Latin American Independence, 1808–1826: Who Won Freedom?

Three centuries of colonial rule

By 1800, Spain ruled a huge empire from California to Patagonia, and Portugal ruled Brazil. Colonial society was ranked by birth and race. Spanish-born peninsulares held the top offices in the church, army and government. American-born criollos were often rich landowners and merchants, but resented being shut out of power. Below them were people of mixed descent, the many Indigenous nations who were often the majority, and enslaved Africans and their descendants, especially in Brazil, Venezuela and the Caribbean.

Long-term causes

• Creole resentment. From the 1760s, Spain's Bourbon reforms raised taxes and gave more offices to peninsulares, angering criollos.
• Ideas. Criollo elites read Enlightenment writers and knew about the American, French and Haitian revolutions. But Haiti also frightened many criollos, who feared a revolt by the enslaved or Indigenous majority.
• Earlier resistance. Indigenous and mestizo people had already risen against colonial abuses, most famously in the Andean rebellion of Túpac Amaru II (1780–1781), which was crushed.
• Trade. Spain limited colonial trade; many creoles wanted to trade freely, especially with Britain.

The trigger: 1808

When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808 and forced the Spanish king to give up his throne, the colonies faced a question: who rules now? Many cities formed juntas that claimed to govern in the name of the captured king. Over time, many of them moved from self-rule toward full independence.

Mexico: from a people's revolt to a conservative independence

On 16 September 1810, the priest Miguel Hidalgo called on the people of Dolores to rise up (the Grito de Dolores, now Mexico's Independence Day). Tens of thousands of Indigenous and mestizo peasants joined him. Their attacks on Spaniards and property frightened many criollos, who sided with Spain. Hidalgo was captured and executed in 1811.

Another priest, José María Morelos, continued the fight with a more organized army and a programme that called for independence, the end of slavery and the end of legal caste distinctions. He was executed in 1815.

Independence finally came in 1821, led by a former royalist officer, Agustín de Iturbide, whose Plan of Iguala promised independence, the Catholic religion and equality between Spaniards and creoles. Conservative creoles supported it because it protected their position. Iturbide briefly made himself emperor. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829.

South America: Bolívar and San Martín

Simón Bolívar, a wealthy creole from Caracas, led the struggle in the north. After early defeats, he found refuge and help in Haiti (1815–1816), where President Pétion asked him to free the enslaved. Bolívar promised freedom to enslaved men who joined his army, though full abolition came decades later in the countries he liberated. In 1819 he led his army across the Andes and won the Battle of Boyacá, then created Gran Colombia.

José de San Martín led the struggle in the south. Argentina (the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata) declared independence in 1816. San Martín crossed the Andes into Chile in 1817 and, with Bernardo O'Higgins, secured Chilean independence in 1818. He entered Lima and declared Peru independent in 1821.

Bolívar's general Antonio José de Sucre won the last major battle against Spain at Ayacucho in Peru in 1824. Upper Peru became the Republic of Bolivia, named after Bolívar.

Independence armies depended on Indigenous, mestizo and Afro-descendant soldiers, including the cattle-herding llaneros of Venezuela. Women fought and organized too: Juana Azurduy led guerrilla forces in Upper Peru, and Manuela Sáenz was an activist and Bolívar's close ally.

Brazil: independence with an emperor

Brazil took a different path. When Napoleon invaded Portugal, the Portuguese royal family fled to Rio de Janeiro (1808), which became the capital of the empire. When King João VI returned to Portugal in 1821, his son Pedro stayed. In 1822 Pedro declared Brazil independent and became Emperor Pedro I. Independence came with relatively little war, and Brazil stayed a monarchy until 1889. It kept slavery until 1888, the last country in the Americas to abolish it.

What changed, and for whom?

• Criollos gained the most: they replaced peninsulares at the top.
• Indigenous peoples were often declared equal citizens and freed from colonial tribute, but many lost communal lands as new liberal laws favoured private property.
• Enslaved people won freedom in some places through military service or early abolition laws (Chile in 1823, Mexico in 1829), but slavery lasted until the 1850s in several republics, and until 1888 in Brazil.
• Politics was unstable. Bolívar's dream of a united South America failed; Gran Colombia split apart by 1831. In many states, caudillos took power by force.
• Economics: the wars left heavy debts, often to British bankers. Britain became the main trading partner, a kind of informal empire.

Historians debate whether these were real revolutions (deep social change) or wars of independence (a change of rulers at the top). The evidence suggests mostly the second, with important exceptions.