Hispanic American Wars of Independence

Hispanic American Wars of Independence
Top: Battle of Tampico of 1829. Center left: Congress of Cúcuta of 1821. Center right: Crossing of the Andes of 1817. Bottom: Riego's Rebellion of 1820.
Date Political crisis: 1808–1833 Military conflict: 1809–1829 Location Spanish Empire Result Pro-independence victory Dismemberment of continental Spanish America Territorial changes Creation of new states in America Countries Mexico Central America United Provinces of the Río de la Plata Bolivia or Upper Peru Gran Colombia Venezuela New Granada Quito Guayaquil Antioquia Cundinamarca Cartagena Cauca Spanish Haiti Peru Chile Territorial annexation during the conflict: The Floridas to the United States, through the Adams–Onís Treaty (see Florida; East Florida and West Florida) The Banda Oriental to the Empire of Brazil and Portugal with the Luso-Brazilian invasion Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo
Belligerents
The Spains or Spain and the Indies	American pro-independence movements
Commanders and leaders
Royalists Show Félix María Calleja Agustín de Iturbide (until 1821) Pablo Morillo José María Barreiro Manjón (executed) Santiago de Liniers (executed) José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa Juan Pío Tristán Mariano Osorio Rafael Maroto Melchor Aymerich José de Canterac Antonio de Quintanilla  Carlos Tolrá José "Puñug" Camacho (executed) José de la Serna Joaquín de la Pezuela José Manuel de Goyeneche José Tomás Boves † Miguel de la Torre Francisco Tomás Morales Domingo Monteverde Juan de Sámano Agustín Agualongo (executed) Vicente Emparan Pedro Antonio Olañeta (WIA)	Pro-independence Show Francisco de Miranda (POW) Simón Bolívar Antonio Nariño Francisco de Paula Santander Antonio José de Sucre José Antonio Páez José María Córdova Camilo Torres Tenorio (executed) Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (executed) José María Morelos y Pavón (executed) Vicente Guerrero (executed) Agustín de Iturbide (from 1821) (executed) Manuel Belgrano José de San Martín Martín Miguel de Güemes  † José Artigas José Miguel Carrera (executed) Antonio González Balcarce Juan Martín de Pueyrredón Manuel Rodríguez (executed) Bernardo O'Higgins Thomas Cochrane Manuel Blanco Encalada José Joaquín de Olmedo Pedro Domingo Murillo (executed) José Miguel Lanza Francisco Antonio de Zela (POW) José de la Riva Agüero José Bernardo de Tagle Pedro Juan Caballero José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia
Units involved
Royalist Army	Pro-independence Armies
Strength
125,700 soldiers	± 130,000 pro-independence fighters ± 6,500 volunteers — British, Irish, among others
Casualties and losses
Most of the 30,000 Spanish forces were lost (dead, missing, defected, etc.) and 35,000 indigenous forces were killed in combat	unknown
± Dead 1,000,000 in total. ± 600,000 dead in New Spain ± 400,000 dead in New Granada
Cause: Abdications of Bayonne, and Spanish liberalism and American liberalism Type: Mixed wars (civil, state and imperial wars) Foreign participation Military occupation of Spain Bonapartist France (Napoleonic Invasion of Spain) Bourbon France (Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis) Imperialist expansion in America United Kingdom and British support for the independence movements Territorial expansion in America United States of America and the Adams–Onís Treaty Empire of Portugal and Brazil (Luso-Brazilian invasion) Kingdom of Haiti (Haitian military occupation of Santo Domingo) Military support for Spain Russian Empire and the sale of ships under the Treaty of Madrid (1817) Military support for the pro-independence side Southern Haiti (refuge and supply of arms and men to Simón Bolívar)

The Hispanic American Wars of Independence were a series of armed conflicts that took place in the early 19th century, between 1809 and 1829, which affected the entire Spanish Empire and in which the side in favor of maintaining the integrity of the Spanish Monarchy, which was defeated and would later be known as "royalist" or "viceregal", fought against the side in favor of the independence or secession of new American states, which triumphed and was later called "revolutionary" or "patriot". Although the term patriot was initially used by the supporters of the Spanish King, it was later appropriated by the pro-independence side, which completely changed its meaning. These conflicts are also considered civil wars and a combination of various conflicts, both local and global.

In 1808, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, in the course of his Continental Blockade strategy against the United Kingdom, seized the Spanish monarchs, obtained the rights to the Spanish Crown in the Abdications of Bayonne (France), and imposed the Bayonne Statute and his brother Joseph I as King of Spain. These events, which ended the Old Regime, were considered illegitimate by European and American Spaniards and led to a power vacuum. The War of the Spanish Succession in the 18th century had reduced the Spanish Empire to a second-rank global power, passing from the Habsburg dynasty to the Bourbons, although it maintained its integrity. The abdication of the Bourbons in favor of the Bonaparte dynasty also sought to preserve the integrity of the empire; however, Napoleonic Spain was finally defeated in the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain.

The liberal revolution in America and in Spain against Bonaparte, supported by the British Empire, also led to a confrontation of continental scope between the new sovereign subjects, the Cortes of Cádiz and the American Juntas. Napoleon was defeated in Europe and in 1814 signed the Treaty of Valençay with Ferdinand VII, by which the latter recovered his former right to the throne of Spain, restored absolutism and repressed the Spanish liberals, but failed to defeat the American revolutionaries, who received British support. In 1820, the liberal pronunciamiento of Riego in Cádiz against the absolute throne ended the military support of the metropolis, and Spanish resistance in America collapsed. The American revolutionaries achieved their main military victories, consolidated their independence and obtained recognition from the Portuguese Empire, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1836, a decade after the fall of the last strongholds, Spain renounced its claims and from then on agreed to successive peace treaties with the new independent states.

Introduction

The power vacuum generated by the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula gave rise to a series of anti-French uprisings in Spain and in the American territories, which subsequently evolved into revolutionary processes of a liberal character. The Spanish liberal revolution and the liberal movements of Hispanic America began in varied political forms, according to the conditions prevailing in each region, but all converged on popular sovereignty and the liberal state. One historiographical current holds that these liberal revolutions had as antecedents the independence of the Thirteen British Colonies in 1776, the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, framing them within the so-called Atlantic Revolutions.

Ideas regarding the unity of the Spanish Empire

	Centralist	Pluralist
Monarchism	Kingdom of Spain and the Indies Bonaparte (Afrancesados) Bourbons	Kingdoms with autonomy Habsburgs Governing Juntas in general
Liberalism	Kingdom of the Spains Deputies of the Cortes of Cádiz	Independent republics Deputies of the American Congresses Liberal proclamations in America

Between 1808 and 1810, many governing juntas were installed, which exercised sovereignty in the name of Ferdinand VII, the successor according to Spanish law, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the American territories. The resistance of the American juntas to submit to the governments formed in Spain radicalized political positions even further. The establishment by the Cortes of Cádiz of a unitary empire under peninsular hegemony in both hemispheres, as in the Bayonne Statute, was a breaking point with the American Juntas, which demanded self-government; they were then declared in rebellion, the armed conflict between the Spanish government and the Americans began, and the first declarations of independence appeared.

After the French defeat in Spain, through the Treaty of Valençay Napoleon recognized Ferdinand VII as King of Spain, and the latter, now as effective King, rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812, considering it a republican constitution, contrary to the Old Regime. The Spanish Cortes, like the American Juntas, defended the rights of Ferdinand VII, but as a King subordinate to them. The King saw his sovereignty handed over or shared. They did not recognize any superior power in Ferdinand; they considered him little more than an official stripped of sovereignty. However, the restoration of Ferdinand VII in the Iberian Peninsula did not mean a return to the Old Regime either, but rather to a new form of power, more radicalized toward a personal tyranny: Absolutism. In Spain, through a coup d'état, the Manifesto of the Persians, Ferdinand declared these decrees "null and of no effect"; every trace of liberalism was erased, the Spanish liberals were persecuted and exiled, while the afrancesados, Bonapartists favorable to the established power, returned. In America, by contrast, the armed resistance of the juntas made possible new declarations of independence through their constituent congresses and the creation of republican states now completely separated from the Spanish Empire. The military conflict gave way to the appearance of the figure of the liberators, among whom stood out Hidalgo and Morelos in Mexico, José de San Martín in Argentina, Chile and Peru, José Artigas in the Banda Oriental, and Simón Bolívar in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Bolivia.

The independence of the new states of America was consolidated in the 1820s owing to the political and military consequences of Riego's pronunciamiento, which in Spain gave way to the Trienio Liberal, in Mexico led to the creation of the Army of the Three Guarantees in 1821, and in South America to the beginning of the end of the last viceregal army at the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824, an event usually cited as the end of the great campaigns of the wars of independence in South America. The strict period of military struggle, however, spans from the Battle of Chacaltaya (1809) or the Combat of Cotagaita (1810), in present-day Bolivia, to the Battle of Tampico (1829), in Mexico.

The last Spanish strongholds were the San Felipe Castle in Puerto Cabello, until 1823, and San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz, until 1825. Finally, in January 1826, the Spanish redoubts of Callao and Chiloé fell. Only the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico remained as the last Spanish dominions, holding out as bases for the reconquest after the frustrated Colombian-Mexican plans for a joint expedition for the liberation of Cuba (1820–1827). The last chapter of the war ended with Spain's attempted reconquest of its former Mexican possessions in 1829, when the expedition of Isidro Barradas reached Tampico and was defeated by the Mexican Army. However, the independent governments had to face royalist guerrillas, for example between 1823 and 1827 in Venezuela; between 1822 and 1826 in Pasto, Colombia; until 1832 in southern Chile, supported by the Mapuche and Pehuenches; and, until the 1830s, the Iquicha guerrilla in Peru. The American independences had as a direct consequence the forced emigration of the Spanish civilian population suffered during the war, and subsequently persecution and expulsion owing to the laws for the Expulsion of the Spaniards from America of the new states, with the aim of consolidating their independence.

