AM214 LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

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AM214 LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
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Plan of Lecture

• Three views of independence Bolivar, Cairu,
  Jefferson
• Breakdown of empire in Spain and Portugal
• New Granada and Independence
• Brazilian independence
• Consequences and larger contexts

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Chronology of Independence

• 1810 Buenos Aires
• 1811 Paraguay
• 1818 Chile
• 1820 Colombia
• 1821 Venezuala, Mexico, Central America
• 1822 Ecuador
• 1824 Peru
• 1825 Bolivia

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• Jeremy Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution in the
  Iberian Atlantic what Latin American
  revolutionaries were attempting to do was to
  create a world governed by the notion that people
  who live in a civil society are bound by the same
  rules as everyone else

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Simon Bolivár

• This history is that of all South America the
  rampant appetite of a people who have broken
  their chains and have no understanding of the
  notions of duty and law and who cannot cease
  being slaves except to become tyrants.

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José da Silva Lisboa, Viscount Cairu

• The success of Brazilian independence, the
  ability to slay the demons of provincial
  secession, civil war and slave revolt, lay in its
  ability to change so little. The fundamental
  principles of sovereignty monarchy, central
  rule, and the ballast of an ennobled slave owning
  aristocracy remained intact.

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Thomas Jefferson

• Those subjects habituated from their infancy to
  passive submission to body and mind to their
  kings and priests stood little chance of
  realising true liberty. Those best prepared fro
  revolution were those least oppressed by the old
  regime, and those who most needed a revolution
  would see theirs fail.

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Breakdown of empire

• Main cause of independence movement due to
  Napoleonic invasion of Iberia in 1807/8
• Are empires inherently doomed? The mistakes of
  assuming imperial overstretch (Paul Kennedy)

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• Your love of the Catholic faith, your subjection
  to the legitimate Kings of Spain, your respect
  for the magistrates and established authorities
  is famous. Imitate the heroines of Spain reduce
  your expenses renounce excess. Do not let a
  single ounce of silver remain on your soil except
  those destined for the holy use of the Church.
  Viceroy Amor y Barbón, New Granada, 1808

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Effects of Napoleonic takeover

• Vacuum in sovereignty and authority
• Explosion of political activity in 1810 with news
  of French invasion of Andalusia
• 19 June 1810 Caracas town council became Junta
• September 1810 Father Hildagos revolt, New
  Spain
• Restoration of Ferdinand VII and absolutist
  government, 1814

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Precursors of rebellion creole discontent

• Jose Ignacio de Pombo, Cartagena merchant
• Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816)
• Issue of free trade
• Resistance to independence in Lima
• Fear of anarchy and negative example of Saint
  Domingue
• Grumbling about limitations of colonial commerce

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New Granada Case Study in Independence

• Rebecca Earle, Spain and the Independence of
  Colombia
• Spain lost the colonies as much as colonies
  gained their own independence
• Basis of royalism Creole laziness, filial
  ingratitude, failures of republican rule during
  Patria Boba

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Morilla and Reconquest

• 1815 General Pablo Morilla arrives in New
  Granada with 9,800 men
• Both royalists and republicans disappointed with
  treatment by Morilla
• Precipitous decline of agriculture and mining
  1811-1820
• Economic decline of Atlantic trade, reducing
  Cartagena to virtual bankruptcy by 1821

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• Andres Rosillo, a former insurgent and priest, in
  a report to the Council of the Indies
• The many arrests, the carelessness, hastiness,
  and illegality of the trials, and the
  extraordinary number of victims fulfilled the
  forecasts made in the revolutionary press, which
  predicted such scenes of terror, and also
  destroyed the positive image of the kings
  government that the royalists had built up.

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Effects of Independence in New Granada

• Defeat of royalists 9 August 1819, near Bogota
• David Bushnell Colombia no longer a colony but
  not yet a nation
• Ferdinand VII convinced republican experiment
  would fail

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Brazil and Independence

• Napoleonic takeover in Portugal caused Crown
  Prince João to set up court in Brazil
• Brazil booming while Portugal declining
• 1816 establishment of Brazilin Kingdom under
  João VI
• 1817 anti-monarchical riot Pernambuco
• 1822 accession Pedro to throne as Brazilian
  emperor
• Dominance of merchant class in Brazil

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Consequences and larger contexts

• Division in Spain between liberals and
  conservatives
• Regional breakdown
• Growth of caudillos (warlords)
• Endemic strife and instability in nineteenth
  century Latin America