Latin American Revolutions
All about revolutions on Latin America
HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA
Ripples from Europe: 1791-1808
In most of Latin America, isolated within the Spanish and Portuguese empires, the upheavals inFrance in 1789 have little immediate effect - other than as a talking point of great topical interest. But the French islands in the Caribbean are more directly linked with these distant events. As early as 1791 the slaves in Saint Domingue, the western half of the island of Hispaniola, conclude that revolution has its attractions for them too.
Their uprising rapidly succeeds, being protected by the British navy from French retaliation. By 1801 the whole of Hispaniola is under the control of the first revolutionary hero of Latin America,Toussaint L'Ouverture.If events during the French wars have little effect elsewhere in Latin America, it is partly because Spainand Portugalplay at first relatively minor roles in the conflict. But this changes abruptly in 1807-8, following an unexpected act of aggressionby Napoleon.
It is unlikely that Napoleon could predict the domino effect which results, on the other side of the Atlantic, when he sends French armies into the Iberian peninsula and usurps the Spanish crown. But with his passion for upsetting the old order, the self-appointed emperor could only be delighted by the way the dominoes tumble.Colonial society on the eve of change: 1809
Never has lasting political change occurred so rapidly over such a large area as in Latin America in the sixteen years from 1809. Moreover this sudden transformation is entirely unforeseen. These are regions which have lived without major upheaval for three centuries under authoritarian Spanish rule. Recently the heady ideals of the American and French revolutions have led some (particularly among the Creoles) to dream of change. But there has been little sign of active rebellion.
In the Spanish-American social hierarchy, an exceptionally well-defined pecking order based on birth, the Creoles come second.At the top of the social tree are Spaniards born in the Iberian peninsula who have come out to America to take up an official position in government or church, or else to make their fortunes; they are known as peninsularesor gachupines(a local word for Spaniards).
It has always been Spanish policy to favour thepeninsulares, in terms of appointments to high and profitable office, above the Creoles - the term for people of pure European origin born in the American continent. As the local aristocracy, with an ancient stake in the region, the Creoles profoundly resent being discriminated against in this way. If there is to be a nationalist rebellion against Spain, its leaders will come from their class.Lower down the social scale are four other equally specific groups. Next in esteem are the mestizos, people of mixed European and American-Indian ancestry; since there were few Spanish women in America in the early decades of colonization, many mestizo familes are of long standing. Below them are a more recent phenomenon, the mulattos, of mixed European and African blood.
At the bottom of the social heap are two racially pure groups: the American Indians, the indigenous people of the continent surviving as peasants and poor labourers; and the African-Americans, most of whom at this stage still have the status of slaves.The event which sparks a conflagration among these people of Spanish America has nothing to do with the continent itself. In 1808Napoleoninvades Spain, secures the abdication of the Spanish king Ferdinand VII, and places on the throne his own brother Joseph Bonaparte.
This unexpected circumstance provides two good reasons for independent action in Spanish America. With no Spanish government in Spain, it can be argued that the provinces overseas must look after themselves (a theme implying long-term independence, attractive to many Creoles). Equally, and more acceptable to thepeninsulares, it can be said that interim local governments should now be set up on behalf of the deposed Spanish king.First stirrings of independence: 1809-1811
The first two outbreaks of rebellion occur high in the Andes during 1809. In May in Chuquisaka (now Sucre, the capital ofBolivia) the governors of the university defy the Spanish authorities, proclaiming instead their loyalty to Ferdinand VII. Their example is soon followed by other groups in the province, some of them demanding independence.
Three months later in Quito, the capital ofEcuador, patriots rise in a bid for independence. In both Bolivia and Ecuador these first rebellions are soon put down and their leaders executed. But the theme is infectious, and the following year sees a positive rash of rebellions through south and central America.On 19 April 1810 Venezuelan officers expel the Spanish governor from Caracas and form a junta to run the province. On May 25 a regional government takes over in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, on behalf of Ferdinand VII.
