Reconquista (Spanish America) - Reverses

Reverses

Far from pacifying the patriots, these actions served to incite them, and soon even moderates, who had previously envisioned a reconciliation with the Spanish crown, concluded that independence was the only way to guarantee their newfound freedoms. In New Granada, patriots reacted to the expeditionary force with disunity, aiding Morillo's advance. Several Neogranadine and Venezuelan exiles fled to Haiti, where they were well received. Others fled to the Llanos, where they were out of reach of Morillo's forces. 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. Chilean patriots who escaped the royalist reprisals fled to Mendoza, an Argentine Andean province under patriot control, where they reorganized themselves under José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins. While they prepared to invade Chile, San Martín and O'Higgins initiated a guerrilla campaign under Manuel Rodríguez to keep the royalist forces off balance. Both of these sets of exiles from northern and southern South America formed the basis of what would become the armies that successfully established republics in all of the regions of the continent controlled by the Spanish.

Towards the end of this period the pro-independence forces made two important advances that ultimately led to the continental-wide pincer movement from southern and northern South America that liberated most of the Spanish American nations on that continent by 1825. In the Southern Cone, San Martín as the governor of Cuyo, had been organizing an army as early as 1814 in preparation for an invasion of Chile. This became 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 January to February 1817, San Martín led the Army over the Andes in an audacious move that turned the tables on the royalists in Chile. By February 10, San Martín had control of northern and central Chile, and a year later had control of the south. Chile was secured from royalist control and independence was declared in 1818. San Martín and his allies spent the next two years planning an invasion of Peru, which began in 1820.

In northern South America, Simón Bolívar devised a similar plan to liberate New Granada from the royalists. Like San Martín, Bolívar personally undertook the efforts to create an army to invade a neighboring country and collaborated with pro-independence exiles from that region. Unlike San Martín, Bolívar did not have the approval of the Venezuelan congress. From June to July 1819, using the rainy season as cover, Bolívar led an army composed mostly of Llaneros over the cold, forbidding passes of the Andes, but the gamble paid off. By August Bolívar was in control of Bogotá and gained the support of New Granada, which still resented the harsh reconquest carried out under Morillo. With the resources of New Granada, Bolívar became the undisputed leader of the patriots in Venezuela and orchestrated the union of the two regions in a new state, Gran Colombia.