Latin American Independence

III

Wars for Independence

The turmoil in Spain created confusion within its American colonies, since Spain could no longer exert control over its distant empire. Just as in Spain, juntas arose in the colonies, refusing to recognize Bonaparte and proclaiming their loyalty to the deposed king. Some colonists viewed this as a temporary measure until the monarchy was restored, but others saw the crisis as an opportunity to take more control of their own affairs, or even to overthrow the viceroyalties and declare independence from Spain. Rebellions with varying goals occurred almost simultaneously in 1810 in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, and Chile. From 1810 to 1814, the absence of control from Spain gave many Creoles their first taste of self-government.

When Ferdinand was restored to the Spanish throne in 1814, he attempted to reinstate absolute royal control over the empire, rejecting liberal reforms approved in 1812 by Spain’s interim parliament. But by then, many colonies had become dangerously comfortable governing themselves and were unwilling to return to their subordinate status. In each colony, Spanish Americans divided into factions: the so-called patriots, who sought independence, and royalists, who supported Spanish rule. Spanish America’s future would be decided in a series of military campaigns between these groups over the next decade.

The independence movement in Spanish America was primarily an effort by the white elite of the colonies to achieve self-government for their class. Some leaders advocated abolition of slavery or other social changes, but these were not central issues. Mestizos, Native Americans, and people of color, slave and free, fought on both sides in the conflict.

While the Napoleonic Wars precipitated the movement for independence in Spain’s American colonies, they delayed its outbreak in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. Portugal’s royal family, having fled Europe after Napoleon’s invasion, ruled from Brazil until 1820. Although some revolts against royal authority occurred, independence eventually came to Brazil in 1822 without bloodshed and with the support of the governing Portuguese prince.

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Spanish South America

In South America, the struggle for independence was marked by two major military campaigns, led by two key figures. In the north, Simón Bolívar led efforts to free what is now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. In the south, José de San Martín fought for independence in his native Argentina, as well as in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru.

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Bolívar: Venezuela and New Granada

Even before the Napoleonic Wars created a crisis in Spain, revolutionaries had sought independence in Venezuela, an autonomous region within the Viceroyalty of New Granada. In 1806 Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan who had fought in the American and French revolutions, launched an invasion of Venezuela from the United States with a single ship, but the expedition was easily defeated by the Spanish colonial regime.

After the Spanish king Ferdinand was deposed, the town council of Caracas, Venezuela, formed a junta in April 1810, and it soon proclaimed independence from Spain. Bolívar, a wealthy young aristocrat, was sent to London to seek support for the independence movement. Bolívar contacted Miranda and arranged for him to return to Caracas, where Miranda took control of the movement.

On July 5, 1811, a congress in Caracas proclaimed the Republic of Venezuela, known as the First Republic. However, royalist forces defeated the patriots, and Miranda, with cash and gold from the treasury, attempted to flee to Europe. He was turned over to the royalists and eventually sent to Spain, where he died in a prison in 1816. Bolívar, who had tried but failed to defend the strategic port of Puerto Cabello, escaped to New Granada. Venezuela’s First Republic remained independent for only about a year.

By the time Bolívar arrived in New Granada in 1812, an independence movement was under way there, and Bolívar fought against the royalist forces. In 1813 he took a small army into Venezuela, broke the royalist defenses, and on August 6, 1813, entered Caracas in triumph. He established Venezuela’s Second Republic with himself as dictator. A new congress proclaimed him El Libertador—the Liberator—and that is how he was known from that time. However, again Venezuela’s freedom was brief. The following June, Bolívar was easily defeated by royalist forces, and by the beginning of 1815, Venezuela was again a royal colony.

Once more Bolívar escaped to New Granada. Leading patriot forces there, he captured Bogotá. But after King Ferdinand was restored to the throne, he sent a military force of more than 10,000 experienced troops to the colonies to enforce his rule. Spanish troops, led by General Pablo Morillo, entered Caracas in May 1815. That same month, Bolívar sailed from New Granada to seek refuge on the island of Jamaica but continued his efforts to achieve Venezuelan independence. He sought help from Haiti, the former French colony where black slaves had rebelled and won independence a decade earlier. Haitian president Alexander Pétion agreed to support Bolívar’s plan to defeat the royalists in Venezuela in return for Bolívar’s promise to free the slaves in all colonies that he might liberate. Most of the nations eventually ended slavery after winning independence, but usually under a slow, gradual process.

