The royalists were the people of Hispanic America (mostly from native and indigenous peoples)"Indigenous, African-descended, and mestizo (mixed-race caste) soldiers fought in patriot and royalist armies alike". and Europeans that fought to preserve the integrity of the Spanish monarchy during the Spanish American wars of independence.
Royalists recognized the authorities governing from the Iberian Peninsula against the Bonapartists. Spanish liberalism assumed power during the Peninsular War. In 1808, the Supreme Central Junta of Spain and the Indies, and from 1810 the Cortes of Cádiz, governed in the name of the absent king and created a pan-Hispanic state. Subsequently, in 1814, the Royalists recognized Ferdinand VII following the absolutist restoration of the throne, returned by Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1820, a division emerged within the royalist camp between the liberals, who supported the uprising of the Trienio Liberal and sought to restore the liberal state of the Cortes of Cádiz, and the absolutists, supporters of Ferdinand VII and the restored traditional state. Another French military occupation until 1827 secured the absolutist throne.
Political evolution
The creation of juntas in Spanish America in 1810 was a direct reaction to developments in Spain during the previous two years. In 1808 Ferdinand VII had been convinced to abdicate by Napoleon in his favor, who granted the throne to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. The Supreme Central Junta had led a resistance to Joseph's government and the French occupation of Spain, but suffered a series of reverses resulting in the loss of the northern half of the country. On February 1, 1810, French troops took Seville and gained control of most of Andalusia. The Supreme Junta retreated to Cádiz and dissolved itself in favor of a Regency Council of Spain and the Indies. As news of this arrived throughout Spanish America during the next three weeks to nine months—depending on time it took goods and people to travel from Spain—political fault lines appeared. Royal officials and Spanish Americans were split between those who supported the idea of maintaining the status quo—that is leaving all the government institutions and officers in place—regardless of the developments in Spain, and those who thought that the time had come to establish local rule, initially through the creation of juntas, to preserve the independence of Spanish America from the French or from a rump government in Spain that could no longer legitimately claim to rule a vast empire. At first, the juntas claimed to carry out their actions in the name of the deposed king and did not formally declare independence. Juntas were successfully established in Venezuela, Río de la Plata and New Granada, and there were unsuccessful movements to do so in other regions. A few juntas initially chose to recognize the Regency, nevertheless the creation of juntas challenged the authority of all sitting royal officials and the right of the government in Spain to rule in the Americas.
In the months following the establishment of the Regency, it became clear that Spain was not lost, and furthermore the government was effectively reconstituting itself. The Regency successfully convened the Cortes Generales, the traditional parliament of the Spanish Monarchy, which in this case included representatives from the Americas. The Regency and Cortes began issuing orders to, and appointing, royal officials throughout the empire. Those who supported the new government came to be called "royalists." Those that supported the idea of maintaining independent juntas called themselves "patriots," and a few among them were proponents of declaring full, formal independence from Spain. As the Cortes instituted liberal reforms and worked on drafting a constitution, a new division appeared among royalists. Conservatives (often called "absolutists" in the historiography) did not want to see any innovations in government, while liberals supported them. These differences would become more acute after the restoration of Ferdinand VII, because the king opted to support the conservative position.Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions, 36–37, 134–135. Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 52–53. Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America, 45–46, 53.
Role of regional rivalry Regional rivalry also played an important role in the internecine wars that broke out in Spanish America as a result of the juntas. The disappearance of a central, imperial authority—and in some cases of even a local, viceregal authority (as in the cases of New Granada and Río de la Plata)—initiated a prolonged period of balkanization in many regions of Spanish America. It was not clear which political units should replace the empire, and there were – among the criollo elites at least – no new or old national identities to replace the traditional sense of being Spaniards. The original juntas of 1810 appealed first, to sense of being Spanish, which was juxtaposed against the French threat; second, to a general American identity, which was juxtaposed against the Peninsula which was lost to the French; and third, to a sense of belonging to the local province, the patria in Spanish.Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions, 121, 131–132. Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 13–19, 22, More often than not, juntas sought to maintain a province's independence from the capital of the former viceroyalty or captaincy general, as much as from the Peninsula itself. Armed conflicts broke out between the provinces over the question of whether some provinces were to be subordinate to others in the manner that they had been under the crown. This phenomenon was particularly evident in New Granada and Río de la Plata. This rivalry also leads some regions to adopt the opposing political cause from their rivals. Peru seems to have remained strongly royalist in large part because of its rivalry with Río de la Plata, to which it had lost control of Upper Peru when the latter was elevated to a viceroyalty in 1776. The creation of juntas in Río de la Plata allowed Peru to regain formal control of Upper Peru for the duration of the wars.Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions, 57–71, 162–163, 240–242. Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 111–113, 126–136, 153–159, 176–179. Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America, 53, 59.
