Spanish Invasion of New Granada
Encyclopedia
The Spanish Invasion of New Granada
in 1815–1816 was part of the Spanish American wars of independence in South America. Shortly after the Napoleonic Wars
ended, Ferdinand VII, recently restored to the throne in Spain, decided to send military forces to retake most of northern South American colonies, which had established autonomous junta
s and independent states.
, a veteran of the Spanish struggle against the French, was chosen as its commander. The expeditionary force was made up of approximately 10,000 men and nearly 60 ships. Originally, they were to head for Montevideo
in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
, but soon it was decided to send these forces to the Viceroyalty of New Granada
(present-day Colombia
, Ecuador
, Panama
) and Venezuela
.
Leaving the port of Cádiz
on February 17, 1815, the force initially landed at the island of Margarita
in April, where no resistance was encountered. After leaving the island, Morillo's troops reinforced existing royalist forces in the Venezuelan mainland, entering Cumaná
and Caracas
in May. A small part of the main corps set off towards Panamá
, while the main contingent was directed towards the Neogranadine coastal city of Santa Marta
which was still in royalist hands.
After picking up supplies and militia volunteers in Santa Marta
on July 23, the Spanish expeditionary forces besieged Cartagena
. After a five-month siege
the fortified city fell on December 1815. By 1816, the combined efforts of Spanish and colonial forces, marching south from Cartagena and north from royalist strongholds in Quito
, Pasto
, and Popayán
, completed the reconquest of New Granada, taking Bogotá
on May 6, 1816. A permanent council of war was set up to judge those accused of treason and rebellion, resulting in the execution of more than a hundred notable republican officials, including Jorge Tadeo Lozano
, Francisco José de Caldas
and José María Cabal. Units of the republican armies of New Granada were incorporated into the royalist army and sent to Peru.
. One significant factor in the disunity was that representatives of Great Britain and of the United States refused to grant political recognition and would not commit the sufficient amount of economic and military aid to successfully resist Morillo's force. In addition, the provinces themselves did not give each other much needed aid. Finally, several notable individuals, whose leadership would have been useful, decided to exile themselves, although other republican leaders did remain in the region and tried to reorganize it military and political activities in order to face the new threat.
As a result of the internal conflicts in New Granada, Simón Bolívar, who had been acting under the authority of the United Provinces, left his command on May 8, 1815, after failing to subdue Cartagena in March in retaliation for its refusal to give him arms and men. Bolívar traveled to Jamaica
and later Haiti
, a small republic that had freed itself from French rule, where he and other independence leaders were given a friendly reception. Eventually, the growing exile community received money, volunteers and weapons from the Haitian president Alexandre Pétion
, and resumed the struggle for independence in the remote border areas of both New Granada and Venezuela, where they established irregular guerrilla bands
with the locals. This formed the basis from which the struggle to establish republics successfully spread towards the other areas of South America under Spanish control.
Viceroyalty of New Granada
The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...
in 1815–1816 was part of the Spanish American wars of independence in South America. Shortly after the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
ended, Ferdinand VII, recently restored to the throne in Spain, decided to send military forces to retake most of northern South American colonies, which had established autonomous junta
Junta (Peninsular War)
In the Napoleonic era, junta was the name chosen by several local administrations formed in Spain during the Peninsular War as a patriotic alternative to the official administration toppled by the French invaders...
s and independent states.
The expeditionary force and campaigns
In 1815, Spain sent to its most seditious colonies the strongest expeditionary force that it ever sent to the Americas up to that time. Colonel Pablo MorilloPablo Morillo
Pablo Morillo y Morillo, Count of Cartagena and Marquess of La Puerta, aka El Pacificador was a Spanish general....
, a veteran of the Spanish struggle against the French, was chosen as its commander. The expeditionary force was made up of approximately 10,000 men and nearly 60 ships. Originally, they were to head for Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, , was the last and most short-lived Viceroyalty of the Spanish Empire in America.The Viceroyalty was established in 1776 out of several former Viceroyalty of Perú dependencies that mainly extended over the Río de la Plata basin, roughly the present day...
, but soon it was decided to send these forces to the Viceroyalty of New Granada
Viceroyalty of New Granada
The Viceroyalty of New Granada was the name given on 27 May 1717, to a Spanish colonial jurisdiction in northern South America, corresponding mainly to modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela. The territory corresponding to Panama was incorporated later in 1739...
(present-day Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
) and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
.
Leaving the port of Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
on February 17, 1815, the force initially landed at the island of Margarita
Isla Margarita
Margarita Island is the largest island of the state of Nueva Esparta in Venezuela, situated in the Caribbean Sea, off the northeastern coast of the country. The state also contains two other smaller islands: Coche and Cubagua. The capital city of Nueva Esparta is La Asunción, located in a river...
in April, where no resistance was encountered. After leaving the island, Morillo's troops reinforced existing royalist forces in the Venezuelan mainland, entering Cumaná
Cumaná
Cumaná is the capital of Venezuela's Sucre State. It is located 402 km east of Caracas. It was the first settlement founded by Europeans in the mainland America, in 1501 by Franciscan friars, but due to successful attacks by the indigenous people, it had to be refounded several times...
and Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
in May. A small part of the main corps set off towards Panamá
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, while the main contingent was directed towards the Neogranadine coastal city of Santa Marta
Santa Marta
Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...
which was still in royalist hands.