Bolívar’s first attempted invasion of Venezuela ended in disaster, and he fled back to Haiti. Once more Pétion gave him support, and in 1817 he returned to Venezuela, capturing the fortified town of Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar). The town, a port on the Orinoco River, gave the patriots access to the Venezuelan plains and its rich resources, and provided a base from which to launch further campaigns.

The tide in the war for independence now turned in Bolívar’s favor. His army gained new strength as 4000 disciplined soldiers from Britain and other European nations, left idle when the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, volunteered to join his cause and sailed to the Orinoco. He also won support from two other revolutionary groups: the llaneros, fierce cowboys of the Venezuelan plains, who became the patriot army’s cavalry under General José Antonio Paéz, and patriot troops under Francisco Paula de Santander, a military officer from New Granada (Colombia).

In February 1819, a congress assembled in Angostura and proclaimed the Republic of Colombia. The republic, often referred to as Gran Colombia, consisted of Venezuela as well as the colonies of New Granada (now the nations of Colombia and Panama) and Quito (now the nation of Ecuador). Aside from the freed region of Venezuela, most of the republic was still held by royalist forces at the time of the proclamation.

For the next phase of his military campaign, Bolívar decided to surprise the Spanish forces by striking at the viceregal capital of Bogotá, in Colombia. Bolívar led his army in a difficult and daring march across the Andes Mountains into present-day Colombia. The campaign took many lives, but his army survived the ordeal, and on August 7, 1819, he met and defeated the royalist forces in the Battle of Boyacá. After his victory at Boyacá, Bolívar entered Bogotá as a conquering hero, then returned to Angostura.

At this point events in Spain again dramatically influenced the course of Spanish American independence. Ferdinand VII had been preparing to send a large military force from the Spanish port of Cádiz to defeat the independence movements. But on January 1, 1820, troops stationed at Cádiz rebelled and were soon joined by army units from all over Spain, demanding a return to the liberal constitution of 1812. Rather than confront a revolt of this magnitude, Ferdinand in March accepted the 1812 constitution, which had created a limited constitutional monarchy. Spain then abandoned plans to send an army to subdue the colonies.

Bolívar next met the royalists in battle in Venezuela, on the plains of Carabobo. His victory at the Battle of Carabobo on June 24, 1821, finally ensured Venezuela’s independence. Of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada, only the department of Quito remained under royalist control. To liberate it, Bolívar chose General Antonio José de Sucre. On the high plains outside the city of Quito, Sucre defeated the royalists in the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822. When Bolívar arrived in Quito in June, his dream of a liberated Republic of Colombia was a reality.

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San Martín: Argentina, Chile

While patriots led by Bolívar sought independence in the north, a similar campaign began in southern South America. Led by Argentine revolutionary José de San Martín, the military campaign for independence spread from Argentina to Chile, then struck at the royalist stronghold of Peru.

In May 1810, when news reached Buenos Aires that the French in Spain had defeated forces loyal to King Ferdinand, the city’s residents deposed the viceroy and set up a council to govern in the king’s name. A few months later, on September 18, 1810, the town council of Santiago, Chile, also elected a junta to govern in the name of Ferdinand. In Argentina support for independence grew, and on July 9, 1816, a congress of delegates from Buenos Aires and several interior provinces declared independence from Spain, calling the new nation the United Provinces of South America (later known as the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata). But in Chile, which was part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish officials sent forces to regain royal control. On October 1, 1814, the two sides met in a decisive battle at Rancagua, on the road to Santiago. The Chilean patriots, commanded by Bernardo O’Higgins, were defeated, and Chile became a royal colony again.

