on the battlefield—between liberalism and
conservatism.
Conservatives sought to maintain the traditional
social structures in order to ensure stability;
liberals sought to create a more dynamic society
and economy by ending ethnically-based social
distinctions and freeing property from economic
restrictions.
In its quest to transform society, liberals
often adopted policies that were not welcome
by Native communities, who had benefited from
unique protections afforded to them by traditional
Spanish law.Independence, however, did initiate
the abolition of slavery in Spanish America,
as it was seen as part of the independence
struggle, since many slaves had gained their
manumission by joining the patriot armies.
In areas where slavery was not a major source
of labor (Mexico, Central America, Chile),
emancipation occurred almost immediately after
independence was achieved.
In areas where slavery was a main labor source
(Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina), emancipation
was carried out in steps over the next three
decades, usually first with the creation of
free-womb laws and programs for compensated
emancipation.
By the early 1850s, slavery had been abolished
in the independent nations of Spanish America.
=== Role of women ===
Women were not simply spectators throughout
the Independence Wars of Latin America.
Many women took sides on political issues
and joined independence movements in order
to participate on many different levels.
Women could not help but act as caring relatives
either as mother, sister, wives or daughters
of the men who were fighting.
Women created political organizations and
organized meetings and groups to donate food
and supplies to the soldiers.
Some women supported the wars as spies, informants
and combatants.
Manuela Sáenz was a long term lover of Simón
Bolívar and acted as his spy and confidante
and was secretary of his archive.
She saved his life on two occasions, nursed
wounded soldiers and has even been believed
some historians to have fought in a few battles.
Sáenz followed Bolívar and his army through
the independence wars and became to be known
in Latin America as the “mother of feminism
and women’s emancipation and equal rights.”
Bolívar himself was a supporter of women’s
rights and suffrage in Latin America.
It was Bolívar who allowed for Sáenz to
become the great pioneer of women’s freedom.
He wanted to set the women of Latin America
free from the oppression and inferiority of
what the Spanish regime had established.
Bolívar even made Sáenz a Colonel of the
Colombian Army due to her heroics which caused
controversy because there were no women in
the army at the time.
Another woman who gained prominence in the
fight for independence was Juana Azurduy de
Padilla, a mixed-race woman who fought for
independence in the Río de la Plata region.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner posthumously promoted her to the
rank of general.According to gender stereotypes,
women were not meant to be soldiers; only
men were supposed to engage in fighting and
conflict.
There were still plenty of women present on
the battlefields to help rescue and nurse
soldiers.
Some women fought alongside their husbands
and sons on the battlefield.
The majority of women assumed supportive and
non-competitive roles such as fundraising
and caring for the sick.
Revolution for women meant something different
than for men.
Women saw revolution as a way to earn equal
rights, such as voting, and to overcome the
suppression of subordination of women to men.
Women were usually identified as victims during
the independence wars since the women of Latin
America were forced to sacrifice for the cause.
The ideals of womanhood meant that women must
sacrifice what the situation required such
as a mother sacrificing her son or a virgin
knowing she might be sacrificing motherhood
or marriage due to the loss of many young
men.
This view meant that women were meant to contribute
to independence in a supportive role while
leaving the combat and politics in the hands
of the men.
=== Government and politics ===
Independence also did not result in stable
political regimes, save in a few countries.
First, the new nations did not have well-defined
identities, but rather the process of creating
identities was only beginning.
This would be carried out through newspapers
and the creation of national symbols, including
new names for the countries ("Mexico", "Colombia",
"Ecuador", "Bolivia", "Argentina"), that broke
with the past.
In addition, the borders were not firmly established,
and the struggle between federalism and centralism,
which began in independence, continued throughout
the rest of the century.
Two large states that emerged from the wars—Gran
Colombia and the Federal Republic of Central
America—collapsed after a decade or two,
and Argentina would not consolidate politically
until the 1860s.The wars destroyed the old
civilian bureaucracy that had governed the
region for centuries, as institutions such
as the audiencias were eliminated and many
Peninsular officials fled to Spain.
The Catholic Church, which had been an important
social and political institution during the
colonial period, initially came out weakened
by the end of the conflicts.
As with government officials, many Peninsular
bishops abandoned their dioceses and their
posts were not filled for decades until new
prelates could be created and relations between
the new nations and the Vatican were regularized.
Then as the Church recovered, its economic
and political power was attacked by liberals.Despite
the fact that the period of the wars of independence
itself was marked by a rapid expansion of
representative government, for several of
the new nations the nineteenth century was
marked by militarism because of the lack of
well-defined political and national institutions.
The armies and officers that came into existence
during the process of independence wanted
to ensure that they got their rewards once
the struggle was over.
Many of these armies did not fully disband
once the wars were over and they proved to
be one of the stabler institutions in the
first decades of national existence.
These armies and their leaders effectively
influenced the course of political development.
Out of this new tradition came the caudillos,
strongmen who amassed formal and informal
economic, military and political power in
themselves.
== Overview ==
=== Wars, battles and revolts ===
=== 
Pro-independence ===
=== 
Royalists ===
== 
See also ==
== 
Notes ==
== 
References ==
== 
Further reading ==
=== 
Spanish America and Spain ===
=== 
Foreign involvement ===
=== Historiography ===