International recognition of the independences came first from the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil. Then the United States, the United Kingdom and France established commercial relations with the new American governments and subsequently recognized the sovereignty of the new states over the course of the 1820s. Spain, however, only abandoned its plans of reconquest after the death of King Ferdinand VII in 1833. The Spanish Cortes renounced their possessions in America in 1836 and authorized the government to conclude peace and recognition treaties with all the new states that had arisen on the continent.

Antecedents of the independence process

Many years before the beginning of the conflict in 1808, antecedents of the pro-independence process in Hispanic America can be identified. Some of these occurred in Spanish America, others in the Spanish metropolis, and the last group were international, of recognized worldwide influence, such as the independence of the United States of America (1776) and the French Revolution (1789). These phenomena form part of the so-called Atlantic Revolutions.

In peninsular Spain

Main article: Spanish projects for the independence of America

At the end of the 18th century, thanks to its vast empire, Spain still ranked among the great international powers. The empire not only provided prestige and diplomatic weight; it was also crucial to the economy of the Spanish Crown. At the end of the Old Regime, the revenues of the Royal Treasury coming from America represented 20% of the total fiscal revenues of the metropolis. The Mexican viceroyalty contributed 80% of the American tax collection. In the last third of the century, traffic with the overseas territories represented nearly half of Spanish foreign trade. It absorbed almost half of the exports, made up of Spanish products but also of European goods, since Spain, as metropolis, exercised the monopoly of trade, and all countries that wished to trade with the Indies had to do so through Spanish ports. The American territories also offered a constant supply of precious metals: between 1784 and 1796 the silver mines of Mexico and Upper Peru produced an annual average of 355 million pesos.

Sustaining the empire, however, was not easy. If preserving the commercial monopoly and eliminating contraband in times of peace was already complicated in itself, it became more so from the end of the 18th century, when Spain's alliance with France forced it to maintain a practically permanent state of war with Great Britain. The Anglo-Spanish conflicts hampered Spanish trade with America, to the point of interrupting it almost completely: by 1801 the annual average of exports to the Indies had fallen by 93%; imports also fell drastically. After the destruction of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Great Britain even ventured a direct attack on the American coasts. In 1806 and 1807 the British navy tried to occupy the port of Buenos Aires, and the viceregal authorities repulsed the attack. This action revealed Spain's powerlessness to defend its overseas kingdoms and showed the criollos (descendants of Spaniards born in America) their own strength, which they had in the development and triumph against the English pretensions.

On several occasions at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, the Spanish Crown considered the possibility of creating independent kingdoms in the American territories. According to these plans, the viceroyalties would come to be governed by members of the royal family, becoming hereditary monarchies. The dramatic events of Spain's European politics at the end of the reign of Charles IV in 1808 led to the definitive abandonment of these plans.

In Hispanic America

• The first notions of political independence would begin to arise in the Great Rebellion of the Encomenderos, in which the encomenderos opposed the interference of the Crown of Castile and the Council of the Indies in making administrative changes to the Seigneurial system of the Kingdoms of the Indies, with the aim of extending the institutions of the metropolitan government (the Spanish Monarchy) in the Indies to ensure respect for Indies law and the Laws of the Indies. This would harm the lifelong and hereditary political offices that the Spanish conquistadors had obtained (who up to that point had carried out the conquest on their own initiative and with only a nominal participation of the Spanish state, which mostly gave them the diplomatic protection of Vassalage, having managed to make themselves feudal sovereigns in America). In response, independence projects would arise among the supporters of Martín Cortés Zúñiga or Gonzalo Pizarro (such as Francisco de Carvajal) to prevent the abolition of the encomiendas. Thus, the party of the encomenderos and the party of the King could have been analogous to the later struggle between separatists and royalists (above all in its aspect of class struggle on the part of the landowning criollo oligarchy in rebellion against the King).
• From earlier decades there had been revolutions of the most diverse characteristics and aims, which did not, however, form part of the Hispanic American independence movement. Among them stood out the rebellion of Túpac Amaru I in Peru (1570), that of Guillén de Lampart in Mexico (1640–1643), the Revolutions of the Comuneros in Paraguay (1721–1735), that of the Canarian Juan Francisco de León against the monopoly of the Royal Guipuzcoan Company in Venezuela (1748), the Maya uprising led by Jacinto Canek in Yucatán, Mexico (1761), and the Quechua-Aymara uprising led by Túpac Amaru II in Cusco, Peru (1780–1781). The Revolution of the Comuneros in El Socorro (present-day Santander (Colombia)), in addition to the Arauco War, in which the Mapuche people had halted the Spanish advance for more than two centuries, or the multiple protests and rebellions of the 18th century in the Viceroyalty of Peru against Spanish absolutism. However, not all of these rebellions would have been separatist in character, since the great majority bore the slogan Long live the King, death to bad government and mostly sought to demand reforms within the institutional framework of the Crown in order to fulfill the Pactism between American subjects and the monarchy.
• The liberal ideas of the Enlightenment, which were spread in America and throughout Europe and reached the universities, literary academies and economic societies, fostered revolutionary ideals that were contrary to the conduct of the Spanish Monarchy in its Empire. Among these new ideas stood out the principle of national sovereignty, the social contract of Rousseau, and individual rights, opposed to royal absolutism. Taking up these ideas, the Peruvian Juan Pablo Vizcardo y Guzmán published in 1791 his Letter to the Spanish Americans, a document in which he exhorts the peoples of America to obtain their independence.
• The meetings abroad of the foremost Hispanic American leaders of the revolution and the participation of some of them in the European liberal revolutions, as well as their contacts with foreign governments.

International

• The United States Declaration of Independence, made in 1776 by Great Britain's thirteen American colonies, began the processes of independence from European colonialism;
• The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776, the first to proclaim that all men are by nature free and independent and have a series of inherent rights of which they cannot be deprived.
• The French Revolution in 1789, which proclaimed the equality of all Frenchmen and their fundamental rights, although it excluded the slaves of its colonies.
• The Haitian Revolution of 1791, carried out by the black slaves of that French colony, the first to abolish slavery and the first to achieve independence from colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean, taking advantage of the fact that Napoleon would not prevent independence, being involved in his wars throughout Europe.
• The defeat of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 at the hands of the British Empire.
• The failed attempts of the British Empire to directly occupy new continental American territories, such as the one it had undertaken against Cuba and Cartagena de Indias in the War of the Asiento (1741), or the two English invasions of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1806 and 1807, which led to the generation of a Hispanic American awareness of its own capabilities and powers and to the creation of several local military corps such as the Regiment of Patricians.
• The failed attempt to invade and liberate Venezuela in 1806 by a naval expedition organized in the United States, led by General Francisco de Miranda.

Crisis of the Spanish monarchy and transformation of the throne (1808–1833)

The independence process in Hispanic America was immersed in the global context of the Napoleonic Wars. It broke out in 1808 with the cession of the Spanish throne to Napoleon Bonaparte in the Abdications of Bayonne; he designated his brother Joseph Bonaparte as constitutional King of Spain, according to the Bayonne Constitution. This provoked the rejection of the entire Spanish monarchy, and the phenomenon of the patriotic Juntas arose, which proclaimed Ferdinand VII as King. But there was a conflict between the American junta movements and the Spanish ones, which proposed in the Constitution of Cádiz a unitary monarchy under peninsular hegemony. The defeat of Napoleon, and his need to recover his armies from Spain, led to the agreement with Ferdinand VII in the Treaty of Valençay. Ferdinand agreed to peace and recovered the throne, according to Spanish law, with full absolutist powers. The restored Ferdinand rejected the Cortes of Cádiz and repressed the Spanish liberals, but could not defeat the revolutionaries of America.

Name	Start	End	Body	Processes	Monarch
Kingdom of Spain and the Indies (Royaume d'Espagne et des Indes) (Old Regime)	1808	1814	Napoleonic Spain; Supreme Governing Junta (1808)	French military occupation; Abdications of Bayonne; Bayonne Constitution	Joseph Bonaparte (French military occupation until 1813)
Kingdom of Spain and the Indies or of the Spains (Liberalism)	1808	1814	Supreme Central Junta; Regency and Cortes of Cádiz	Apodaca–Canning Treaty; Spain during the Napoleonic Invasion; Napoleonic Invasion of Spain; Spanish Constitution of 1812	Ferdinand VII (Prisoner at Valençay)
Kingdom of Spain and the Indies (Old Regime)	1814	1819	Absolutist Sexennium	Treaty of Valençay; Coup d'état of May 1814	Ferdinand VII
Kingdom of Spain and the Indies or of the Spains (Liberalism)	1820	1822	Trienio Liberal	Riego's pronunciamiento	Ferdinand VII (Subordinate)
Kingdom of Spain and the Indies (Old Regime)	1823	1833	Absolutist Decade	Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis; Royalist War	Ferdinand VII (French military occupation until 1827)

In Spain

• The situation of the government of Spain, immersed in the Napoleonic Wars. Although at first it was allied with France through the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1796), it later opposed Napoleon, who sought to impose a kindred liberal monarchy. The fall of the Spanish Old Regime with the Abdications of Bayonne implied that the Castilian kingdoms of the Indies would lose the special status granted to them by the Laws of the Indies, according to which they were patrimony of the Spanish monarchy (although previously, in 1768, in practice, the American kingdoms had been reduced to a colonial condition by the Bourbon Reforms of the Spanish Empire). Now, in the new regime of liberal character, both in the provisions of the Statute of Bayonne (1808)[2] and likewise in the Spanish Constitution (1812)[3], the Europeans sought to diminish or eliminate the representation or the number of American representatives in parliament.
• The government vacuum in Spain, caused successively by the war with Napoleon and by the Trienio Liberal brought about by the revolution of Spanish constitutionalism, opened the opportunity for the Hispanic American ruling class, formed by European criollos, to give impetus to and sustain the movement and the war for independence as a definitive means of preserving and improving their status, diminished or at risk of being lost through liberalism. The independence of the Homeland was the essential character of the movement that finally prevailed everywhere in America, above other pro-independence movements which, like Hidalgo's failed one in Mexico, also sought to be accompanied by a true social revolution. In some countries, the result was a continuity of the practices of colonial castes, in which slaves, indigenous people and criollos did not exercise the same rights.

