Latin American Independence

A

4

Paraguay

The quest for independence quickly took the province of Paraguay, a large landlocked area in the north of Argentina, from colonial possession to an independent dictatorship. At the beginning of the 19th century, Paraguay, part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, held only about 120,000 people, mostly native Guaraní peoples and mestizos. When the Paraguayans learned that residents of Buenos Aires had formed a junta in 1810, they created one of their own in Asunción. The Paraguayan junta, like the one in Buenos Aires, supported King Ferdinand, but it would not be subservient to Buenos Aires. The Argentines sent an army to Paraguay, but it was defeated. On May 14, 1811, Paraguay declared its independence. A congress of delegates from all parts of Paraguay met and formed a new governing junta, and one of its members, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, a doctor of theology and a lawyer, soon became the country’s dictator. In 1816 a congress elected Francia dictator of the republic for life. For the next 26 years Francia ruled Paraguay with an iron hand, without a national congress or judiciary. He permitted Paraguay practically no contact with the outside world.

A

5

Uruguay

Under Spanish rule Uruguay was known as the Banda Oriental (Eastern Shore), a frontier region of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Its capital, Montevideo, was an important port city rivaling Buenos Aires. After the viceroy was overthrown, a Uruguayan independence movement began, led by José Gervasio Artigas, who formed an army of cowboys known as gauchos. Pro-independence forces from Buenos Aires helped to drive the Spaniards out of Montevideo in 1814. But conflicts arose as Artigas established control over the region and sought autonomy rather than domination by Buenos Aires.

In 1816 the Banda Oriental was attacked by the Portuguese in neighboring Brazil, and Montevideo was captured the following year. In 1820 Brazil defeated Artigas’s forces and annexed the region. Artigas went into exile in Paraguay, never to return. Uruguayans rebelled against Brazilian authority and, aided by Argentina, fought a war that ended in 1828 with recognition of Uruguay’s independence as the República Oriental del Uruguay.

B

Mexico

The independence movement in Mexico took a very different course from the campaigns in South America. Concerned about the crisis in Spain, a small group of peninsulares, rather than Creoles, carried out a coup d’etat in 1808. The peninsulares desired stability in Mexico and overthrew the viceregal government when it allowed the Creoles influence. As a result, the great Viceroyalty of New Spain (Mexico), a huge region of more than six million people, was governed by some 15,000 peninsulares.

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Two years after this coup, a widespread rebellion erupted. Creoles, including a priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, had been planning an uprising against the peninsulares, but their plot was discovered before they had organized their forces to take action. Hidalgo hurriedly launched the revolt on September 16, 1810, ringing the bell of his parish church in the village of Dolores and summoning the Native American population to fight the peninsulares in the name of Ferdinand VII. In his famous Grito de Dolores, Hidalgo called for independence and reforms to benefit the oppressed Native Americans. Hidalgo’s call set off a massive revolt by tens of thousands of Native Americans north of Mexico City, who were suffering the effects of rising food prices and falling wages. The Native Americans were joined by mestizos and mulattoes, who also were hurt by the economy.

The revolt was extremely destructive, as Hidalgo’s army vented its rage over years of oppression. The damage to haciendas and mines retarded Mexico’s economic development for decades after the revolt ended. Facing such violent rebellion, few of Mexico’s Creoles joined Hidalgo, instead supporting the peninsulares, whose government offered stability.

After initial victories, Hidalgo marched his army of about 80,000 to Mexico City. Knowing that his army would turn into a mob if it captured the capital and aware that a royal army was approaching, Hidalgo withdrew. While retreating, his army was defeated by the royalists in January 1811. Hidalgo was captured by the royalists in March and executed on July 30, 1811.

Hidalgo was replaced by another parish priest, José María Morelos y Pavón. Morelos, a mestizo, was a better military tactician than Hidalgo. He also had a more specific political agenda, which called for social and racial equality as well as independence from Spain. Under his leadership the patriots captured some territory and declared independence in 1813. But the royalists still controlled the capital and much of the viceroyalty. In 1815 Morelos was captured and executed. For the next six years the rebellion continued on a smaller scale, much of it carried out by provincial guerrilla bands.