Restoration of Ferdinand VII
The restoration of Ferdinand VII signified an important change, since most of the political and legal changes done on both sides of the Atlantic—the myriad of juntas, the Cortes in Spain, and several of the congresses in the Americas that evolved out of the juntas, and the many constitutions and new legal codes—had been done in his name. Once in Spain Ferdinand VII realized that he had significant support from conservatives in the general population and the hierarchy of the Spanish Catholic Church, and so on May 4, he repudiated the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and ordered the arrest of liberal leaders who had created it on May 10. Ferdinand justified his actions by stating that the Constitution and other changes had been made by a Cortes assembled in his absence and without his consent. He also declared all of the juntas and constitutions written in Spanish America invalid and restored the former law codes and political institutions.Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 169–172. Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America, 56–57.
This, in effect, constituted a definitive break with two groups that could have been allies of Ferdinand VII: the autonomous governments, which had not yet declared formal independence, and Spanish liberals who had created a representative government that would fully include the overseas possessions and was seen as an alternative to independence by many in New Spain (today Mexico), Central America, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Quito (Ecuador), Peru, Upper Peru (Bolivia) and Chile.
The provinces of New Granada had maintained independence from Spain since 1810, unlike neighboring Venezuela, where royalists and pro-independence forces had exchanged control of the region several times. To pacify Venezuela and to retake New Granada, Spain organized in 1815 the largest armed force it ever sent to the New World, consisting of 10,500 troops and nearly sixty ships. (See, Spanish reconquest of New Granada). Although this force was crucial in retaking a solidly pro-independence region like New Granada, its soldiers were eventually spread out throughout Venezuela, New Granada, Quito, and Peru and were lost to tropical diseases, diluting their impact on the war. More importantly, the majority of the royalist forces were composed, not of soldiers sent from the peninsula, but of Spanish Americans. Other Spanish Americans were moderates who decided to wait and see what would come out of the restoration of normalcy. In fact, in areas of New Spain, Central America, and Quito, governors found it expedient to leave the elected constitutional ayuntamientos in place for several years to prevent conflict with the local society.Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions, 336. Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 106. Liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, nevertheless, continued to conspire to bring back a constitutional monarchy, ultimately succeeding in 1820. The most dramatic example of transAtlantic collaboration is perhaps Francisco Javier Mina's expedition to Texas and northern Mexico in 1816 and 1817.
Spanish Americans in royalist areas who were committed to independence had already joined guerrilla movements. Ferdinand's actions did set areas outside of the control of the royalist armies on the path to full independence. The governments of these regions, which had their origins in the juntas of 1810—and even moderates there who had entertained a reconciliation with the crown—now saw the need to separate from Spain, if they were to protect the reforms they had enacted.Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions, 162. 171–172, 207. Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 173–175, 192–194
Restoration of the Spanish Constitution and independence
Spanish liberals finally had success in forcing Ferdinand VII to restore the Constitution on January 1, 1820, when Rafael Riego headed a rebellion among troops that had been gathered for a large expeditionary force to be sent to the Americas. By March 7, the royal palace in Madrid was surrounded by soldiers under the command of General Francisco Ballesteros, and three days later on March 10, the besieged Ferdinand VII, now a virtual prisoner, agreed to restore the Constitution.Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 194. Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America, 88, 114, 120–121, 127–128.
Riego's revolt had two significant effects on the war in the Americas. First, in military matters, the large numbers of reinforcements, that were especially needed to retake New Granada and defend the Viceroyalty of Peru, would never arrive. Furthermore, as the royalist situation became more desperate in region after region, the army experienced wholesale defections of units to the patriot side. Second, in political matters, the reinstitution of a liberal regime changed the terms under which the Spanish government sought to engage the insurgents. The new government naively assumed that the insurgents were fighting for Spanish liberalism and that the Spanish Constitution could still be the basis of reconciliation between the two sides. The government implemented the Constitution and held elections in the overseas provinces, just as in Spain. It also ordered military commanders to begin armistice negotiations with the insurgents with the promise that they could participate in the restored representative government.Lynch, Spanish American Revolutions, 335–340. Rodríguez, Independence of Spanish America, 194–195. Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America, 89.