Spanish American independence movements begin
- Date
- 1810
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Spanish America (Latin America)
- Era
- Modern
- Significance
Napoleon's 1808 invasion of Spain, the forced abdication of Ferdinand VII and the installation of Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne triggered a crisis of legitimacy across Spain's American colonies.
With the mother country occupied, colonial elites questioned who legitimately held authority, and in 1810 a wave of autonomist juntas and revolts swept the continent. A provisional governing junta was established in Buenos Aires on 25 May, another in Bogotá on 20 July, and on 16 September the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla launched the Mexican struggle with his 'Cry of Dolores'. Around the same time Simón Bolívar emerged as a leader of the Venezuelan cause. Though many early juntas initially proclaimed loyalty to the deposed king, they set in motion the Spanish American wars of independence that, over the following decade and a half, would dismantle Spain's vast continental empire and give rise to the new republics of Latin America, a transformation directly rooted in the Napoleonic upheaval in Europe.
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Empires active in 1810
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Britain abolishes the transatlantic slave trade25 March 1807
- Congress of Vienna and the Concert of EuropeSeptember 1814 – June 1815
- The Slavery Abolition Act ends slavery across the British Empire28 August 1833 (in force 1 August 1834)
- The Revolutions of 1848 (the Springtime of Peoples)1848–1849
- Commodore Perry forces the opening of Japan1853–1854 (Treaty of Kanagawa, 31 March 1854)
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the birth of the British Raj1857–1858 (rebellion); Government of India Act 2 August 1858
Further reading
The wider story
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire
Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.
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