218
They came to resent the fact that
ultimate authority was exercised
by a distant monarchy, and saw no
reason why they should submit to it.
There are clear parallels with
the American Revolution. But
while in North America it was
the fundamental liberties of free-
born men that were disputed, in
Brazil the issue was narrower—
it was simply a question of who
would govern.
In 1822, to protect the interests
of the native-born elite, Pedro
declared Brazil an independent
constitutional monarchy and
himself its emperor. This was a
revolution only in the sense that it
produced Brazilian independence
in the interests of those already
ruling it. One of the more obvious
consequences was that, with no
change to the social or economic
order, slavery remained legal
in Brazil until 1888, later than
anywhere else in the Western world.Governing Spain’s colonies
In Spain’s colonies, the drive for
independence stemmed partly
from the desire of the native-born
ruling class—the creoles—to assert
their interests, not least in the faceof Spain’s restrictive control of
South American trade and punitive
taxation policies, both to the
disadvantage of the colonies. In
the short term, however, it was a
reaction to Napoleon’s invasion of
Spain in 1808 and his deposition of
the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, in
favor of Napoleon’s brother, Joseph.
In effect, Spain’s colonies no longer
had a legitimate ruler of their own,
so it was their plain duty to become
rulers themselves, at least until the
monarchy could be restored.
While South American liberals
saw Joseph as the harbinger of a
new, more just social order in place
of the absolutism of Ferdinand VII,
monarchists in the colonies saw
any such liberalizing tendencies
as inherently destabilizing. The
seeds of internal conflict were
being sown.Social revolution in Mexico
At the time, Mexico, which was
known as the Vice-Royalty of
New Spain, encompassed an
immense area that extended
almost from present-day Wyoming
to Panama and that included
most of Texas. Events there took
a different turn. In 1810, a priest,BOLÍVAR ESTABLISHES GRAN COLOMBIA
Pedro I of Brazil, whose coronation
is illustrated in this painting by
Jean-Baptiste Debret, was the son
of the king of Portugal. He had been
left in Brazil to rule as regent.Miguel Hidalgo, appalled at the
obvious inequalities of Mexico,
led a popular revolution that
ended the following year in its
brutal suppression and Hidalgo’s
execution. Another popular
uprising led by a second Catholic
priest, José Morelos, between
1813 and 1815 was similarly put
down. When, in 1821, Mexico
did gain independence, it was by
force against more or less token
Spanish resistance, and under the
leadership of Augustín de Iturbide,
a Mexican general who proclaimed
himself emperor of Mexico the
following year. His rule lasted less
than a year. By 1838, Mexico had
lost all its Central American
territories, and by 1848, it had lost
all its North American territories.Gran Colombia
Events in Spanish South America—
which included the triple Vice-
Royalties of New Granada, Peru,
and Rio de la Plata—followed a very
different course. The key figure here
was Simón Bolívar. Born in modern-For my blood, my honour,
my God, I swear to give
Brazil freedom.
Prince Pedro
Future Emperor Pedro I
of Brazil (1822)US_216-219_Bolivar.indd 218 15/02/2016 16:43
219
The Battle of Ayacucho (1824) saw
the defeat of the Spanish army at the
hands of the South American liberation
troops. It marked the end of Spanish
rule in Peru and in South America.day Venezuela, he was a creole,
aristocratic, and highly educated.
He had visited Europe several
times and was an enthusiastic
supporter of modern nation-
building on the model established
by the French Revolution. He
believed, in particular, that the
diverse peoples and interests of
South America could be brought
together by the assertion of a
shared South American identity,
expressed by the creation of a vast
new South American state. This
was to be Gran Colombia, which
embraced an immense area of
northern South America, essentially
the modern states of Ecuador,
Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama.
Bolívar’s vision of an
independent South America
consistently fell foul of a series
of political realities. His military
successes—for example, in 1824,
the routing of the remaining
Spanish strongholds in Peru,
when his armies attacked from
the north and the south in a pincermovement in the Central Andes—
proved impossible to translate into
enduring and stable states.
Bolívar was an idealist and
a passionate opponent of slavery.
He considered that so disparate
a land and a people could only
be ruled by a strong central
government. Seeing himself as
its natural leader, he proposed
himself as the lifelong president
of Gran Colombia. This provoked
predictably bitter opposition.Gran Colombia breaks up
By 1830—the year Bolívar died,
aged 47, of tuberculosis—Gran
Colombia had already broken up.
Arguably, it was the result of
the kind of nationalism already
surfacing in Europe, with the
independence of Greece and, the
following year, of Belgium. More
particularly, it was due to a failure
to agree on the future of Gran
Colombia. There were disputes
over whether its government
was to be liberal, conservative,
or authoritarian. Venezuela, in
particular, was subjected to bitter
wars throughout the 19th century
that cost the lives of an estimated
1 million people.CHANGING SOCIETIES
This lack of direction resulted in
instability and a social inequality
that would persist for a century
or more. It would also produce a
series of authoritarian military
leaders acting in the interests of
the landowners. An inevitable
consequence was a persistently
oppressed underclass, urban
and agricultural, black and
white. The hacienda—vast acres
inefficiently worked by armies
of peasants in the interests of a
complacently cruel, land-owning
elite—dominated.
In 1910, Mexico descended into
another revolution. This was partly
a result of being wrenched between
ineffectual liberal regimes that
sought to alleviate the obvious
suffering of the poor but did little
to address fundamental economic
weaknesses and self-serving
authoritarian regimes that cared
more for bombast than real reform.
Bolívar’s visions of a recast,
independent South America could
never contend with the reality of
an unequal society that shared no
common belief in its own destiny
and that was consistently the
victim of competing, mostly violent
efforts to assert special interests. ■May slavery be banished
forever together with the
distinction between castes.
José Morelos
Leader of the failed
Mexican Revolt of 1813–15US_216-219_Bolivar.indd 219 15/02/2016 16:43