WARS OF INDEPENDENCE:

SOUTH AMERICA

by David Bushnell
Port cities more liberal

• The desire for independence was not

unanimous in the colonies.
• Caracas and Buenos Aires were
more inconvenienced by Spanish
commercial policy than were silver-
mining Peru and Upper Peru (modern
Bolivia), where economic growth
was slower.

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Peru feared race war

• In Peru, the dominant Hispanic

minority—its fears of the Indian
majority heightened by memory
of the Tupac Amaru revolt of
1780-1781 — was hesitant to
set in motion a process of
change that it might not be able
to control.
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Regional Juntas formed
• 1808: Napoleon invades Spain.
• 1810:
• April- Junta in Caracas.
• May- Junta in Buenos Aires.
• July - Santa Fe de Bogota
• Sept. – Santiago de Chile.
• All the new governments initially
pledged allegiance to the captive
Ferdinand VII, but they lost no time
in asserting their own powers.

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Junta Reforms

• opened ports to neutral trade,

• decreed changes
• enacted other miscellaneous
reforms.
• In Caracas, the junta moved to
abolish the slave trade.
Key figures

• Mariano Moreno, Buenos Aires used

the press to prepare Spanish
Americans for Independence.
• In Caracas, Francisco de Miranda
joined Simon Bolivar.
• July 5, 1811 Venezuela became the
first of the Spanish colonies to
declare outright separation from the
mother country.
Battle of Boyaca
Colombians, Venezuelas
and British
Congress of Angostura
(1819)
Civil War

• Paraguay and Uruguay, both

parts of the Viceroyalty of Rio
de la Plata, refused to accept
the Buenos Aires junta's rule.
• Venezuelan provinces such as
Maracaibo and Guayana refused
to accept the leadership of
Caracas,
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• Ecuador faced the rebellion of
Guayaquil and Cuenca.
• The Junta of Santa Fe de
Bogota faced the defiance of
local juntas in places such as
Cartagena.
Indians and Blacks
• The Indians distrusted the intentions of the
creoles and avoided entanglement.
• Black slaves and pantos (free blacks) in
Venezuela were often susceptible to the
appeals of loyalist opponents—even though
the new government had outlawed the
slave trade and in its December 1811
Republican Constitution had outlawed
discrimination on racial grounds.
Spanish
defeated
by Bolivar
at Junín
Peru
Jose Artigas in Uruguay
Jose San Martin defeats the
Spanish in Chile (1817)
Bernardo O’Higgins in
Chile
• San Martin suffered one serious
defeat before his second major
triumph in the battle of Maipu on
April 5, 1818.
• He set up a revolutionary
government in Chile,
• Under Bernardo O'Higgins the
government finally issued Chile's
declaration of independence in
Febniary 1818.
1821 'Carabobo’ secures
victory for Venezuela
San Martin and Bolivar
meet in Quayaquil in 1822
San Martin resigns

• San Martin resigned his

command
• Bolivar to accepts a invitation
to command in 1823.
• Bolivar had to combine
Colombian forces with the
Chileans and Argentines

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Final victories

• Sucre's victory at Ayacucho on

December 9, 1824.
• the last Spanish fortress in
South America, al the Peruvian
port of Callao, surrendered in
January 1826.

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The Wars of Independence
had uneven effects.
• Venezuela was hard hit-pop.decline.
• Paraguay was affected hardly at all.
• Agriculture suffered.
• Mining was devastated.
• The new countries had military debt.
• Tradition of military caudillos.
• Sharp decline of slavery.