History 307 – History of Latin America – October 6 & 8, 2003

 The Wars of Liberation

I.      Chronology

THE WARS OF INDEPENDENCE

(1808-1824)

Prelude

 1700s                Enlightenment in Europe, inspired by Science;  call for sweeping social reforms based on principles of  liberty, equality, fraternity, etc.

 1775-83                American Revolution

 1780-1    Tupac Amaru II leads Inca rebellion

 1789-99 French Revolution

 1791-1801     HAITI - Toussaint Louverture leads massive slave rebellion;  creates free Haiti

                                         1806

¨       F. MIRANDA (El Precursor) fails to spark revolt in Venezuela

                                         1806-7

¨       Argentines rally to defeat English raiders; Argentines begin to form their own militia, independent of Spanish military

                                         1807

¨       Portuguese Royal Family flees from Portugal to Brazil; Brazil thus becomes the center of the Portuguese Empire; Brazil does NOT rebel against Portugal

 

1808

¨       French invade Spain; Napoleon puts own brother on throne (Joseph Bonaparte)

¨       Spanish King Fernando VII urges Latin Americans NOT to obey Joseph Bonaparte

¨       “Dos de Mayo” - anti-Spanish riots in Madrid (Goya Paintings)

¨       Guerrilla War breaks out in Spain as supporters of Fernando VII try to drive out French

¨       Across Spanish America, local governments (“juntas”) declare loyalty to Fernando VII and vow to disobey any orders from Joseph Bonaparte; Juntas form own militias

¨       In Latin America, a fractured society:

                à    Supporters of Fernando v. Supporters of Joseph Bonaparte

à      defenders of the idea of monarchy  v.  advocates of Republicanism

à      upper classes v.  poor

à      Creoles & some Mestizos   v.  some Mestizos  Indians & Africans

  

THE WAR BEGINS (1809-1814)

PHASE I

1809

¨       scattered clashes between pro-Fernando & pro-Bonaparte factions

                                             1810

¨       In Spain: Fernando’s supporters create a “Cortes,” that is, a parliamentary assembly;  Fernando himself seems sympathetic to “Constitutional Monarchy”

¨       In Latin America:  wave of armed revolts against Bonaparte:

à April - Caracas

à May  - Buenes Aires; Cartagenia

à Sep   - Chile;  in Mexico, Father M. Hidalgo calls for Indians to rebel

                                         1811

¨       Venezuela Junta declare Independence (led by Miranda & Bolivar)

¨       In Mexico:  Fr. Hidalgo’s rebellion crushed

                                         1812

¨       In Venezuela: Spanish troops crush Miranda & Bolivar

                                         1813

¨       Bolivar returns to Venezuela

¨       In Mexico, Moreles leads new struggle against Spain

 

 THE WAR RENEWED

PHASE II (1814-1824)

1814

¨       In Europe, Napoleon is defeated;  Fernando VII returns to Spanish Throne

¨       In America - should struggle for independence continue?

¨       Bolivar defeated in Venezuela; flight o Jamaica

                                         1815

¨       Mexico:  Moreles defeated; revolution stamped out

                                         1816

¨       Argentina declares its independence from Spain

                                         1817

¨       Argentina:  SAN MARTIN defeats Spanish;  leads army across Andes into Chile;  victory at CHACABUCO

¨       Bolivar returns to Venezuela

                                         1818

¨       Bolivar liberates Venezuela & New Granada (Columbia)

                                         1820

¨       San Martin advances north from Chile to Peru

¨       Spain:  a desperate Fernando VII promises reform and a Constitutional Monarchy

¨       Mexico:  IRONY!!  CONSERVATIVES now call for independence, because they DO NOT WANT REFORMS!

                                         1821

¨       Bolivar wins at CARABOBO

¨       San Martin captures Lima

                                         1822

¨       Mexico:  Conservatives name AUGUSTINE DE ITURBIDE AS “EMPEROR OF MEXICO”

¨       Brazil:  PEDRO I BECOMES “EMPEROR OF BRAZIL”

¨       26 July:  Guayaquil Conference between Bolivar & San Martin;  Conference fails; San Martin goes into exile

                                         1823

¨       Europe:  IRONY!  European powers now call on conservative France to “intervene” in Spain;  in effect, the French invade Spain and overthrow “liberals” who had pushed Fernando VII toward reform

¨       New Conservative Spanish gov’t vows to “restore order” in Latin America

¨       MONORE DOCTRINE - US demands Europeans stay out of Western Hemisphere

                                         1824

¨       LAST BATTLE - AT AYACUCHO

¨       Spanish remove last troops from (most of) Latin America

 

