The Napoleonic Wars in Europe had an enormous impact on the development of the North and South American continents, including the sale of the Louisiana Territory to the United States, the revolts in the French colony on Haiti, and eventually the independence of South American countries from Portugal and Spain. Mexico too fought for and won its independence in the decade following Napoleon’s second abdication, and the formerly huge Spanish Empire in the New World was reduced to the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico after the United States annexed Spanish Florida. Without the wealth from its colonies Spain fell from the ranks as a world power.
The row of dominoes began to fall with Napoleon’s ill-advised invasion of his former ally Spain, deposing the Bourbon Monarchy and installing his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Napoleon established a liberal constitution in Spain which sought to install the reforms of the Napoleonic Civil Code and weaken the power of the Catholic clergy, and civil and military resistance to the French arose throughout the Iberian Peninsula. The situation in Spain and Portugal became almost civil war, abetted by the armies of the British and French. The unrest spread to the South and Central American colonies while the Peninsular War still raged.
Here are ten events or personalities of the wars of Latin American Independence, in truth the final conflicts of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Peninsular War and Opposition to Joseph Bonaparte
In 1807 a French Army under Napoleon, supported by his on again off again ally Spain, invaded Portugal in response to Portugal’s refusal to close its ports to British trade and impose Napoleon’s Continental System, a de facto blockade of Great Britain by the European continent. The Prince Regent of Spain fled with his family and the crown treasury, seeking refuge in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. The following year King Charles IV of Spain abdicated after the government of his ministers collapsed, and Ferdinand VII ascended to the throne. Meanwhile a French army of occupation remained in Spain, supposedly supportive of their Bourbon allies, and Napoleon placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain.
Although the Spanish government accepted Joseph Bonaparte as the new King of Spain, the Spanish clergy and conservative nobles did not. Juntas formed in the cities and provinces in opposition to the French occupation. The population of Spain rose up against the French and Spain devolved into civil war, with the Spanish Army officially allied with the French, and Spanish guerrillas struck French outposts. The rivaling juntas fought each other for national control. The convulsions in Spain traveled with goods and exiles to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The situation in Spain led to the formation of the Fifth Coalition against the French Empire of Napoleon.
The creation of the Cadiz Cortes in Spain, a regency which declared itself sovereign over Spain and all of its possessions, rejected all monarchies in Spain. When the news of its formation reached Spanish America, local juntas formed to protect Spanish autonomy, rejecting the Cadiz Cortes, largely because it was susceptible to capture by French troops at any time. The local juntas were formed around cities by regional aristocrats and wealthy merchants and planters, and quickly became jealous of the authority and influence wielded by each other. The juntas claimed to be representative of the true King of Spain, Ferdinand VII, but the distance from Spain allowed for the rise of independent thought and action based on local conditions.
By forming juntas which appeared to support the king, people of Spanish America were in fact declaring themselves opposed to the Cadiz Cortes, the ruling body of Spain opposing the French. In 1811 congresses composed of representatives from various juntas declared Paraguay, New Granada, and Venezuela independent of rule by the Cortes. The declaration and the absence of either Royal or Regency authority throughout Spanish America led to most of the colonies being in open revolt within themselves and each other, with royalists, those loyal to the Cortes, and those seeking outright independence at war with each other.
Between 1810 and 1814 there was a shift in the national attitudes of the juntas in Spanish America. Initially they had appealed to the people with the idea that they were Spanish, in opposition to the French who had usurped authority in their mother country, Spain. By 1814 the outlook was along the lines of being American, with an inherent loyalty to the cities and region of Spanish America in which they lived. The juntas also exacerbated tensions between the merchants and wealthy of the urban centers against the peasants of the farmlands and fields. Native and mixed-race rural peoples rose up against the landowners, who were mostly white. The seeds of revolution in Spanish America were planted by the French in the invasion of Spain.
The Spanish Expeditionary Army of Ferdinand VII
When Spanish American liberals and moderates learned of the rejection of many of the liberal reforms in Spain, and by extension in the Spanish Empire, they became more united. Some liberals had sought a constitutional monarchy, others a full break with Spain. Ferdinand’s rejection of the reforms brought the liberals into a more unified structure, the militias under the control of rival juntas became more organized, and guerrilla actions in heavily royalist areas increased. Several expeditionary forces had been dispatched to Spanish America even as the Peninsular War raged, to assert Spain’s ultimate authority, but these troops were stretched thinly through the Spanish Empire.
Royalist forces and junta militias had exchanged control of regions of New Granada and Venezuela since the first resistance to the Cortes, and in 1815, in response to the growing strength of the insurgency, the restored King Ferdinand sent the largest army ever sent by Spain to the Americas. Until then the majority of the Royalist troops in South America were of native birth, about one in ten were from Spain, mostly adventurer officers. Ferdinand sent an expeditionary force of more than 10,000 men to pacify the regions of New Granada and Venezuela, a task at which they were initially successful, though the power of the forces was soon dissipated by its need to garrison large areas, and the susceptibility of the soldiers to tropical diseases.
By 1817 most of New Granada was pacified under the control of officers loyal to Ferdinand. But though the Spanish forces had asserted control over the regional machinery of government in several areas, they had not fully pacified the countryside, nor had they eliminated the spirit of full independence from Spain. Harsh methods instituted by Spanish authorities meanwhile increased the spirit of nationalism within the colonies of its empire. More troops were needed from Spain. As Ferdinand went about raising yet another expedition in Spain to be sent to subdue the unruly Spanish American colonies, liberals in Spain used the increased taxes necessary to fund it to push for a constitutional monarchy.
In 1820 an uprising among the Spanish military in Spain marched against the king and by March 7 Ferdinand was surrounded by mutinous troops, virtually imprisoned in the Royal Palace in Madrid. On March 10, Ferdinand agreed to restore the Spanish Constitution with its liberal reforms to the government and its curtailment of the powers of the clergy. This led to elections being held in Spain and in the colonies of its empire. The new Spanish government assumed that the constitutional reforms would be the basis of a reconciliation between the insurgents in the colonies and the government of the empire in Madrid.
The restored constitution was received with enthusiasm in Spanish America, but far from being the basis for reconciliation, it led to elections being held and representatives selected who favored the independence of the Spanish colonies rather than return to rule under the Spanish Cortes. Liberals in Spanish America feared the Cortes would not be a long-lived solution and conservatives were concerned about overreaching reforms of the Church and other areas. The result of the elections was an alliance in Spanish America between the factions which had formerly been in opposition to each other, and increased momentum towards independence of all of Spanish America.