In Hispanic America

• The discontent of the American population, among the criollos, who wanted independence in order to change a colonial system that they considered unjust because it excluded them from the highest political decisions. The criollos wanted to direct political power and practice free trade or the free market, being able to carry out their commercial activities freely. Such freedoms in trade were held back by the monopoly exercised from the metropolis, added to gabelles and obstacles. They insisted on taking control of the cabildos and the administration of the colonies.
• The concept of Indies law, according to which Hispanic America was a royal possession belonging to the Spanish Crown as patrimony of the royal family, meant that when King Ferdinand VII, together with his father Charles IV, were held in France, the American provinces did not recognize the Cortes of Cádiz or the Supreme Central Junta, but instead formed Governing Juntas in each country, with the initial aim of governing and later of replacing the Spanish state.
• A part of the criollo aristocracy did not agree with some fundamental aspects of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, such as the distribution of land or political equality between themselves and the Indians. This motive was decisive only in Mexico, so that, when the Spanish constitution came into force again in 1820, these criollos, led by Agustín de Iturbide, changed sides and went from defending the unity of the Spanish Monarchy to fighting for independence.

International

• The United Kingdom attained the position of world hegemonic power in international maritime traffic, at the expense of the Spanish American dominions. England gave support in its territory to the formation of the Masonic lodges that supported the independence of America and to their chiefs, who later ended up being the leaders of the independence of America, such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. England aided the logistics of the pro-independence troops and the naval movement of their troops, for example to Venezuela, in a limited way during the Napoleonic Wars and more openly afterward, as well as the transport and arming of pro-independence troops from Europe and England, such as the more than 5,000 Polish riflemen.
• France invaded the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic occupation (1808–1813) and during the support of the European Holy Alliance in favor of King Ferdinand VII (1823–1827) to recover the throne of Spain. With respect to America, the Bourbon restoration in France led to an agreement with Great Britain, reflected in the Polignac Memorandum, by which they would not support the Spanish restoration in the American kingdoms.

The formation of the Hispanic American states

Beginning: the autonomous Hispanic American juntas

King Ferdinand VII. His captivity during the Napoleonic invasion led to the creation of multiple Governing Juntas, which would finally result in the emancipation of the Spanish colonies in America.

In Europe, the occupation of Spain by Napoleonic France took a turn after the Mutiny of Aranjuez, in which the then Prince of Asturias overthrew the government of the Prince of the Peace, Manuel Godoy, followed by the abdication of Charles IV in his favor, establishing himself as Ferdinand VII. However, as soon as he could, Charles IV protested his abdication and made this known to Napoleon. The Emperor therefore took advantage of this situation for his own benefit. First he postponed the recognition of Ferdinand VII until he could meet with him, making him travel to French territory at Bayonne. There he brought Charles IV, whom he recognized at all times as still king, and with whom he agreed, through Godoy, on his abdication of the crown in exchange for maintaining the integrity of the Spanish Crown and its American possessions, which he accepted. Finally, together they convinced Ferdinand VII to be a good and loyal son and return the crown to his father, which Ferdinand VII ended up accepting without knowing of the pact made the day before. Napoleon, now holder of the succession rights over all the kingdoms of the monarchy, extracted renunciations of their rights from the Prince of Asturias and from the infantes who were heirs of Charles IV, offering a million-strong pension to the now Spanish royal family on French soil, although in reality the whole family remained captive of the Emperor. Napoleon began to govern Spain directly and organized the creation of the Constitutional Act of Spain, drafted right there in Bayonne, and a month after the abdications he appointed his elder brother Joseph I Bonaparte, at that time King of Naples, as the new king of the Spains and of the Indies. Joseph Bonaparte of course accepted the Spanish Crown, renouncing the Neapolitan one, swore the new Bayonne constitution and entered Madrid as a King protested against by the traditional Spanish institutions, which accepted the Abdications of Bayonne de facto.

However, the Spanish people did not agree with the French invasion, and little by little the uprisings began that pitted the insurgent half of Spain against the other, Josephine Spanish half, propped up by the occupation forces of the French Empire, in the so-called Napoleonic Invasion of Spain (1808–1814). The Spanish insurgents organized themselves into governing juntas in the different constituent parts of the Spanish Crown, mainly in the southern part of the peninsula. In America, as the news arrived from Europe, American governing juntas were formed, likewise to preserve the dynastic rights of King Ferdinand VII, thenceforth called the Desired. But the American juntas faced a dilemma: should they be autonomous like their peninsular sisters, or should they depend on some European junta; and, in the case of depending on a peninsular one, the question would be which of them all.

The peninsular Spaniards settled at some point in America did not conceive under any circumstances that the juntas should be autonomous, but the American Spaniards, better known as criollos and mestizos, saw the opportunity to break with centuries-old prohibitions and in some way attain the government of their own homelands, whether these autonomies were or were not a consequence of Napoleon's occupation. In this way, a series of local movements began in America that disregarded the appointments made by the peninsular juntas for the American government, invoking the same principles as those juntas: that they did everything in defense of the legitimate King Ferdinand VII and to stop the usurpation of the Spanish throne by Joseph I. Another argument the criollos and mestizos had was that nothing guaranteed that the European juntas would not fall into the hands of Joseph I or of Napoleon himself, and that Spanish America would consequently become a French America; in this way autonomy gave more breathing room to the Spanish royal family, opening the possibility that they might escape from their prison and do the same as the royal family of Portugal: flee to America and reign from these, their other lands.

In the midst of this whole panorama, in 1808 the ayuntamiento of Mexico City set itself up as the first autonomous American junta, even with the support of the viceroy of New Spain, José de Iturrigaray; however, the movement of peninsular Spaniards, frightened by the independence of the viceroyalty, organized a coup d'état, deposing Iturrigaray and imprisoning all the rebels.

Autonomous Hispanic American governing juntas

Year	Day	Name	Location	Present-day country	Leaders
1808	August 9	Junta of Mexico	Viceroyalty of New Spain	Mexico	Francisco Primo de Verdad Melchor de Talamantes José de Iturrigaray
1808	September 21	Junta of Montevideo	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	Uruguay	Francisco Javier de Elío
1809	May 25	Governing Audiencia	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	Bolivia	Bernardo de Monteagudo Jaime de Zudáñez
1809	July 16	Junta Tuitiva in La Paz	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	Bolivia	Pedro Murillo
1809	August 10	First Junta of Quito	Viceroyalty of New Granada	Ecuador	Juan Pío Montúfar
1810	April 19	Supreme Junta of Caracas	Captaincy General of Venezuela	Venezuela	Francisco de Miranda Martín Tovar Ponte José de las Llamozas Juan Germán Roscio
1810	May 22	Supreme Provincial Governing Junta of Cartagena	New Kingdom of Granada	Colombia	José María García de Toledo
1810	May 25	First Junta of Buenos Aires	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	Argentina	Cornelio Saavedra Mariano Moreno Manuel Belgrano
1810	July 3	Extraordinary Junta of Santiago de Cali	New Kingdom of Granada	Colombia	Joaquín de Caycedo y Cuero
1810	July 20	Junta of Santa Fe	New Kingdom of Granada	Colombia	Francisco José de Caldas Camilo Torres
1810	September 16	Cry of Dolores	Viceroyalty of New Spain	Mexico	Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla
1810	September 18	First Government Junta of Chile	Captaincy General of Chile	Chile	Mateo de Toro Zambrano Juan Martínez de Rozas
1810	September 22	Second Junta of Quito	Viceroyalty of New Granada	Ecuador	Carlos de Montúfar José de Cuero y Caicedo
1811	February 28	Cry of Asencio	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	Uruguay	Pedro José Viera Venancio Benavides
1811	May 15	Junta of Paraguay	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	Paraguay	Pedro Juan Caballero Fulgencio Yegros Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia
1811	June 20	Tacna Insurrection	Viceroyalty of Peru	Peru	Francisco Antonio de Zela
1811	August 19	Supreme National American Junta or Supreme Governing Junta of America	Viceroyalty of New Spain	Mexico	Ignacio López Rayón José María Liceaga José Sixto Verduzco José María Morelos
1811	November 5	First Cry of Independence of Central America	Captaincy General of Guatemala, Viceroyalty of New Spain	El Salvador	Manuel José Arce Leandro Fagoaga José Matías Delgado
1814	August 3	Cuzco Rebellion	Viceroyalty of Peru	Peru	José Angulo Mateo Pumacahua

The Junta of Seville named itself Supreme Junta of Spain and the Indies with the clear aspiration of controlling all of Spain's overseas possessions, since it was the seat of the former Casa de Contratación of Seville and therefore the traditional gateway of entry and exit for all communication between the peninsula and the Indies. For this reason some American governments did not hesitate to grant it recognition. But the other juntas knew that they could not win the war disunited, so they strove to merge all of them into the Supreme Central and Governing Junta of the Kingdom, organized in Aranjuez on September 25, 1808, so that the Americans would no longer have doubts about whom they should obey.