Next it is the turn of Bogota, the capital of the Spanish viceroyalty ofNew Granada, where on July 20 the royal officials are thrown out and a local regime is established. Again the new government's stated allegiance is at this stage to the deposed king, Ferdinand. Only somewhat later is complete independence claimed (and it takes nine years more to secure it), but 20 July 1810 is the date commemorated in Colombia as independence day.In Mexicothere is the first unsuccessful attempt at rebellion on September 16 (a date also taken now as the nation's independence day). Two days later in Santiago, the capital of Chile, an open town meeting (cabildo abierto) accepts the peaceful resignation of the Spanish governor and appoints a local junta to run the province.
This completes the revolutionary changes of 1810, but 1811 adds similar events in two other regions. On May 14 the settlers inParaguayexpel their Spanish governor and declare independence. And during this year, further south, the cowboy leader José Artigas besieges the Spanish garrison in Montevideo and begins the long struggle forUruguay's independence.Two of the most important regions of south America are missing from this account of the revolutionary years of 1809-11. One is Peru, the most conservative and stable of the Spanish viceroyalties. It becomes an accepted fact among the liberation activists that there is no chance of a home-grown revolution here. So the region, vital in the broader campaign against Spanish imperialism, becomes the target of San Martín's famous invasion.
The other isBrazil, part of the Portuguese rather than the Spanish empire. Brazil secures internationally recognized independence in a more peaceful manner than anywhere else in the subcontinent - but not until 1822, long after the main story begins with Bolívar in Venezuela.
Bolívar and Gran Colombia: 1810-1822
Simón Bolívar, Venezuelan by birth and the central figure in the story of the independence movements of Latin America, is a young officer in Caracas in 1810. He is part of the conspiracy by which a junta expels the Spanish governor of the province of Venezuela, on April 19, and takes control. For the next twelve years Bolívar's efforts are directed single-mindedly towards liberating the whole of New Granada from Spanish rule. There are many reverses on the way.
The optimism of July 1811, when a national assembly in Caracas formally declares Venezuela's independence, is followed by a complete reversal a year later. The Spanish authorities rally, recover a military initiative, and by July 1812 regain control of the entire province.Bolívar escapes to Cartagena, the main seaport of neighbouring Colombia. The city is in rebel hands, and here he pens a powerful political pamphlet, theManifesto de Cartagena, addressed to the citizens of New Granada. In it he offers the inspiring vision of a united effort to expel the Spaniards.
He soon proves his own abilities in this great enterprise. In 1813, at the head of an army of liberation, he returns to Venezuela and wins six successive engagements against Spanish forces. On 6 August 1813 he enters Caracas. Welcomed as the Liberator, he takes political control with dictatorial powers.Again success is short-lived. By July 1814 Bolívar has once more lost Caracas. He marches instead to Bogotá, which he succeeds in recapturing from the Spanish. He makes this capital city his base for a while, but soon the Spanish recover it yet again. Bolívar flees into exile, in Jamaica and Haiti. But by the end of 1817 he is back in Venezuela, building up a new army in an inaccessible region on the Orinoco river.
Here he conceives a bold plan. He will not make another attempt on Caracas. Instead he will strike at the capital city of New Granada by a route which is considered impossible - along the waterlogged plain of the Orinoco and then over the Andes for a surprise attack on Bogotá.In 1819 Bolívar's small force, of only about 2500 men, uses cowhide boats to cross a succession of flooded tributaries of the Orinoco (one of his men claims later that for seven days they marched in water up to their waists). This ordeal is followed by one even worse, a mountain crossing during which a considerable number of the rebel band die of cold.
