GO rD hIll 500 Years of Indigenous resistanceWhile Indigenous resistance continued and frequently sent shock-
waves throughout the ranks of the colonialists—including Spaniards and
Creoles (descendants of Spanish settlers in the Americas)—the colonies
themselves began to experience movements for independence comprised
of Creoles and Mestizos.
The backgrounds to the movements for independence—like in the
U.S.—are found in the oppressive taxation and monopolistic trade laws
imposed by the colonial centers, both of which constrained the economic
growth of the colonies. As well, Creoles were generally by-passed for co-
lonial positions which went to agents born in Spain.
The first major settler revolt was in 1809 in the colony of Upper Peru
(Bolivia), which succeeded in temporarily overthrowing Spanish authori-
ties. In 1810 Colombia declared its independence, followed one year later
by Venezuela. In 1816, Argentina declared its independence, and the next
year General Jose de San Martin led troops across the Andes to “liberate
Chile and Peru from the Royalist forces”. Wars for independence spread
quickly, and Spanish royalist forces lost one colony after another in decisive
conflicts, culminating in the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824 in Peru, which
effectively diminished Spain’s domination in the Americas (which was al-
ready dampened by Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in the same period).
Although the independence movements succeeded in overthrowing
Spanish and Portuguese forces, they were led by, and in the interests of,
Creole elites—with the assistance of land-owners and merchants,
...the revolutions for independent state formation in the Americas
in the late 18th and early 19th centuries must be seen as being in
the mode of European nation-state formation for the purpose of
capitalist development. Although they were anti-‘mother coun-
try’, they were not anti-colonial (just as the formation of Rhodesia
and South Africa as states were not anticolonial events).^21The present-day Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador
(CONAIE) describes the independence of Ecuador, for example, as
not mean(ing) any change in our living conditions; it was nothing
more than the passage of power from the hands of the Spaniards
to the hands of the Creoles.^22- Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, op. cit.
- Quoted in Les Field, “Ecuador’s Pan-Indian Uprising”, Report on the Ameri-
cas, Vol. XXV No. 3, pg. 41.