However, the reason the American juntas continued to be formed despite the centralization of the peninsular juntas into a single one was that the relationship of the former viceroyalties and captaincies general was not with a junta or any peninsular body, but directly with King Ferdinand VII; so as long as he was not free, they had no reason to obey any self-proclaimed authority in the peninsula. To win over the Americans, the Central Junta agreed that, just as the traditional kingdoms of the peninsula would send two representatives for its functioning, the overseas kingdoms could send their own representative. This would be the first time that any overseas possession had representation in any body in the peninsula. However, with the dynastic crisis as it was, the measure came far too late. The "kingdoms" that could send representation were the viceroyalties of New Spain, Peru, New Granada and Buenos Aires, as well as the independent captaincies general of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Chile, Venezuela and the Philippines.

This plan was criticized for offering unequal and scant representation to the overseas territories; nevertheless, at the end of 1808 and the beginning of 1809 the provincial capitals elected the candidates, whose names were sent to the capitals of the viceroyalties or captaincies general. Several important large cities were left without any direct representation in the Supreme Junta. In particular Quito and Chuquisaca (La Plata or Sucre), which saw themselves as capitals of their provinces, resented being subsumed within the larger "Vice-kingdoms". This unease led to the creation of juntas in these cities in 1809, which were finally violently repressed by the authorities during the course of the year. In order to establish a government with greater legitimacy, the Supreme Junta called for the holding of "Extraordinary and General Cortes of the Spanish nation". The scheme for the elections to the Cortes, now on the basis of provinces (provincial deputations) and not of kingdoms, was more equitable and proportionate, but it did not fulfill American expectations, which awaited a redefinition of what were considered the Spanish provinces in America based on the former overseas intendancies.

Owing to the setbacks suffered by the Spanish forces against Napoleon, the Supreme Junta left Aranjuez and the region of La Mancha to take refuge in Seville and finally on the island-city of Cádiz, where it would function as the Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies from January 29, 1810, always in the name of Ferdinand VII. By this time, most Americans saw no reason to recognize a provisional government that was under the threat of being captured by the French at any moment, so they began working on the creation of local American juntas to preserve the region's independence from the French. The junta movements succeeded in New Granada (Colombia), Venezuela, Chile and the Río de la Plata (Argentina), but not in Central America. Ultimately, Central America, together with most of New Spain, Quito (Ecuador), Peru, Charcas (Bolivia), the Caribbean and the Philippine Islands, remained under royalist control during the following decade and participated in the Spanish effort to establish a liberal government represented by the Cortes of the Spanish monarchy.

Radicalization: constituent congresses and declarations of independence

In 1810 the Sevillian Central Junta was dissolved; after the Napoleonic victories and the almost complete loss of peninsular territory, it was succeeded by the Regency of Cádiz, which in turn served as a preamble to the establishment of the Spanish Constitution of 1812. As a result, from Cádiz (the last independent Spanish redoubt), the aim was to put an end to the absolutist state of the whole monarchy and consequently to establish a liberal regime in Europe and America, but one which ultimately sought to subject Ferdinand VII and the American dominions, which were granted minority representation, to the European dictate of the national laws of the Iberian Peninsula.

In America, the conflict became radicalized and the American self-government juntas, which had previously recognized the person of the Spanish Monarch, were transformed into the respective national congresses of each nascent state, which then made their declarations of independence. These events took place in an atmosphere of growing violence and military conflicts that spread across the continent. The declarations of independence of the new American countries are:

National Constituent Congresses and Declarations of Independence of each state.

Name	Viceroyalty or emancipated territory	Year	Date	Declaration	Constituent Congress	Present-day country
American Confederation of Venezuela	Captaincy General of Venezuela	1811	July 5	Act of the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela	First National Congress of Venezuela	Venezuela
Free State of Cartagena	United Provinces of New Granada	1811	September 11	Act of Independence of the Province of Cartagena		Colombia
State of Quito	Real Audiencia of Quito of the Viceroyalty of New Granada	1811	October 11	Constitution of Quito	Constituent Congress of the State of Quito	Ecuador
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata	Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	1813	January 31		Assembly of the Year XIII	Argentina and Bolivia (Uruguay was not admitted and Paraguay did not participate)
Government of the Guarani Missions of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata		1813	October 12	First Paraguayan constitution	Congress of 1813	Paraguay
Northern America	Viceroyalty of New Spain	1813	November 6	Act of Independence of Northern America	Congress of Anáhuac (Chilpancingo, Sep. 13, 1813)	Mexico
Federal League	Governorate of Montevideo of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	1815	June 29		Congress of Oriente	Uruguay
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata		1816	July 9	Argentine Declaration of Independence	Congress of Tucumán	Argentina
State of Chile	Captaincy General of Chile	1818	February 12	Act of Independence of Chile		Chile
Gran Colombia	Viceroyalty of New Granada	1819	December 17		Congress of Angostura	Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela
Free Province of Guayaquil	Government of Guayaquil of the Viceroyalty of Peru	1820	October 9	Independence of Guayaquil		Ecuador
Republic of Peru	Viceroyalty of Peru	1821	July 28	Act of Independence of Peru	Constituent Congress of Peru (1822)	Peru
Central America	Captaincy General of Guatemala	1821	September 15	Independence of Central America		Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua
Mexican Empire	Province of New Spain of the Viceroyalty of New Spain	1821	September 28	Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire	Provisional Governing Junta	Mexico
	Province of Panama and Province of Veraguas of the Viceroyalty of New Granada	1821	November 28	Act of Independence of Panama	Independence of Panama	Panama
	Province of Charcas of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata	1825	August 6	Bolivian Declaration of Independence	General Assembly of Deputies of the Provinces of Upper Peru	Bolivia

Course of the conflict

Military campaigns

Military campaigns of the Hispanic American Independence (1810-1829)

Initial period	Intermediate period	Final period

Participants

Royalists

Main article: Royalist Army in America

In the Hispanic American wars of independence, the royalists were the side characterized by the armed forces formed mainly by Spaniards, Europeans, Americans and Indians, and employed for the defense of the Spanish Monarchy in the first third of the 19th century.

The dictionaries of the Real Academia have defined them since 1803 as regiarum partium sectator, one who in civil wars follows the party of the kings. In 1822 potestatis regia defensor was added, one who defends the regalia and rights of the kings.

Pro-independence forces

During the Hispanic American wars of independence, independentistas (pro-independence fighters) was the common name by which the combatants in favor of independence from the Spanish Crown called themselves, combining feelings of liberation and of attachment to the Homeland, the native or adopted land to which they felt bound by certain values, culture, history and affections.

Foreign participation

Foreign participation

Military invasion of Spain Bonapartist France (Napoleonic Invasion of Spain) Bourbon France (Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis) Imperialist expansion in America United Kingdom Territorial expansion in America United States of America Empire of Portugal and Brazil (Luso-Brazilian invasion) Kingdom of Haiti (Haitian Military Occupation of Santo Domingo) Military aid to Spain Russian Empire (sale of ships in the Treaty of Madrid (1817))

United States intervention

The Americans intervened by supporting and promoting the uprising of the Spanish territories of West Florida, East Florida and Texas. All this was done through expeditions of volunteers led by American generals. The Republic of West Florida was immediately annexed to the United States in 1810. The attempt in East Florida in 1812 failed and led the territory into chaos. The situation became more complex with the uprising of the Creek and Seminole Indian nations. In 1821 the United States and Spain signed the treaty of purchase and cession of the Floridas. In Texas, the rebel Gutiérrez de Lara traveled to the United States and obtained American support, forming a force of filibusters in Louisiana that would ultimately be defeated at the Battle of Medina.

The pro-independence privateers were privately armed ships recruited by the pro-independence governments during the Hispanic American wars of independence to destroy Spanish commerce and capture Spanish merchant vessels. The most important privateer port was Baltimore. They were generally fast vessels, that is, schooners or brigantines. The large-scale deployment of warships began from 1816 onward, especially under the flag of Buenos Aires and the Oriental flag of Artigas. From 1821, these privateers sailed under the flags of Mexico and Colombia. The main motivation of these pro-independence privateers was plunder, which is why they avoided fighting the Spanish Navy.

Cádiz was the main target port and the second most important port was Havana, in Cuba. The United States government turned a blind eye to the North American privateers in an attempt to force Spain to cede Florida (Adams–Onís Treaty), although after that it took effective measures to put an end to the privateers of its own country.

British stance

Main article: British intervention in the Hispanic American independence

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was an ally of Spain in the War of the Sixth Coalition (1812-1814) against the invasion of Napoleon Bonaparte. Defeated France signed the Treaty of Paris of 1814. Great Britain committed itself not to give military aid to the American insurgent forces and declared strict neutrality in the conflict. However, the imperialist position of the United Kingdom developed throughout the conflict a set of military, political and diplomatic aid measures from the United Kingdom or its colonies, in favor of the insurgents or revolutionaries, aimed at dismembering the Spanish dominions in America. Owing to the persistent enlistment in the insurgent forces, and in the face of Spanish diplomatic complaints, the United Kingdom issued a proclamation warning British subjects that they must not accept any commission nor lend military aid to any of the belligerents, which had no effectiveness whatsoever. In 1819 the United Kingdom enacted the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819, prohibiting British subjects from taking part in or equipping armed forces that were at war with nations at peace with the United Kingdom, which likewise did not stop the flow of military men, weapons and ships to fight in favor of the insurgency.