But the surprise holds. They descend from the high passes upon an unsuspecting enemy. In an engagement at Boyacá, on 7 August 1819, the Spanish army surrenders. Three days later Bolívar enters Bogotá. On December 17 the Republica de Colombia is proclaimed. It covers the entire region of modern Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.As yet Gran Colombia is little more than a notion, for Venezuela and Ecuador are still securely in Spanish hands. But the Liberator soon puts this right. On 24 June 1821 he wins a battle at Carabobo which yields to him once again his native city of Caracas. And on 24 May 1822 Bolívar's favourite general, the young Antonio José de Sucre, wins a victory at Pichincha and brings the patriots into Quito.
With the liberation of Ecuador, Gran Colombia becomes a reality as a free republic. Meanwhile Bolívar's attention is directed onwards toPeru. Two months after the fall of Quito he has a famous meeting on this issue, at Guayaquil, with the other great hero of the moment - San Martín, whose wars of independence have begun in Argentina.Argentina and San Martín: 1810-1816
Argentina takes its first step towards independence more easily than most other regions of the Spanish empire, partly because of theevents of 1806-9 in Buenos Aires. When developments in Spain in 1808 force a choice of allegiance, acabildo abierto(open town meeting) in Buenos Aires on 25 May 1810 quickly decides to set up an autonomous local government on behalf of the deposedFerdinand VII.
However this first step is soon followed by violent conflict with opposing royalist forces elsewhere in the province. News of this conflict brings back to Buenos Aires an Argentinian-born officer serving in the Spanish army, José de San Martín.When San Martín reaches Argentina in 1812, the patriot army is under the command of Manuel Belgrano, a Buenos Aires lawyer who has had his first military experience as a member of theCreole militiain 1806. In the early years of the war of independence Belgrano has successes against royalist troops in the foothills of the Andes in the extreme northwest of Argentina, at Tucuman (1812) and Salta (1813). But he is defeated further north, in Bolivia, later in 1813. In 1814 he is replaced as commander by San Martín.
These battles have all been close to the main source of royalist strength, the rich and conservative viceroyalty of Peru. San Martin concludes that Latin America's independence will never be secure until Peru is conquered.The independence of Argentina is formally proclaimed on 9 July 1816, abandoning any pretence that the junta has been governing on behalf ofFerdinand VII. (The decision is simplified by the reactionary and incompetent rule of the Spanish king after he recovers his throne in 1814.) Meanwhile San Martín is assembling and training an army for his long-term plan of campaign against Peru. He has decided on a two-pronged attack, beginning with an invasion of Chile.
He already has an important Chilean ally inBernardo O'Higgins, a soldier closely involved in the beginnings of the independence movement in Chile but from 1814 a refugee in Argentina.Chile and San Martín: 1817-1820
For three years San Martín and O'Higgins gather and train an army for an invasion of Chile. By January 1817 they are ready. They lead a force of 5000 men on a twenty-day march through two high passes in the Andes. As many as 2000 of their force fall by the wayside, whether from death or illness in the extreme cold and high altitude (though the season is summer). Even so, the arrival of the survivors in Chile is so surprising that the Spanish have little time to gather troops in defence of Santiago.
The battle of Chacabuco is fought near the capital on 12 February 1817 and is won by the revolutionaries. San Martín and O'Higgins enter Santiago three days later.San Martín is greeted as the liberator of Chile and is offered the role of governor, but he urges instead the appointment of O'Higgins - who becomes 'supreme director' of the nation. With royalist forces still a threat, independence is not formally proclaimed until 12 February 1818. The need for caution is demonstrated by the fact that the conclusive battle, finally securing Chile's independence, is fought only a few miles from Santiago - at Maipu on 5 April 1818.
Meanwhile San Martín is preparing the next stage of his campaign of liberation. Another army is being gathered, against Peru. And an envoy is sent to London to invite a brilliant buccaneer, Thomas Cochrane, to create a Chilean navy.San Martín and Peru: 1818-1821
Cochrane, an eccentric Scottish nobleman, has made a dashing reputation for his exploits at sea during the Napoleonic wars but he has been dismissed from the British navy because of financial fraud. He accepts the Chilean invitation and arrives at Valparaiso in November 1818.