After picking up supplies and militia volunteers in Santa Marta
Santa Marta
Santa Marta is the capital city of the Colombian department of Magdalena in the Caribbean Region. It was founded in July 29, 1525 by the Spanish conqueror Rodrigo de Bastidas, which makes it the oldest remaining city in Colombia...
on July 23, the Spanish expeditionary forces besieged Cartagena
Cartagena, Colombia
Cartagena de Indias , is a large Caribbean beach resort city on the northern coast of Colombia in the Caribbean Coast Region and capital of Bolívar Department...
. After a five-month siege
Siege
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...
the fortified city fell on December 1815. By 1816, the combined efforts of Spanish and colonial forces, marching south from Cartagena and north from royalist strongholds in Quito
Quito
San Francisco de Quito, most often called Quito , is the capital city of Ecuador in northwestern South America. It is located in north-central Ecuador in the Guayllabamba river basin, on the eastern slopes of Pichincha, an active stratovolcano in the Andes mountains...
, Pasto
Pasto
Pasto, officially San Juan de Pasto, is the capital of the department of Nariño, located in southwest Colombia. The city is located in the "Atriz Valley", on the Andes cordillera, at the foot of the Galeras volcano, at an altitude of 8,290 feet above sea level...
, and Popayán
Popayán
Popayán is the capital of the Colombian department of Cauca. It is located in southwestern Colombia between Colombia's Western Mountain Range and Central Mountain Range...
, completed the reconquest of New Granada, taking Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
on May 6, 1816. A permanent council of war was set up to judge those accused of treason and rebellion, resulting in the execution of more than a hundred notable republican officials, including Jorge Tadeo Lozano
Jorge Tadeo Lozano
Jorge Tadeo Lozano, Viscount of Pastrana was a Neogranadine scientist, journalist, and politician who presided over the Constituent College of Cundinamarca and was elected President of Cundinamarca in 1811....
, Francisco José de Caldas
Francisco José de Caldas
Francisco José de Caldas was a Colombian lawyer, naturalist, and geographer who died a martyr by orders of Pablo Morillo during the Reconquista for being a precursor of the Independence of New Granada ....
and José María Cabal. Units of the republican armies of New Granada were incorporated into the royalist army and sent to Peru.
Patriot reactions
On learning of the arrival of the expeditionary force, republican leaders assumed various positions. Internal divisions, which had developed during the previous years of struggle, softened but still remained a considerable obstacle. In the end, they prevented a coordinated effort by the different factions, although there were some attempts to do so, such as under the United Provinces of New GranadaUnited Provinces of New Granada
The United Provinces of New Granada was a country in South America from 1811 to 1816, a period known in Colombian history as the Patria Boba. It was formed from areas of the New Kingdom of Granada. The government was a federation with a parliamentary system, consisting of a weak executive and...
. One significant factor in the disunity was that representatives of Great Britain and of the United States refused to grant political recognition and would not commit the sufficient amount of economic and military aid to successfully resist Morillo's force. In addition, the provinces themselves did not give each other much needed aid. Finally, several notable individuals, whose leadership would have been useful, decided to exile themselves, although other republican leaders did remain in the region and tried to reorganize it military and political activities in order to face the new threat.
As a result of the internal conflicts in New Granada, Simón Bolívar, who had been acting under the authority of the United Provinces, left his command on May 8, 1815, after failing to subdue Cartagena in March in retaliation for its refusal to give him arms and men. Bolívar traveled to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
and later Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, a small republic that had freed itself from French rule, where he and other independence leaders were given a friendly reception. Eventually, the growing exile community received money, volunteers and weapons from the Haitian president Alexandre Pétion
Alexandre Pétion
Alexandre Sabès Pétion was President of the Republic of Haiti from 1806 until his death. He is considered as one of Haiti's founding fathers, together with Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and his rival Henri Christophe.-Early life:Pétion was born in Port-au-Prince to a Haitian...
, and resumed the struggle for independence in the remote border areas of both New Granada and Venezuela, where they established irregular guerrilla bands
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
with the locals. This formed the basis from which the struggle to establish republics successfully spread towards the other areas of South America under Spanish control.
See also
- Patria BobaPatria BobaThe period between 1810 and 1816 in the New Kingdom of Granada was marked by such intense conflicts over the nature of the new government or governments that it became known as la Patria Boba . Constant fighting between federalists and centralists gave rise to a prolonged period of instability...
- Reconquista (Spanish America)Reconquista (Spanish America)In colonial Spanish America, the Reconquista refers to the period following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 during which royalist armies were able to gain the upper hand in the Spanish American wars of independence...
- History of ColombiaHistory of ColombiaThis article deals with the history of Colombia, a country in South America.-Pre-Colombian period:Approximately 10,000 years BC hunter-gatherer societies existed near present-day Bogotá , and they traded with one another and with cultures living in the Magdalena River valley...