Territories

During the struggles between the pro-independence side and the royalists, situations of mutual violence followed one after another. The revolutionaries disowned the Spanish monarchical authorities in America, formed armies and constituted American republics. The Spanish government and Ferdinand VII reacted by denying legitimacy to the American government juntas, and under Spanish direction the royalist armies were formed in America with the help of Spanish expeditionaries, but mainly with a majority of troops and officers of American origin, which for some authors gave it the character of a civil war.

Conflicts by territory

New Spain and Guatemala	New Granada, Venezuela and Quito
United States (North America) Main article: Republic of West Florida Main article: East Florida Main articles: Republican Army of the North and Battle of Medina Mexico (North America) Main article: Independence of Mexico Main article: Spanish attempts to reconquer Mexico Captaincy General of Guatemala (Central America) Main article: Independence of Central America	Main article: Irregular resistance in the Colombian independence process Main article: Venezuelan War of Independence Main article: Gran Colombia Main article: Independence of Colombia Main article: Independence of Venezuela Main article: Ecuadorian War of Independence Main article: Independence of Panama Main article: Independence of Guayaquil

Río de la Plata, Paraguay and Upper Peru

Chile and Peru

Río de la Plata and Paraguay Main article: Independence of Argentina Main article: Argentine War of Independence Main article: Federal League Main article: Independence of Paraguay Main article: Independence of Uruguay Upper Peru Main article: Army of the North (United Provinces of the Río de la Plata) Main article: Republiquetas Main article: Independence of Bolivia Main article: Bolivian Declaration of Independence

Main articles: Independence of Chile and Chilean War of Independence Main article: Liberating Expedition of Peru Main article: Protectorate of San Martín Main article: Iquicha War (1825-1828) Main article: War for the Independence of Maynas

Development of the Hispanic American wars of independence
■ Government under royalist control
■ Loyal to the Supreme Central Junta or Cortes
■ American junta or insurrection movement
■ Independence declared or established
■ Spain under the liberal revolution

South America

Main articles: Campaign of the Patria Vieja and Quito Campaign

The initial phase had as its main component the military confrontation between the great capitals of the various provinces of viceroyalties and captaincies that remained loyal to the government of Spain and others which, following the example of the juntas of Spain, created American self-government Juntas in which the natives of America took control of the government.

In this first phase, the constitutional government of Cádiz fought against the armies of the juntas. In the south, the old Viceroyalty of Peru suppressed its own pro-independence movements and sent aid to other loyal provinces of America that were still holding out against the revolutionaries, becoming the great Spanish military stronghold of the south.

These forces not only halted the advance of the arms of the Junta of Buenos Aires, the most active one, but also put an end to the juntas of Charcas, or present-day Bolivia, of Chile and of Quito, and made it possible to create other loyal armies with natives of the countries in revolution.

Later on, from 1812, European expeditionaries would arrive in dribs and drabs at various points until 1814, and finally in 1815 a large Spanish expedition led by Pablo Morillo invaded New Granada and gave support to the loyalists of Costa Firme. Both Pablo Morillo and the Viceroy José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa stood out as organizers of the defense of the Spanish Monarchy in America. Despite these peninsular reinforcements, by 1816 South America was not firmly secured in the hands of the royalists: a multitude of guerrillas remained in Venezuela and in Lower and Upper Peru, the loyal stronghold of Montevideo had fallen, and the powerful junta of Buenos Aires was rearming its regular armies (which had been shattered in their attacks on Upper Peru) to invade Chile in 1817. Bolívar, from Haiti, returned to Venezuela, brought together all the caudillos, and resumed the offensive in the north of the continent.

Offensive from Buenos Aires

After the Junta consolidated itself in Buenos Aires, its first military actions aimed at controlling the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, since not all the provinces supported its actions in the same way, and some remained loyal to Spain:

Counterrevolution in Córdoba

Main article: Córdoba Counterrevolution

Santiago de Liniers confronted the Revolution in Córdoba.

On the very day the Primera Junta was installed, the deposed Viceroy Cisneros sent a secret message to his predecessor, Santiago de Liniers, who was in Córdoba, entrusting him with the leadership of the resistance against the Revolution. Liniers and Gutiérrez de la Concha enlisted urban militias and militiamen, gathering 1,500 men and 14 cannons.

In the city of Mendoza, Faustino Ansay led an uprising, taking the barracks and gathering more than 200 soldiers. Three days later, lacking support, he abandoned his stance and recognized the Junta. The other cities ended up submitting to the Buenos Aires junta.

Expedition to the Interior Provinces and Upper Peru (Bolivia)

Main articles: Bolivian War of Independence and Sucre's campaign in Upper Peru

The organization of the army that was to march to the interior was entrusted to the member Juan José Castelli, who gathered 1,150 men from the infantry and cavalry regiments, from both the militia troops and the veterans. The artillery consisted of 4 field pieces and 2 howitzers. The force was regularly uniformed, with abundant ammunition and good weaponry and with its pay paid in advance, thanks to a loan obtained from the merchants by the member Juan Larrea. In October 1810, the vanguard of the Army of the North began its march toward Upper Peru. On November 7 both forces clashed at the Battle of Suipacha. 800 royalists with 4 cannons faced 600 pro-independence troops with 2 cannons. González Balcarce lured the royalist troops by inciting them to cross the river with a feigned flight; on the south bank they were surprisingly attacked on the flank by the infantry and artillery that were hidden among the hills, while the cavalry, which was apparently fleeing, turned around to face them. The royalists fled, abandoning weapons, artillery and ammunition, and were completely routed. The result of Suipacha had a strong moral effect, and on November 10 the city of Potosí deposed the Governor Francisco de Paula Sanz. In Chuquisaca, an open Cabildo recognized the authority of the porteño Junta, declaring its adherence to the Viceroyalty of Peru null and void. In La Paz, the Intendant Domingo Tristán y Moscoso joined the revolution and a congress of the people unanimously accepted the authority of the Junta of Buenos Aires. All of Upper Peru was secured for the secessionists.

Paraguay

Main article: Belgrano's expedition to Paraguay

Both the territory of Paraguay and that of the Banda Oriental of the Uruguay were held by the royalists. The Junta of Buenos Aires cut Montevideo's river communications with Paraguay via the Paraná River, and the authorities of the city of Corrientes detained several vessels bound for Asunción.

The Governor Bernardo de Velasco, leading Paraguayan royalist forces, made incursions into the territory of the Missions in search of weapons. On October 1, a Paraguayan flotilla attacked Corrientes and recovered the seized Paraguayan ships; it continued raiding the area for several weeks, also seizing the Guard of Curupayty, which Corrientes maintained in the present-day Ñeembucú Department. On September 4, the Junta appointed the member Manuel Belgrano commander of the forces that were to operate in the Banda Oriental against the royalists of Montevideo, assigning him a meager army: 250 men drawn from various porteño military corps, with 6 cannons. However, when news of the attack on the Missions reached Buenos Aires, the Junta decided to divert Belgrano's small division toward Paraguay. After crossing the Paraná, the small army kept increasing its forces with volunteer troops gathered by the military Commander of Entre Ríos, José Miguel Díaz Vélez, and some 200 men of the Patricios Regiment commanded by Gregorio Perdriel. At the end of October, with its forces organized into 4 divisions and with the Paraguayan José Machain as sergeant major, the army advanced north through the center of Entre Ríos, avoiding crossing watercourses. On November 6, a squadron with 300 royalists under the command of Juan Ángel Michelena occupied Concepción del Uruguay; the militias of that town, commanded by Diego González Balcarce, joined Belgrano's army.

On December 19 Belgrano crossed the Paraná River with the bulk of the revolutionary army and attacked the fortified position of Campichuelo, from which the royalists withdrew after a brief exchange of fire. The secessionists occupied without a fight the evacuated town of Itapúa, four leagues away, but the lack of horses and the poor condition of the troops forced Belgrano to halt without being able to pursue the royalists. The local inhabitants fled from the army—which they regarded as an invader—taking with them all means of subsistence. Paraguayan territory, with its numerous rivers, marshes and tropical forests, was a terrible obstacle to the army's advance. Nevertheless, Belgrano's men continued their difficult advance and won a small victory beside the Tebicuary River. On January 19, the Battle of Paraguarí began. Despite the numerical difference—460 men against 6,000—the pro-independence forces managed to take the Paraguayan position and force its troops to withdraw, while Velasco fled toward the town of Yaguarón. But the troops of Belgrano's advance guard turned to plundering and then mistook the reinforcements sent by Belgrano for enemies, and so they broke ranks when the Paraguayans reorganized and counterattacked. Belgrano was forced to fall back along the road by which he had come, but he was not pursued. At the Battle of Tacuarí, on March 9, the patriot troops were definitively defeated. Belgrano's failure led to a Paraguayan counterattack, by which the City of Corrientes was invaded and militarily occupied on April 7. A month later, however, a provincial Congress was formed that overthrew Velasco and replaced him with a provisional government Junta; in it Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who would rule the country for almost three decades, played a decisive role. The new government proclaimed the independence of Paraguay from the government of Buenos Aires.