The Chilean navy consists of just seven ships, ranging from fifty to fourteen guns. The Spanish fleet on the Pacific coast is more than twice as powerful, but over the next two years Cochrane harries the enemy and attacks coastal forts in Peru until the advantage changes. His most famous exploit is stealing from Callao harbour, one dark night in November 1820, theEsmeralda - the largest and fastest frigate in Spain's Peruvian fleet.Ten days previously Cochrane's squadron has landed near Lima an invading army of 4200 men, transported up the coast from Chile under the command of San Martín. The mere news of their arrival causes an entire Spanish battalion of 650 local Creoles to change sides and come over to the rebel cause. In this atmosphere, and to the fury of Cochrane, San Martín decides to wait for a Spanish withdrawal from Lima rather than attack the capital city directly.
Eventually, on 6 July 1821, the royalist garrison begins a retreat inland to a more secure position in the Andes. San Martín enters Lima on July 9 and proclaims Peruvian independence (on July 28) with himself as 'Protector'.The next stage in the story of Peru is also a turning point in the careers of the two leaders of the American independence movement. While San Martín is attempting to secure his hold over Peru, Simón Bolívaris pressing south through Ecuador to complete his conquest of New Granada. Between the two liberators lies the important harbour of Guayaquil. Each wants it for his own territory. They converge on the town in 1822. Bolívar gets there first. San Martín arrives two weeks later, on July 25.
Over the next two days, with appropriate intervals for feasting, dancing and the toasting of liberty, the two men deliberate in private.The Guayaquil Conference: 1822
Bolívar and San Martín later write differing interpretations of their conversation at Guayaquil, but a common theme emerges. It is succinctly put in a phrase of San Martín's: 'Bolívar and I together are too big for Peru.'
The subtext of the meeting is a clash between two men whose broad aims are identical (the liberation of America from the Spanish) and whose personal ambition is also the same and therefore incompatible - each wants to prevail in Peru. San Martín is well aware that Bolívar is the greater general. He realizes that nothing will prevent him entering Peru with his army. If he is opposed by San Martín, the result would be (in San Martín's words) 'a humiliating scandal'.On the surface the conversation is more specifically about the proper government for an independent Peru. San Martín is eager to bring over a European prince to rule as monarch (in recent years there has even been talk of Napoleon being brought fromSt Helena to inherit a new empire in the west). Bolívar is committed to the identity of the newly independent nations as republics, though he is himself eager to serve as president with dictatorial powers.
Meanwhile there lies ahead the immediate and difficult task of clearing the Spanish out of the Andean fastnesses of Peru - including Upper Peru (the area which is now Bolivia).San Martín recognizes that on his own he is unlikely to achieve this. He offers to serve under Bolívar in the joint enterprise. Bolívar, foreseeing inevitable trouble and perhaps reluctant to share the coming glory, rejects even this offer.
After the failure of their four-hour discussion (on 27 July 1822), and an evening banquet and ball which he shows no sign of enjoying, San Martín slips away from Guayaquil in his schooner - and then slips almost equally discreetly out of history's limelight. At the first meeting of the new congress in Lima in September 1822 he resigns his post as Protector and retires to private life in Europe. He dies in Boulogne in 1850.
Bolívar and Peru: 1823-1824
Although unwilling to collaborate with San Martín, Bolívar has many reservations about advancing into Peru. There is much unrest and rivalry in his first liberated republic, Gran Colombia, and he considers for a while making terms with the Spanish in Peru so that he can concentrate his energies further north. But the congress of the new Peruvian republic, endangered by Spanish forces, begs for his assistance.