San Martín, the major leader of the independence movement in the region, was born in Argentina but had spent much of his life in Spain and made a career as an officer in the Spanish army. He sympathized with the colonists’ desire for freedom, and in 1812 he returned from Spain to Buenos Aires and helped organize and train the patriot army. By 1814, however, he had come to believe that for Argentina to remain free, the rest of the continent had to be liberated. Central to that goal was the liberation of the Viceroyalty of Peru. San Martín chose to attack the powerful viceroyalty by first freeing Chile. Thus, in 1814, he became governor of the Andean province of Cuyo to prepare for an invasion of Chile. After the defeat of Chilean independence forces at Rancagua, O’Higgins and several thousand other Chilean refugees fled toward Cuyo, San Martín’s province, and joined his plan to liberate their homeland and Peru.

San Martín, with the support of the central Argentine government, formed a combined Army of the Andes, made up of Argentines and Chileans. In January 1817 San Martín began to move his army toward the high Andean passes. To move thousands of men, their food, supplies, artillery, and munitions through narrow, rocky passes in very thin air was considered almost impossible. But San Martín succeeded, surprising the royalists, who did not expect an attack over the Andes directly into central Chile.

San Martín’s army met the royalist forces on the plains of Chacabuco, northeast of Santiago, and easily defeated them. O’Higgins became supreme director of Chile. On February 12, 1818, Chile declared its independence from Spain. Fighting continued for months, but at the Battle of Maipú in April the Chileans routed the royalists and secured the country’s independence.

San Martín could now concentrate on his plan to liberate Peru. In August 1820 San Martín’s army sailed to Peru on ships of the Chilean navy. On July 10, 1821, San Martín took Lima, the capital of the viceroyalty. Peru’s independence was proclaimed July 28, 1821, and San Martín became chief of state, with the title of Protector. Although San Martín was an excellent general, he made a poor government executive. Lima and the part of Peru controlled by the patriots was on the verge of financial ruin, while the royalist army still controlled much of the countryside and the highlands.

One of San Martín’s central concerns was how to liberate the rest of Peru. In 1822, after Bolívar’s success in Colombia, San Martín received an invitation to meet with Bolívar in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to discuss the campaign to free Peru from Spanish rule.

The two great generals of Spanish American independence met in July 1822. What they said is not known, but after the meeting San Martín, the liberator of Chile and Lima, decided to retire, leaving Bolívar to lead the battle for Peru’s independence. San Martín, weakened by tuberculosis, returned to Lima, then to Argentina. He soon left for England, where he lived in exile.

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Liberation of Peru

By early 1823, Peru was in chaos. Bolívar sent a Colombian army under the command of General Sucre to support the republican government. Sucre found the country virtually bankrupt, defended by a series of quasi-independent armies, with much of the most productive lands held by the royalists. Bolívar decided to take charge of the campaign himself. He arrived in Lima on September 1, 1823, and was appointed military dictator and commander of all the armies of independent Peru.

Once again, events in Europe affected Spanish American independence. In 1823 a large French army invaded Spain to help restore royal absolutism against liberal forces. Britain and the United States feared this might undermine Spanish American independence and their presence in the region’s growing markets. Britain, with its superior naval force, supported the independence of Latin America. United States president James Monroe issued a declaration later known as the Monroe Doctrine, in which he warned against European intervention in the western hemisphere, especially in the emerging Spanish American nations.

In 1824 Bolívar gathered an army of 9,000 troops in the highlands of Peru and prepared his offensive against the royalists. The future of South America was now to be decided. In the late afternoon of August 6, 1824, the patriot and royalist armies met in the Battle of Junín. After a short battle, the royalists were beaten.

Bolívar took a small force and returned to Lima, appointing Sucre commander of the army. Sucre then learned that a royalist army of nearly 10,000 troops was headed toward his force of fewer than 6000 soldiers. The armies met on the plain of Ayacucho, more than 10,000 feet high in the Andes. Sucre defeated the royalists on December 9, 1824, in the Battle of Ayacucho, the last major engagement of the wars for independence. Sucre then liberated Upper Peru, which declared its independence on August 6, 1825, and on August 11 took the name Bolivia, in honor of Bolívar. With the liberation of Peru, Spanish rule in South America came to an end.