Uruguay

On October 9, 1810, General Gaspar de Vigodet, newly arrived from Spain, took charge of the government of Montevideo; he reinforced his military position with urban troops led by officers of the Royal Navy. He launched a series of land campaigns toward the towns of the interior of the Banda Oriental, successively forcing their authorities to recognize the authority of Montevideo. That was the beginning of the legal unification of the future Oriental Province. Shortly afterward, he sent the naval officer Juan Ángel Michelena to occupy the shores of the Uruguay River, forcing the authorities of the towns on both banks to submit to his authority, but in some sectors they met resistance from irregular bands formed by local inhabitants. After a series of skirmishes, the royalists evacuated their positions on the western bank of the Uruguay River, and the revolutionaries were left masters of the region in March 1811.

The Buenos Aires Junta entrusted Lieutenant Colonel Juan Bautista Azopardo with transporting reinforcements by river for Belgrano's army in Paraguay. The royalist authorities of Montevideo dispatched to intercept him a flotilla of seven ships of superior quality and with a more experienced crew than those of their adversary, led by Jacinto Romarate. Azopardo's flotilla sailed up the Paraná until reaching, on March 2, the height of San Nicolás de los Arroyos, where the Battle of San Nicolás began, in which the patriot fleet was defeated and agreed to surrender. The Commander was taken prisoner by the royalists and taken to Spain, while the porteño government condemned him in absentia for incompetence in command. With the disappearance of the small patriot naval force, the dominance of the rivers by the royalist fleet of Montevideo was confirmed, a situation that would change only three years later. In January 1811 Francisco Javier de Elío, appointed Viceroy of the Río de la Plata, arrived in Montevideo. The royalists controlled Montevideo, but in the rural areas of the Banda Oriental revolutionary ideas were silenced by force. Instead of appealing to their loyalty, the government of Montevideo required the rural population to show the property titles of the lands they occupied—generally on a precarious basis—threatening those who did not do so with eviction from them.

On February 28, on the banks of the Asencio stream, Commander Pedro José Viera launched the so-called "Cry of Asencio", rising up in arms against Elío's authority. He was supported by local ranchers and gauchos who formed irregular bands, beginning a series of battles against forces loyal to the King with the Battle of Soriano, won by Miguel Estanislao Soler and Oriental militiamen on April 4, 1811. The Junta assisted the secessionists of the Banda Oriental in order to spread the revolution and try to neutralize Montevideo, the base of the Spanish fleet in the South Atlantic Ocean. Troops from Spain could arrive through that port to suppress the revolution in the old viceroyalty, so its conquest was crucial. Belgrano, who was appointed Commander of the military forces on March 7, got in touch with Captain José Gervasio Artigas, who, after deserting his post in the garrison of Colonia del Sacramento, went over to Buenos Aires to offer his services to the Junta. Artigas landed on Oriental soil on April 9 at the head of some troops from Buenos Aires and was recognized as leader by the local secessionists. After some minor battles he was able to advance toward Montevideo. Elío sent a division under the orders of Captain José Posadas to meet him, but Artigas defeated him on May 18 at the Battle of Las Piedras.

With the royalists reduced to the control of Montevideo and Colonia, both strongholds were placed under siege on May 21 and 26 respectively. At the beginning of June, the royalists evacuated Colonia, which was occupied by the revolutionaries, and Artigas laid siege to Montevideo with the help of the Oriental gauchos and the forces sent by Buenos Aires. Only the city walls and the cannons of the fleet anchored in the port prevented a swift fall of the city, but its situation was compromised.

The Viceroy Elío, besieged in Montevideo, saw as the only way out the help of the Portuguese troops of Brazil and requested their assistance to defeat the revolutionaries. As early as March 20, 1811, Elío had issued a proclamation to the Oriental people threatening Portuguese intervention if the insurrection continued.

Portugal had always disputed the territory of the Banda Oriental with Spain and would not let the opportunity pass: the Portuguese government had organized the Army of Observation of Diego de Souza. These forces had already made contact with the Paraguayan governor Velasco, offering him their help against Belgrano's attack. Souza also had orders to have the Infanta Carlota Joaquina, wife of King John VI of Portugal and sister of Ferdinand VII, recognized as Queen of the Río de la Plata. On July 17 an army of 3,000 Portuguese soldiers commanded by Governor Souza crossed the border. All the towns in the east of the present-day Uruguayan territory were occupied by Portuguese troops, and on October 14 the Portuguese headquarters was established in Maldonado.

North America

United States

The Republic of West Florida was a short-lived republic in 1810 in the westernmost region of Spanish West Florida, which after less than three months was annexed and occupied by the United States a little later in 1810, and subsequently became part of the territory of Louisiana. The Republic of East Florida was another republic declared against Spanish rule in East Florida by pro-independence elements who wished for its annexation by the United States, without success. In 1819 the Adams–Onís Treaty was drafted between Spain and the United States, by which Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States two years after its signing.

In 1811, the Spaniards crushed the revolt of San Antonio (Texas) during the revolution against the royalists in the Mexican War of Independence. The remaining rebels then turned to the United States for help. Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara traveled to Washington, D.C. Gutiérrez obtained the support of Augustus Magee and formed a force of American filibusters in Louisiana. A green flag of the expedition represented the rebels. The Republican Army of the North was defeated in the bloodiest battle in Texas, the Battle of Medina. In this way Texas was incorporated into the Independence of Mexico, and later came the Independence of Texas and its annexation to the United States.

Mexico

The struggle began in 1810 with the Cry of Dolores in the state of Guanajuato. The cry was given by the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, organizer of the Querétaro conspiracy. Hidalgo's plan was to form an Autonomous Government Junta loyal to Ferdinand VII. The insurrection grew rapidly and came close to storming Mexico City, since the royalist army had been defeated and Hidalgo had more than 80,000 men; but he decided to go north toward Guadalajara, where he was attacked by surprise by the new royalist army of Félix María Calleja, one of the best generals in the viceroyalty. After this defeat at Guadalajara, Hidalgo and his army marched north toward the United States but were again attacked by surprise and imprisoned in Chihuahua, where Hidalgo was shot in 1811.

A year later, in 1812, a soldier and former student of Hidalgo, José María Morelos y Pavón, with a handful of men who had escaped at Guadalajara and reinforcements from the south of New Spain, organized a new pro-independence campaign and managed to defeat the recently appointed viceroy Calleja. With the victory he organized an independent congress and a constitution at Apatzingán between 1813 and 1814. But after Ferdinand VII's return to the throne, new royalist reinforcements arrived, and under the command of viceroy Calleja they defeated and shot General Morelos at the beginning of 1815. His officers then began a guerrilla war in the south of New Spain. From 1816, the new viceroy Apodaca tried to pacify the viceroyalty, and in 1818 New Spain was almost at peace. The expedition of Francisco Xavier Mina gave a hope that was soon defeated, and only one Guerrilla remained in the south of the country, that of Vicente Guerrero; this former soldier of Morelos strongly resisted the royalists for years in the southern sierra. But in 1820 the news came that Ferdinand VII had accepted the Constitution of Cádiz, which caused general discontent in the viceroyalty. One of those discontented was Agustín de Iturbide, a royalist general whose mission was to defeat Guerrero but who decided to join the movement and proclaimed the Plan of Iguala, declaring independence. At the end of 1820 everyone was supporting the Plan of Iguala, and the new superior political chief, Juan O'Donojú, accepted it. On September 27, 1821, 11 years and 12 days after the priest Hidalgo proclaimed the freedom of Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide entered Mexico City in triumph and declared the end of 300 years of Spanish viceroyalty and the beginning of the Mexican Empire with himself as Emperor, which lasted no more than a few months. After the fall of the empire, the former Spanish territories, at that time provinces, were called upon to create a republic, which gave rise to the formation of the United Mexican States.

In the Caribbean, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico were not ravaged by the war and continued to form an integral part of the Kingdom of Spain until 1898.

Diplomatic maneuvers in Europe

Spain

Spain, from the uprising of Riego in 1820, found itself without the military capacity to send aid to defend the last bastions in America, much less any capacity for reconquest. The last American bastions were left isolated to follow their own fate.

On April 11, 1820, under the Liberal Triennium, a Royal Cédula was decreed in which Ferdinand VII of Spain ordered the Spanish authorities to begin peace negotiations with the American rebels. In view of this, the Crown made an offer of unlimited duration, proposing that the insurgents could keep control of the territories they had already conquered militarily (as heads of provinces with general pardons) in exchange for recognizing the authority of the legitimate government of the Metropolis in Madrid (that is, restoring their vassalage to the King of Spain, but keeping their constituted states under a single head of state), which would have been analogous to the British Commonwealth had it come about.

On the other hand, Francisco Antonio Zea (representative of Gran Colombia in the United Kingdom) would propose in 1820 a project for a Spanish Democratic Empire, which was named the «Plan of reconciliation and project of Hispanic Confederation». This would have been an offer of reconciliation between both governments whereby Spain would diplomatically recognize the independence of Gran Colombia, and the latter in turn would have promoted internationally a proposal for all of Hispanic America to constitute itself into Crowned Republics that would maintain ties with the Spanish Monarchy through a Hispanic Confederation that would ensure the union of the Patria Grande (that is, the Real union with the Spanish Empire would be dissolved, but a Personal union would be maintained with the King of Spain as head of state of the multiple constituted Hispanic American republics). However, this proposal would not have been the initiative of Simón Bolívar (a fervent republican with anti-peninsular sentiments), who only wanted Spain's recognition of Independence, so the optimistic Zea's proposal may have been tolerated solely to gain time. In the end, the proposal would be rejected by the Spanish government, since it could cause problems for the political stability of the state (through a radical legal reorganization that would not have been accepted by the Royalist Army) given the doubtful reliability of its real purposes; at the same time Ferdinand VII (who appreciated the gesture) rejected it because it went against the traditional conception of monarchy (apart from his own absolutist ambitions), and the Cortes Generales of the Liberal Triennium also rejected it, considering it unnecessary since Spanish liberalism had already been established in the government to dispel the discontent of the American criollo elites (besides believing that the proposal came from the radical liberal Exaltados).