I.       Overview:

A.     Continental scale; long duration; enormous destruction; lack of consensus among revolutionaries

B.      Phases:

·          1775-1808 - Prelude: ideas about local self-governance; free speech; free assembly, spread, inspired by European “Enlightenment”, American Revolution, French Revolution

·          1808 - 1814 - Phase I - violent struggle against Spain

·          1814-1824 - Phase II - successful expulsion of Spain; creation of Latin American Republics

C.      A revolution of IDEAS:

 

COLONIAL INHERITANCE	“RADICAL” IDEAS
Privileges for Some	Human Rights for All
Authority	Liberty
Hierarchy	Equality
Coercion	Cooperation (“fraternite”)
Monarch is Sovereign	People are Sovereign (“popular sovereignty”)
Rule by Royal Decree	Rule by Law - written Constitution; people make laws for themselves
Mercantilism	Laissez-faire

 D.     A multi-dimensional Revolution:

·          Peninsular elite v. Creole elite

·          Local upper classes v. local lower classes

·          Creole elite v. enserfed Indians  (1780-1, Tupac Amaru II rebellion) & enslaved Africans (1791, massive slave rebellion in HAITI)

 E.  A Revolution of IDENTITY – who are we?

 

II.   SIMON BOLIVAR (1783-1830)

A.     Creole elite; landlord; family dates back to 1500s; hacienda life; “enlightened” tutor

B.      1799-1802 - European tour; marriage; 1803, death of wife; 1804-7, 2^nd European tour; thrilled by French Revolution & Napoleon

C.      1808 - NAPOLEON INVADES SPAIN;  REMOVES KING FERNANDO VII;  LATIN AMERICA LEADERS VOW LOYALTY TO FERNANDO AND REFUSE TO OBEY ORDERS FROM JOSEPH NAPOLEON è THE REVOLUTION BEGINS!

D.     1810 - Ambassador from Venezuelan Rebel gov’t (‘Junta’) in London

E.      1811-12 - Failure: serves as lieutenant to Miranda; Spanish defeat 1^st Venezuelan Republic

F.      1813-14 - Bolivar proclaims 2^nd Venezuelan Republic; Class war in Venezuela (Bolivar rallies the “llaneros”/ “cowboys” and poor in struggle against Spanish loyalists); mutual massacres; second defeat

G.     1815-16 - Bolivar flees to Jamaica;  Spain retains rule over Venezuela

H.     1816-24 - Bolivar in Columbia; plans for “Gran Columbia”; 1819 - invasion of Venezeula; Bolivar again proclaims class war of poor against Spanish upper classes; December 1824, BATTLE OF AYACUCHO, final defeat of Spain

I.      1822 - Guayaquil Conference;  bitter feud between Bolivar & San Martin;  San Martin into exile

 J.     “America is Ungovernable”

·          vast geographic distances make a single “US of LA” impossible

·          economy in ruins

·          “Gran Columbia” disintegrates

·          Conservative Radicals (get rid of Spain but keep Conservative, plantation order)

                                                                vs.

       Radical Radicals (overthrow conservative, plantation order)

K.      Bolivar’s increasing conservatism (need for hereditary senate);  1830 - exile & death

L.      Jose Joaquin de Olmedo, Victory at Junin: Song to Bolivar (excerpts)

 Note: The Latin American Wars of Liberation occurred at the height of the cultural “romantic” movement, and there is a deeply “romantic” quality to the struggles themselves.  One of Latin America’s greatest romantic poets, Jose Joaquin de Olmedo, in 1825, wrote a long, epic poem called Victory at Junin: Song to Bolivar in honor of the Liberator.  Olmedo, like the European and North American Romantics, believed in emotion, not reason; freedom, not order; drama and poetry, not prose.   Like all Romantics, Olmedo was sure that wild and free Nature, and not human convention, should be the source of inspiration.  Like all Romantics, Olmedo was fascinated by “Promethean” heroes like Bolivar who dramatically and powerfully shaped the world around them.  Victory at Junin reflects much of this, as well as the whole mood of enthusiasm and confidence that the Wars inspired among many Latin Americans. 

                The Battle of Junin was one of Bolivar’s greatest victories, and one of the strangest battles in history.  In 1824, Bolivar led his army up into the wild Peruvian Andes.  Temperatures were usually below freezing; in places, the mountain passes were so narrow that the entire army of several thousand soldiers had to march in single file.  On August 6, 1824, the army emerged onto the high plain of Junin, up in the mountains, and there faced a mass of Spanish cavalry.  The Spanish cavalry charged;  Bolivar hurled his own cavalry at the Spaniards.  Not a shot was fired.  Instead, lances and sabers were the only weapons used.  After an hour’s fierce fighting, the Spanish cavalry broke and fled and with that, Bolivar had liberated Peru.