In September 1823 Bolívar arrives in Lima, to a tremendous civic welcome. It has been agreed in advance that he is to have not only command of the army but 'dictatorial political authority' throughout the republic. He pledges himself to deliver a 'free and sovereign Peru'.The Spanish forces are based in what are considered almost impregnable regions in the mountains east of Lima, but Bolívar and his talented chief of staff, Antonio José de Sucre, successfully confront them there. Together they win a victory at Junin on 6 August 1824. Bolívar leaves the rest of the campaign to Sucre, who goes on to win the decisive engagement at Ayacucho on December 9.
After Ayacucho the Spanish army surrenders, along with the viceroy himself who was commanding in the field. This success completes the liberation of almost the entire Spanish empire in south America. The exception is Upper Peru, beyond Lake Titicaca. Again Bolívar entrusts this final task to Sucre.Sucre and Bolivia: 1825-1827
The republican victory at Ayacucho leaves only one Spanish army at large, in the high Andean territory of Upper Peru. Sucre moves into this region early in 1825 and defeats the Spanish in April at Tumusla.
Upper Peru has been administered from Lima in the early centuries of Spanish rule, although geographically - lying mainly east of the Andes - it has more obvious links with Buenos Aires. The republican governments in both cities are eager to incorporate this region, with its famous mines at Potosí, but locally a spirit of independence prevails. When Sucre convenes a congress in July 1825 to consider the region's future, the vote is for a separate state.In honour of their liberators the delegates propose to name the new republic after Bolivár and to rename as Sucre the historic city (Chuquisaca) in which they are meeting.
The nation is duly proclaimed on 6 August 1825 asRepública Bolívar, soon to be better known to the world as Bolivia. Bolívar himself drafts a constitution. When it is adopted, in 1826, Sucre is elected president for life. Prudently he accepts a term of only two years, but the violence of political life in this new and remote republic means that he does not complete even this modest term. Already in 1827 there are several uprisings, in one of which Sucre is wounded. He resigns as president and returns to his home in Ecuador.By this time Bolívar has also departed from Peru, called to the north by his own brainchild - the Congress of Panama - and by the threatened disintegration of his first republic, Gran Colombia.
Delegates from only four regions (Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Central America) attend the congress in Panama in June 1826, falling far short of the pan-American gathering which Bolívar had in mind. And they achieve little of practical value. But the event comes at a most significant moment in the history of the continent. Two important items on the agenda areCuba and Puerto Rico - by now the only parts of Latin America still in Spanish hands, because recent years have also brought independence to central America and Mexico.The unusual case of Mexico: 1810-1820
While the various Spanish provinces in south America have been finding their own liberal way to independence, Mexico - the centre of Spanish power in the northern part of the continent - has been undergoing a very different transformation.
In south America educated men of the officer class, such as Bolívar and San Martín, have led the fight against Spain. In Mexico the first rebels are poor Catholic priests leading armies ofmestizos and Indians. Here the Creoles and thepeninsularessupport the Spanish authorities in putting down an uprising (in 1810) which looks to them more like a social revolution than an independence movement. It begins at Dolores.The cry of Dolores: 1810-1815
Napoleon's seizure of the Spanish throne in 1808 provokes many secret societies in Mexico - devoted either to the cause of the deposedFerdinand VIIor to full independence from Spain. One such society, in San Miguel near Dolores, is betrayed to the police. Some members are arrested, others flee. But one, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, has a different response.
Hidalgo is a parish priest in Dolores. On 16 September 1810 (celebrated now as Mexico's independence day) he rings the bell of his church to summon the parishioners. He then makes an inflammatory speech, proclaiming an end to Spanish rule, equality for Mexico's various races, and redistribution of land.This passionate manifesto, which becomes known as thegrito de Dolores(cry of Dolores), has immense appeal to the poor and underprivileged, whether they be mestizos or Indians. Hidalgo selects as his banner Mexico's most famous image, powerfully effective in this context. It is the Virgin of Guadalupe, an icon of the Virgin Mary with Indian features.