King Ferdinand VII exhausted his last hopes of obtaining help for a chimerical absolutist restoration in America with the support of the continental European monarchies, as had happened with the restoration in Spain by the French legitimist army of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, which remained occupying the country between 1823 and 1828. At that time the Captaincy General of Cuba was in danger from the invasion plans of the Mexican Empire, while the Viceroyalty of Peru was the objective of Gran Colombia. The kingdom of France, which sought to recover its hegemony in Europe, sought a legitimist conference in Paris at which to revive the plan of placing Spanish infantes at the head of independent American kingdoms. The United Kingdom declined to commit itself to legitimism, directing its needs toward trade and the pressure of American expansionism.

Spain's catastrophic situation after the Napoleonic invasion, together with the conflict between liberals and absolutists begun with the revolution of Cádiz, finally led the Spanish government to a deadlock of immobility in the face of the American problem. No solutions were found to the problem of the disintegration of the Spanish Empire, nor to restoring relations with Spanish America on the basis of the recognition of its independence. As a result, a traumatic and complete rupture of the Hispanic world took place.

Consequences

Mortality

Compared with the United States War of Independence, where nothing similar was experienced, the loss of life and the material destruction of the conflict during the Hispanic American independence was vastly greater. It has been estimated that up to eight hundred thousand Hispanic Americans died between 1808 and 1824, bearing in mind that the region had fewer than twenty million inhabitants at that time.

Indeed, it was not only a war for independence (as in the American case), but circumstances arose that added greater ferocity to the struggle. Among them, one should note the enormous territorial extent of the war, which covered almost the whole of Hispanic America; the policy of terror practiced by both sides; the alternation of victories and defeats between the supporters of independence and those loyal to royal authority (called pro-independence and royalists, respectively); the exile and displacement of populations; and the prolongation of the struggle over time, which produced complete ruin in many of the cities and countryside of Spanish America, the loss of capital and goods of all kinds after the paralysis of trade and productive activities, and the dedication of material and human resources to the war effort. All this within the framework of a war that lasted four times as long as the American one—whose last episode was the Battle of Yorktown (1781).

Table of general mortality in the Hispanic American revolution according to various authors

New Spain	New Granada, Venezuela and Quito	Río de la Plata, Uruguay and Paraguay	Chile and Peru
Years 1810-1821: Scheina: 250,000-500,000 Clodfelter: 400,000-500,000 (Mexicans and Spaniards)	Scheina: Venezuela loses 250,000 out of a population of one million. Clodfelter: the population of Venezuela falls to 100,000 from 300,000 in the 15 years from 1810. Eckhardt: 37,000 in total British diplomacy: puts the loss of life in Ecuador at eighty to one hundred thousand. Stornaiolo: the population of Ecuador and the Cauca valley falls from 700,000 in 1800 to 550,000 by 1830. He estimates 120,000 dead from the war of independence. Blanco-Fombona: 171,741 New Granadans, 108,004 Ecuadorians and 316,339 Venezuelans dead. In total 596,084 Colombians.	no data at present	Carmona: 20,000 dead in Lower Peru.

Consequences for Hispanic America

The Battle of Ayacucho, by Martín Tovar y Tovar. Fought on December 9, 1824, it marked the end of the wars of independence in South America.

The consequences for Hispanic America were many.

The commercial monopoly disappeared and, with it, protectionism, with the consequent impoverishment of many Hispanic American regions, unable to compete with the industries of Europe, mainly the British.

In addition, at the Congress of Panama in 1826, the dream Bolívar had for America of creating a United States of South America was frustrated. However, the opinion of some Hispanic Americans is very different, since they assert that independence gave their countries the opportunity to develop according to their own needs and to apply a more equitable justice among their ethnic components.

Although no changes were sought in the territorial structure derived from uti possidetis, the pro-independence movement had a disintegrating effect that caused the fragmentation of the old viceroyalties and captaincies into several nascent countries, so that separatism continued its political process beyond emancipation itself. The loss of an internationally strong army and the onset of instability in the region (such as the constant civil wars) were exploited by foreign powers, as would be seen in the United States intervention in Mexico, which would entail the loss of more than half of Mexican territory.

The seven independent countries created at the conclusion of the Hispanic American wars of independence were:

• Mexican Empire
• Gran Colombia
• United Provinces of the Río de la Plata
• Chile
• Peru
• Republic of Bolívar
• Paraguay

Mariano Florentino Olivares - Allegory of the American union, 1895

The Belgrano expedition to Paraguay would be defeated by the royalist armies, but immediately afterward a self-government junta obtained the freedom of Paraguay in 1811, which constituted itself as a state independent of Spain in 1813 and rejected its membership in the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, although Argentina would still regard it as an integral part and would not recognize its independence until July 17, 1852.

In economic matters, foreign trade policies varied among the new countries; some, such as the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and Peru, initially applied protectionist policies, while Chile was more open to foreign trade, although applying a kind of neo-mercantilism.

Defunct countries proclaimed autonomous or declared independent in the wars of emancipation

• The Mexican Empire, which momentarily included the Kingdom of Guatemala, was abolished in 1823 and gave rise to the United Mexican States. The Central American Provinces continued their process of independence, declared on September 15, 1821, with the formation of the United Provinces of Central America.
• Gran Colombia
  • Venezuela –see Independence of Venezuela– the Revolution of April 19, 1810 took place, and the following year, on July 5, 1811, the Signing of the Act of the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela was carried out.
  • see Independence cries (Colombia) (uprisings of Santa Fe de Bogotá on July 20, 1810 and of Cartagena de Indias on May 22; see Patria Boba).
  • Panama –the Independence of Panama was proclaimed on November 28, 1821 and it subsequently joined Gran Colombia voluntarily.
  • The State of Quito proclaimed its autonomy on August 10, 1809, which was promptly suppressed; it was proclaimed again on August 2, 1810, and it was incorporated into Gran Colombia after the Battle of Pichincha (May 24, 1822) —see Ecuadorian War of Independence—. Guayaquil proclaimed its independence on October 9, 1820 as the Free Province of Guayaquil.
• United Provinces of the Río de la Plata
  • In 1814 the Oriental Province was created, forming part of the Provinces of the Río de la Plata
  • –see especially the Primera Junta appointed on May 25, 1810, Independence of Argentina— (proclaimed on July 9, 1816; previously the Federal League proclaimed its independence on June 29, 1815 at the Congress of Oriente).

Countries that became independent outside the wars of emancipation

Uruguay formed part of the Río de la Plata. Incorporated into Portugal after the Luso-Brazilian invasion, it passed to Brazil in 1825, until its independence in 1828 as a consequence of the war of Brazil. Furthermore, after complex processes that unfolded in later years, the 16 'Hispanic American states' came into being: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. In the Caribbean, Santo Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic) remained part of Spain until November 30, 1821, while Cuba and Puerto Rico continued to do so until their separation as a result of the Spanish–American War in 1898.

• 1828 - Uruguay becomes independent from the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and from Brazil.
• The United Provinces of Central America, composed of the provinces of the Kingdom of Guatemala that had declared their independence from Spain in 1821, was formed upon separating from the Mexican Empire and from 1824 was called the Federal Republic of Central America; it finally broke up into the following states:
  • Costa Rica, first between 1829 and 1831 and definitively in 1838.
  • Nicaragua in April 1838.
  • Guatemala in April 1839.
  • Honduras in 1839.
  • El Salvador in 1839 and formally on January 31, 1841.
• The Dominican Republic became independent from Spain as the Independent State of Spanish Haiti in December 1821 and was annexed by Haiti on February 9, 1822. It later declared its independence from Haiti on February 27, 1844, annexing itself to Spain on March 18, 1861. It became independent from Spain again after the Restoration War, which ended in 1865, proclaimed with the Cry of Capotillo on August 16, 1863.

After the conclusion of the Spanish–American War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1898), Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam came under the control of the United States.

• Cuba achieved its independence on May 20, 1902, but remained under American control under the Platt Amendment until 1934. Puerto Rico remains a Commonwealth (Estado Libre Asociado) of the United States to this day, and is therefore not an independent state.
• Panama became independent from Spain on November 28, 1821. But it decided to maintain the ties of union with Bogotá and joined Gran Colombia, a defunct country made up of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela. Over time, that country broke up, and then the provinces that geographically occupied the central part of the disintegrated Gran Colombia, which at that time comprised the former departments of Boyacá, Cauca, Cundinamarca, Magdalena and Isthmus (Panama), decided to form a new State called the Republic of New Granada. In 1840 Panama, out of fear of a civil war that might have catastrophic consequences like those of the war of independence, temporarily separated from New Granada and called itself the State of the Isthmus, but the following year it rejoined New Granada, whose name changed constitutionally, successively, to the Granadine Confederation, the United States of Colombia and the Republic of Colombia. On November 3, 1903, the rebellion took place from the cabildo of Panama City, instigated by people who had interests in the New Canal Company (the French canal), and for almost a month negotiations or coercion took place so that the municipalities and provinces would adhere to the separatist rebellion; this separation succeeded owing to the presence of American troops and to the weakness, anarchy and chaos in which Colombia was plunged after the Thousand Days' War.

Declarations of independence outside the Emancipation.