 

The horrendous thunder that crashing bursts

and swells in muffled rumbles

throughout the flaming globe

announces that God still reigns in heaven!

And the thunderbolt that in Junin breaks and scatters

the Spanish throng

which fiercer than ever threatened

with blood and fire eternal servitude;

– but the song of victory

that in a thousand echoes flows deafening

down the deep valley and up the craggy peak

proclaim Bolivar on earth

the arbiter of peace and war!

The proud pyramids that to Heaven

bold human art once raised

to speak to the centuries and the nations,

temples where the hands of slaves

deified with pomp their tyrants –

time mocks them all, and with its soft wing touches them

and knocks them all to the ground,

after the fleeting wind in wanton play

has blotted out their lying inscriptions.

And confused beneath the rubble

in the shadow of eternal oblivion

– Oh what an example of arrogance and the misery it causes! –

the priest lies, the gods, lie, all in their ruined temple.

But - high above these ruins, the sublime mountains, whose brow

is raised to the heavens,

the mountains that see storms at their feet

flash and roar, break and dissolve;

the Andes . . . those vast, enormous, stupendous

creations resting on their golden bases,

no, these mountains will never be moved.

And they, mocking the fury

and power of alien envy

and perverse time, they

the Andes

will be the eternal heralds of Liberty!

And Victory!

And with deep echo

will to the very end of time proclaim:

“We saw the battlefield of Junin.

We saw, when the banners of Peru and Columbia were unfurled

we saw the haughty enemy pale in confusion,

we saw the fierce Spaniard flee in terror!

Or, terrified, beg for peace!

Yes!

Bolivar has conquered!

Peru is free!

And in triumphal pomp, sacred Liberty

has been placed in the Temple of the Sun!

 

M.     From: Bolivar’s last letters and addresses, in Salvador de Madariaga, Bolivar (N.Y.: Schocken, 1952).

Note:  Bolivar’s last years were bitter.  In 1827, after his great victory over the Spanish, he became president of “Gran Columbia,” which included almost all of northern South America.  Almost immediately, some of Bolivar’s old friends rebelled against him.  To fight them, the Liberator assumed almost dictatorial powers and in Bogota, rioting broke out against him.  Bolivar became entangled in a scandalous love affair with Manuela Saenz (“Mrs. Thorne”) and was nearly assassinated one evening when he was with her.  (She distracted the assassins while Boliver jumped out her back window).  The eastern parts of “Gran Columbia” seceded and became the independent nation of Venezuela.”  Venezuela’s leaders, who had once been Bolivar’s great friends, declared Bolivar a “public enemy” and threatened to execute him if he ever entered their territory.  Gran Columbia’s southwestern territories seceded and became the Republic of Ecuador.  Bolivar’s friend and wartime companion, General Jose Antonio Sucre, was murdered by political opponents; another friend, General Francisco Santander, conspired against him.

                Exhausted and broken-hearted, his health wrecked at age 47, Bolivar resigned as president of Gran Columbia in March 1830.  He planned to leave Latin America entirely and go to Europe.  He only made it as far as the little village of Santa Marta on Columbia’s northern coast.  He died there on December 17, 1830.

                The first selection is from a letter he wrote to General Juan Flores only weeks before his death.  The second selection is from his last proclamations to Columbians.

 Letter to General Flores, November 9, 1830.

  You know I have held power for twenty years, and I have drawn but a few sure conclusions:

1.       America is ungovernable . . .

2.      He who serves a revolution ploughs the sea

3.      The only thing one can do in America is emigrate

4.      Tyrants will follow me . . .

5.      Devoured by all our crimes and exhausted by our own ferocity, we will be rejected by the Europeans, who will not even bother to try to conquer us . . .

6.      If it were possible for part of the world to fall back into primitive chaos, America will do it . . .

 

Proclamation to the People of Columbia, December 1830.

 You have witnessed my efforts to sow liberty where tyranny once reigned.  I have labored with disinterestedness, forsaking my fortune and even my peace.  I severed myself from power when I became convinced that you had mistrusted my selflessness.  My enemies abused your credulity and trampled upon what for me is most sacred, my reputation and love of freedom.  I have been the victim of my persecutors, who have led me to the gates of the grave.  But I forgive them.

 As I vanish from your midst, my love for you tells me that I must impart to you my last wishes.  I seek no other glory than the unity of Columbia.  You must all work for the great gift of national unity – the people, by obeying the law and opposing tyranny;  religious leaders, by their prayers; soldiers by putting their swords in the service of the nation.  Columbians, my last wishes are for the happiness of our country.  If my death helps to end fighting and to unify the nation, I shall go to my grave in peace.  Yes, I go to my grave, there is where my countrymen send me.  But I forgive them.

 














 

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Modified by:  H.  Kamerling