Vast excited crowds rally to this banner. They sweep through the towns between Dolores and Mexico City, arriving eventually at the gates of the capital itself. Here, mysteriously, Hidalgo pauses. The impetus is lost. His followers begin to drift away.Hidalgo's remaining forces are defeated at the bridge of Calderón, near Guadalajara, in January 1811. Fleeing north, hoping to reach safety in the United States, the priest is captured, defrocked and tried. He is put before a firing squad in Chihuahua in July. But his cause survives for several more years under the leadership of his colleague José María Morelos y Pavón, also a priest.
Morelos is a more practical leader than Hidalgo. Victories at Oaxaca in 1812 and Acapulco in 1813 give him control of most of southern Mexico. In 1813 he summons a congress at Chilpancingo. In November the congress declares Mexican independence.In the following year, 1814, the Spanish position is strengthened whenFerdinand VIIis restored to his throne and reinforcements can be sent out to Spanish America. Morelos is captured in October 1815. Like Hidalgo, he is defrocked and is shot as a rebel.
For the next five years the independence movement is checked in Mexico. When it revives, in 1820, Mexico is once again out of step with the rest of Spanish America. Elsewhere liberal sentiments have encouraged rebellion against Spain. In Mexico the precise opposite happens. Fear of liberalism provides the impulse which finally brings Mexican independence.Agustín de Iturbide: 1820-1824
In 1820 a coup in Spain against the reactionary Ferdinand VII forces him to bring in a liberal government (see Liberal and conservative). It is this development, profoundly unwelcome to Catholic and conservative circles in Mexico, which results in the sudden break with Spain.
The agent of change is a Creole officer in the Spanish army, Agustín de Iturbide, who has won his reputation by his severity and violence against the independence movements ofHidalgo andMorelos. He now abruptly changes sides, finding a formula which unites nearly all Mexicans behind him. His policy, published at Iguala in February 1821, has three distinct strands.In his Plan of Iguala, Iturbide proclaims immediate independence from Spain, promises equality for Creoles andpeninsulares in the new Mexico, and declares a ban on all religions or sects other than Roman Catholicism. With this programme Iturbide is able to lead a force, known as the Army of the Three Guarantees, which rapidly wins control over the whole of Mexico.
A newly arrived viceroy, sent out by the liberal government in Spain, signs on 24 August 1821 the treaty of Cordóba recognizing the independence of Mexico (a concession subsequently but ineffectually denied by the Spanish crown).With this much so rapidly achieved, the recent alliance between the many factions of Mexico soon crumbles. Iturbide makes use of the prevailing chaos to declare himself emperor of the new nation, as Agustín I, in May 1822.
The empire proves to be short-lived (losing the support of the army, the emperor is forced to abdicate in 1823). But during his two years in power, Iturbide nominally rules over an area larger than Mexico itself. His winning of independence for Mexico in 1821 enables the neighbouring captaincy general ofGuatemala to take the same step without bloodshed.New republics: 1821-1838
With the independence in 1821 of Mexico and Guatemala, along with similar proclamations in Peru in this same year and in Gran Colombia two years earlier, the whole of the Spanish empire in continental Latin America has declared for liberty. Brazilfollows suit in 1822, ending the Portugese empire in the American continent.
There will be adjustments during the next two decades, as smaller nations free themselves from larger groupings. ThusUruguay goes its own way from 1828. Gran Colombia splits in 1830 into the three republics known today. And theCentral American Federation is divided by 1838 into five independent states.By this time only two coastal enclaves in Latin America remain under European colonial control. They are regions where the northern Atlantic maritime nations have been able to establish a tentative foothold on Spain's imperial soil. To the east of Guatemala, in the area now known as Belize, British privateers maintain a presence in an inhospitable terrain. In Guiana, a tropical region well suited to sugar plantations, there are British, Dutch and French settlements.
Otherwise continental Latin America is now entirely free - and free to develop its own characteristic brand of politics.