Lecture 27: 1824 Ayacucho—South American Independence
cannon deployed along the western edge. He arranged his infantry
battalions in a line, with his cavalry behind them as a reserve.x On the eastern edge, La Serna deployed his approximately 7,000
men and seven cannons into a similar line of infantry, with some
cavalry on each side. As a reserve, he had a large group of cavalry
and an elite battalion of halberdiers. He planned to attack and pin
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having some success. The rest of the Spanish line also advanced,
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spread across the length of the lines. The heavier artillery of the
royalists gave their attack extra momentum, but Sucre countered
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line and fought them off.x By afternoon, the battle was turning in favor of the liberators, and
the remaining organized royalist forces were falling back into a last-
ditch defensive stand on the high ground. La Serna was wounded,
and soon after, he and his remaining men surrendered to Sucre.Outcomes
x With the victory at Ayacucho, the last Spanish resistance crumbled.
Ayacucho can be considered a decisive battle in global history
because it was the event that clearly ended Spanish rule in Latin
America, and it secured and ensured the continued existence of the
newly independent South American nations.x Within a year of Ayacucho, all the territories in the New World
had thrown off their colonial overseers and created independent
nations. Spain, which had once controlled the greater part of two
vast continents, had its New World possessions reduced to Cuba
and Puerto Rico. The loss of these territories and of the incomes