Napoleon installed Joseph Bonaparte as
king of Spain. Across Spanish America,
many colonials reacted with revulsion to
the idea of a Frenchman on the Spanish
throne and professed their loyalty instead
to Ferdinand VII, then Napoleon’s cap-
tive. Napoleon had hoped to win colonial
support for the new monarch, but since
that was impossible, he encouraged colo-
nial independence movements as a way of
weakening Spanish resistance in the
Peninsular War.
In 1810 autonomous governments
were formed in what are now Venezuela,
Colombia, Argentina, and Chile, nomi-
nally under the sovereignty of the captive
Ferdinand but in practice separate from
the Regency that claimed to govern in his
name. The royalist government rejected
these claims of autonomy, prompting
declarations of complete independence
that led swiftly to revolutionary wars.
Other countries, pre- occuppied with the
Napoleonic Wars in Europe, stayed out
of the turmoil. Britain, for example, care-
fully remained neutral between the
colonies and Spain, seeking above all to
avoid allowing itself or its Spanish ally to
become distracted from the war closer to
home against Napoleon.
The influence of the Spanish-
American wars of independence was pro-
found. Because Spanish-American regions
had a tendency to divide into separate
countries following independence, the
wars meant that today’s Hispanic
Americans have their roots not in colonies
or territories of a single country, Spain,
but in a multiplicity of countries, each
with its own culture and history.South America and
the CaribbeanIn South America, the forces of inde-
pendence moved in two general direc-
tions: south from what is now Venezuela
to Colombia to Ecuador to Peru, and
north from what is now Argentina to
Chile to Peru. Francisco de Miranda
(1750–1816), a longtime advocate of inde-
pendence known as “The Forerunner,”
headed the revolution in Venezuela,
briefly becoming dictator in 1812 before
being overthrown by royalist forces and
shipped to prison in Spain, where he died.
Simon Bolívar then emerged as the most
important revolutionary leader, coming tobe called “The Liberator.” In 1819, after
years of fighting, the republic of Gran
Colombia was established with Bolívar as
its president, comprising what are now
Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama. An
overwhelming victory in 1821 at
Carabobo, Venezuela, assured the repub-
lic’s independence. In 1822 Ecuador
joined the republic, thanks to the decisive
victory of Bolívar’s lieutenant Antonio
José de Sucre (1795–1830) at the battle of
Pichincha.
Simultaneously, with the southward
sweep from Venezuela, José de San
Martín (1778–1850) led the northward
sweep from the viceroyalty of La Plata,
which included what are now Argentina,
Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Royalist
forces were driven out of a substantial
part of the region by 1813, and independ-
ence was proclaimed in 1816. San Martín
pressed the attack into Chile in 1817,
defeating the royalists at Chacabuco and
occupying the Chilean capital, Santiago.
He won a decisive victory at Maipu in
1818.
In 1820 San Martín advanced into
Peru, and in 1821 he captured Lima and
proclaimed Peru’s independence. The
following year, with the Spanish continu-
ing to resist, Peru received military aid
from Bolívar, who decisively routed the
Spanish at Ayacucho in 1824. This was
the last major battle in the South
American wars of independence, though
the last Royalist troops were not forced
out of Peru until 1826.
By the time the struggle for South
American independence was over, the
spark that had started it, Napoleon, was
long gone. The Spanish king whose cap-
ture had prompted the revolutions,
Ferdinand VII, had been restored to the
throne in 1814. But he proved to be a
harshly conservative ruler, with a talent
for driving rebels further into revolt. He
revoked the liberal constitution that had
been created during his captivity, ruling as
an absolute monarch until another revo-
lution in 1820 restored the constitution.
The chaos further weakened Spain’s hold
on its distant colonies. By 1826, while
Ferdinand was still reigning, Spain had
lost all its colonies except for Cuba and
Puerto Rico.
Cuba and Puerto Rico remained
colonies during this period for various
reasons. For one, they were highly
dependent on Spain to buy their sugar72 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
“[In South America,]
representative government,
native functionaries, a
qualified negative on their
laws, with a previous
security by compact for
freedom of commerce,
freedom of the press, habeas
corpus and trial by jury,
would make a good
beginning. This last would
be the school in which their
people might begin to learn
the exercise of civic duties as
well as rights. For freedom
of religion they are not yet
prepared. The scales of
bigotry have not sufficiently
fallen from their eyes to
accept it for themselves
individually, much less to
trust others with it.”
—Thomas Jefferson to
John Adams, 1821.