Country	Year	Date	Declaration	Name	Country from which they became independent or separated
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica	1838-1839 - 1841		Separation		Federal Republic of Central America
Panama	1903	November 3	Separation	Provisional Government Junta	Colombia
Ecuador	1830	May 13	First Magna Carta of Ecuador	Constituent Assembly of Riobamba	Gran Colombia
Uruguay	1830	June 28	Preliminary Peace Convention (1828)	Oriental State of Uruguay	Cisplatina Province

Consequences for Spain

The Battle of Pueblo Viejo. It took place on September 9, 1829. It was the last attempt to reconquer Mexico.

The Hispanic American wars of independence brought about the loss of the viceroyalties and captaincies general that formed part of the Spanish Empire, which was left greatly reduced territorially and economically decimated. This meant a disaster for the Spanish Monarchy and a strengthening of the position of the United Kingdom as the most important world power.

For the merchants of Cádiz, the Spanish government administration, the nobles and, naturally, for the royal family (direct owner of these crown assets), an essential source of income disappeared—the riches and funds of the Indies—fundamental for the Royal Treasury and the Cádiz monopoly.

The humblest or poorest sector of the Spanish nation, on the other hand, showed itself somewhat indifferent to American independence and at all times regarded it as a problem in a certain way foreign to it, since America was disconnected for the vast majority of the disadvantaged sectors among the peninsular Spaniards—peasants, workers or merchants of the middle or upper classes—had no relation whatsoever to their lives, and brought them no benefit (or harm).

The Barradas expedition in 1829 was Spain's last military effort on continental soil against Hispanic American independence.

With the Revolution of 1830, absolutism definitively fell in France, as did King Ferdinand VII's main support in the Holy Alliance, but all the military projects of the Spanish government for the reconquest of Hispanic America came to an end in 1833 with the death of the Spanish monarch, thus fulfilling the negative reply given by the Spanish minister Francisco Zea Bermúdez to the announcement made by the British government in 1825 through George Canning of the recognition of the new countries, when he stated that "The King will never consent to recognize the new states of Spanish America and will not cease to employ the force of arms against his rebellious subjects in that part of the World".

On the death of Ferdinand VII, the Kingdom of Spain continued its own political process, immersed in the civil wars known as the Carlist wars (1833-1876), remaining a second-rank power among the European states. Even worse, after the Glorious Revolution of 1868 that overthrew Isabella II, pro-independence wars broke out in Cuba (1868-1880) and Puerto Rico (1871), the last two Spanish territories in America. This process lasted until 1898, with the loss of the last Spanish overseas territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific to the United States.

Expulsion of the Spaniards

Main article: Expulsion of the Spaniards from America

The expulsion of the Spaniards from America was a human tragedy at whose root lay a whole series of measures taken against them by the independent governments during the process of the Hispanic American wars of independence. It was directed at first against those in charge of the Spanish administration, and subsequently extended against the Spanish population in general, under various accusations.

There were two predominant forms of exile: the first was a product of the circumstances of the war, and the second was forced by expulsion laws against the Spaniards on the part of the Hispanic American governments immersed in the war, and extended beyond the end of the conflict.

Peace negotiations and reconciliation: Treaties of Peace, Friendship and Recognition

After the death of the monarch Ferdinand VII of Spain in 1833, and from the reign of his daughter Isabella II, a new period began in relations between the former metropolis and the American territories. The Cortes Generales of the kingdom authorized, on December 4, 1836, the renunciation by the Spanish Crown of any territorial and sovereignty rights over the former American dominions, and the recognition of the independence of all the new American countries through the conclusion of Treaties of Peace and Friendship on the basis that "neither national honor nor national interests are compromised", which was promulgated on December 16, 1836.

Treaties of recognition of independence

Country	Date of signing	Entry into force	Head of State	Plenipotentiary representatives
Mexico	Dec. 28, 1836	Nov. 14, 1837	Mexico: President José Justo Corro Spain: Regent María Cristina de Borbón	Mexico: Miguel Santa María Spain: José María Calatrava
Ecuador	Feb. 16, 1840	Oct. 30, 1841	Ecuador: President Juan José Flores Spain: Regent María Cristina de Borbón	Ecuador: Pedro Gual Spain: Evaristo Pérez de Castro
Chile	Apr. 25, 1844	Sep. 26, 1845	Chile: President Manuel Bulnes Spain: Queen Isabella II	Chile: José Manuel Borgoño Spain: Luis González Bravo
Venezuela	Mar. 30, 1845	Apr. 22, 1846	Venezuela: President Carlos Soublette Spain: Queen Isabella II	Venezuela: Alejo Fortique Spain: Francisco Martínez de la Rosa
Bolivia	Jul. 21, 1847	Feb. 12, 1861	Bolivia: President José Ballivián Spain: Queen Isabella II	Bolivia: José María Linares Spain: Joaquín Francisco Pacheco
Costa Rica	May 10, 1850	Dec. 21, 1850	Costa Rica: President Juan Rafael Mora Porras Spain: Queen Isabella II	Costa Rica: Felipe Molina Spain: Pedro José Pidal
Nicaragua	Jul. 25, 1850	Jul. 24, 1851	Nicaragua: President Norberto Ramírez Spain: Queen Isabella II	Nicaragua: José de Marcoleta Spain: Pedro José Pidal
Dominican Republic	Aug. 25, 1855	-	Dominican Republic: President Pedro Santana Spain: Queen Isabella II	Dominican Republic: Rafael María Baralt Spain: Claudio Antón de Luzuriaga
Argentina	Jul. 9, 1859	-	Argentine Confederation: President Justo José de Urquiza Spain: Queen Isabella II	Argentine Confederation: Juan Bautista Alberdi Spain: Saturnino Calderón Collantes
Guatemala	May 29, 1863	Jun. 20, 1864	Guatemala: President Rafael Carrera y Turcios Spain: Queen Isabella II	Guatemala: Felipe del Barrio Larrazábal Spain: Manuel Pando Fernández de Pinedo
Argentina	Sept. 21, 1863	Jun. 20, 1864	Argentina: President Bartolomé Mitre Spain: Queen Isabella II	Argentina: Mariano Severo Balcarce Spain: Manuel Pando Fernández de Pinedo
El Salvador	Jun. 24, 1865	Jun. 15, 1866	El Salvador: President Francisco Dueñas Spain: Queen Isabella II	El Salvador: Juan Víctor Herrán Spain: Manuel Bermúdez de Castro y Díez
Uruguay	Jul. 19, 1870	Oct. 9, 1882	Uruguay: President Lorenzo Batlle Spain: Regent Francisco Serrano	Uruguay: Adolfo Rodríguez Spain: Carlos Creus y Camps
Dominican Republic	Oct. 14, 1874	-	Dominican Republic: President Ignacio María González Santín Spain: President Francisco Serrano	Dominican Republic: Manuel Joaquín Delmonte Spain: Juan Gutiérrez de la Concha
Peru	Aug. 14, 1879	Nov. 15, 1879	Peru: President Mariano Ignacio Prado Spain: King Alfonso XII	Peru: Juan Mariano de Goyeneche y Gamio Spain: Mariano Roca de Togores
Paraguay	Sept. 10, 1880	Apr. 8, 1882	Paraguay: President Cándido Bareiro Spain: King Alfonso XII	Paraguay: Carlos Saguier Spain: Francisco Otín y Mesía
Colombia	Jan. 30, 1881	Aug. 12, 1881	Colombia: President Rafael Núñez Spain: King Alfonso XII	Colombia: Luis Carlos Rico Spain: Mariano Roca de Togores
Honduras	Nov. 17, 1894	Aug. 28, 1895	Honduras: President Policarpo Bonilla Spain: Regent María Cristina de Habsburgo-Lorena	Honduras: José Diego Gámez Spain: Julio de Arellano
Cuba	Jun. 21, 1902		Cuba: President Tomás Estrada Palma Spain: King Alfonso XIII
Panama	May 2, 1904		Panama: President Manuel Amador Guerrero Spain: King Alfonso XIII

Further reading

• Guerra, François-Xavier (2009). Modernidad e independencias. Ensayos sobre las revoluciones hispánicas (in español). Encuentro. ISBN 9788474909876.
• Hamnett, Brian R. (1995a). «Las rebeliones y revoluciones iberoamericanas en la época de la Independencia. Un intento de tipología». In Guerra, François-Xavier (dir., 1995). Las revoluciones hispánicas: independencias americanas y liberalismo español, 47-72. Madrid: Editorial Complutense.
• González, Julio César (2010). Fundación Hernandarias (ed.). La involución hispanoamericana: de las provincias de las Españas a territorios tributarios : el caso Argentino, 1711-2010 (in español). Editorial Docencia. p. 976. ISBN 9789875061927.
• Lucena Giraldo, Manuel (2010). Naciones de rebeldes (in español). Taurus. ISBN 9788430607754.
• Lynch, John (1973). Las revoluciones hispanoamericanas 1808-1826 (in español).
• Mitre, Bartolomé (1950). Historia de San Martín y de la emancipación sudamericana (in español). Buenos Aires: El Ateneo.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
• Tomás Pérez Vejo (2011). "«Las guerras de independencia como guerras civiles»" (in español). Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Retrieved May 1, 2012. (video)
• Reyes Cárdenas, Catalina (2009). «Balance y perspectivas de la historiografía sobre Independencia en Colombia». Historia y Espacio (33): n.p. Retrieved May 1, 2012.
• Ullate Fabo, José Antonio (2009). Españoles que no pudieron serlo: la verdadera historia de la independencia de América (in español). Madrid: Libroslibres. p. 246. ISBN 9788492654185.
• Villoro, Luis (2002). El proceso ideológico de la revolución de independencia. Mexico City: Conaculta.

External links

• Biblioteca del Bicentenario de ADHILAC
• Lista cronológica de batallas.