In 1820 the royalists chose Agustín de Iturbide, a Creole officer in the royalist army, to defeat the remaining guerrillas. Iturbide immediately set out to find the most important rebel leader, Vicente Guerrero, a mestizo. But instead of defeating Guerrero, Iturbide made a deal with him to overthrow Spanish authority. In February 1821 they issued their , which declared the independence of Mexico. The plan’s three major provisions called for creation of a monarchy with limited powers, for Catholicism to be the official state religion, and for racial equality. Iturbide and Guerrero’s forces joined to form the Army of the Three Guarantees. It won immediate support from royalists, since it kept Mexico a monarchy, and from patriots, since it created an independent Mexico. When a new viceroy arrived from Spain in 1821, he and Iturbide signed the Treaty of Córdoba, based largely on the Plan of Iguala, and the independent Mexican empire was created.

The governing junta of Mexico City appointed Iturbide its president in September 1821. Under the treaty, a member of European royalty was to be offered the throne of the new empire, but before arrangements could be made Iturbide himself became Emperor Agustín I in May 1822.

Agustín had to govern a large empire with a weak and disrupted economy. Revolts against his government began soon after he took office. In 1823 the emperor resigned and went into exile, and a republic was proclaimed, but the country continued to be divided among political factions. Agustín returned to Mexico the following year, but was imprisoned and then executed.

C

Central America

Under colonial rule, most of Central America was part of the captaincy-general of Guatemala, a fairly autonomous region of New Spain. The captaincy-general, led by Gabino Gainza, declared its independence on September 15, 1821, and later joined the short-lived Mexican Empire. When the empire dissolved, Central America declared its independence once again, this time on July 1, 1823. The Constitution of 1824 created a federation, the United Provinces of Central America, which included Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

The federation was designed to reduce the influence of the former province of Guatemala over its neighbors. Although the federation was a land of abundant natural resources and great potential, the issue of political control could not be resolved. The republic’s first congress met in 1825, but a civil war broke out in 1826, lasting three years. By 1831 the Central American economy was deteriorating, and by the end of the decade the federation broke apart. It was replaced by the independent republics of Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

D

The Caribbean

Of the three Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, only Santo Domingo, on the island of Hispaniola, achieved independence before the end of the 19th century. Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule until 1898, then came under the political control of the United States.

The French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue, however, played a role in the Latin American independence movement. The colony, which adjoined Santo Domingo, became the nation of Haiti in 1804, the second independent nation in the western hemisphere, after the United States. Haiti achieved its independence after its black slave population rebelled against white slave owners. The uprising, fueled by the ideas of the French Revolution, became a full-fledged social revolution that destroyed the island’s plantation economy and transformed its social structure.

After defeating French forces, Haiti’s rulers then assisted Bolívar in his quest to free Spanish South America from colonial rule and urged him to abolish slavery in newly liberated nations. But the bloodshed and destruction in Haiti also served as a frightening example to the white elites of Latin America. In areas with large slave populations, such as Cuba and to a lesser degree Puerto Rico, the elite planter class remained loyal to the crown rather than joining the independence movement, fearing that it could bring similar chaos to their homelands.

During the Haitian revolution, Santo Domingo was controlled for a time by Haiti. It was again a Spanish colony from 1809 to 1821. The Dominicans then rebelled and declared their independence from Spain, but in 1822 the Haitians again invaded and annexed the colony. In 1844 Santo Domingo again declared its independence, forming the Dominican Republic.

In Cuba, harsh Spanish rule beginning in the 1830s prompted some colonists to launch plots and revolts against Spain. Some Cubans sought independence, while others favored annexation by the United States. A revolution in 1868, which became known as the Ten Years’ War, ended with Spain’s abolishing slavery and promising reform. But the promises were not kept, leading to a war of independence in 1895. The United States intervened on the side of the Cubans in the Spanish-American War in 1898. The treaty ending the war ended Spanish rule over Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico to the United States. A U.S. military government ruled Cuba until 1902, when the Cuban Republic was proclaimed, but the United States continued to exert a strong influence over Cuban affairs for decades.

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