Reconquista (Spanish America)
The term used in the past century by some Colombian and Chilean historians makes an analogy to the medieval Reconquista, in which Christian forces retook the Iberian Peninsula from the Caliphate.
During Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, a number of Spanish colonies in the Americas moved for greater autonomy or outright independence due to the political instability in Spain, which was eventually (1810) governed by the Cortes of Cádiz – which served as a democratic Regency after Ferdinand VII was deposed.
After French forces left Spain in 1814, the restored Ferdinand VII, declared these developments in the Americas illegal, abolished the Spanish Constitution of 1812 passed by the Cortes of Cádiz, then sent expeditionary armies to quell the remaining rebellions.
[1] 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, Central America, the Caribbean, Quito (today Ecuador), Peru, Upper Peru (today, Bolivia) and Chile.
To pacify Venezuela and to retake New Granada, Spain organized and sent in 1815 the largest armed force it ever sent to the New World, consisting of approximately 10,000 troops and nearly sixty ships under the command of general Pablo Morillo.
After leaving the island, Morillo's troops reinforced existing royalist forces in the Venezuelan mainland, entering Cumaná, La Guaira, Caracas, and Puerto Cabello in May.
By May 6, 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.
In August 1814 the Queen's Talavera Regiment, a unit which had fought in the Peninsular War, arrived in Talcahuano, a royalist bastion in Chile under the command of Brigadier Mariano Osorio, who was also the newly appointed governor.
A member of the Talavera Regiment, Vicente San Bruno was put in charge of carrying out the orders to arrest civilians suspected of having helped or sympathised with the patriots.
Far from pacifying the patriots, these actions served to incite them to the military solution, and soon even moderates, who had previously envisioned a negotiation with the Spanish crown, concluded that war of independence was the only way to guarantee their newfound freedoms.
Haitian president Alexandre Pétion gave the exiles military and monetary aid, which allowed them to resume the struggle for independence in conjunction with the patriots who had organized the Llaneros into guerrilla bands.
The black people, slave and freemen, recruits from Mendoza and Buenos Aires was the nucleus of the Army of the Andes, which received crucial political and material support in 1816 when Juan Martín de Pueyrredón became Supreme Director of the United Provinces.
From June to July 1819, using the rainy season as cover, Bolívar led an army composed mostly of Llaneros and British Legions over the cold, forbidding passes of the Andes, but the gamble paid off.
