The Guayaquil Conference

REVOLUTIONS IN LATIN AMERICA HIST 1301 | History The Guayaquil Conference The capital city of Lima was the focus of the convergence of the southern and northern elements of the South American independence movements under the strongly royalist Viceroyalty of Peru. Two streams of revolutionary forces emerged from the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the north, commanded by Bolívar, and the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata and the newly established Republic of Chile in the south, led by San Martín. In 1820, San Martín left Chile accompanied by soldiers on land and sailors aboard ships. Thomas Cochrane, a mercenary and former naval commander from Scotland, who had joined the South American patriots in their independence movement on their own volition, provided him with support. In September 1820, San Martín arrived on the coast of Peru, the home of royalists, and started a naval attack on the city. Even though the royalists still controlled the highlands, his entrance sparked a rebellion along the coast, and he steadily increased his territory until he took control of Lima city. The city's Peruvian creoles were compelled to formally declare their independence and acknowledge San Martín as Peru's protector on July 28, 1821. San Martín ruled Lima militarily and civilly at this point, but the huge Peruvian hinterland was still under the hands of royalist soldiers, and the people living in the capital considered him and his army as alien invaders. After freeing Bogotá in 1819, Bolívar and his troops proceeded to Ecuador. Rivals for leadership of the independence movement, Bolívar and San Martín, saw little progress against the surviving royalists and agreed to meet in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Bolívar took control of Guayaquil's important port and naval base in 1821, and he invaded Quito in 1822 to proclaim Ecuador's independence. San Martín sailed for Guayaquil in July 1822, intending to persuade the merchants of the port city to join forces with Lima. But Bolívar had come sooner and urged his supporters in Guayaquil to join Colombia. The ownership of the city was no longer on their agenda when San Martín arrived. Seemingly disheartened, San Martín met in private with Bolívar. Although the discussions were held in secrecy, San Martín ultimately chose to hand over the finishing touches to Bolívar for the emancipation of South America. San Martín left the independence movement soon after and went into self-imposed exile in Europe, never to return. After taking control of Lima in 1823, Bolívar was declared dictator of Peru by the Peruvian legislature in February 1824. In August 1824, he emerged victorious over Spanish forces in the Battle of Junín, and his capable chief of staff, Antonio José de Sucre, beat a considerably larger Spanish force in the Battle of Ayacucho in December 1824. Royalist forces in Upper Peru (renamed Bolivia in honour of El Libertador) received a general amnesty in 1825 after being defeated by Sucre. Bolívar and San Martín both showed a continental perspective and supported strong alliances among the newly independent countries, with reference to South American states' standing in the wider geopolitical arena. San Martín and the conservatives in Mexico agreed that the British constitutional monarchy was admirable, but Bolívar disapproved of the king's mystical persona and thought the republican system offered the greatest assurance of stability. Gran Colombia was the first country in Spanish America to be granted diplomatic recognition by the US in 1822. The United States was concerned that European nations would not utilise the independence wars in Latin America as a pretext to meddle in the Western Hemisphere. The security and trade of the new country would both be at risk from such a move. Following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Austria, Prussia, and Russia established the Holy Alliance. Its goal was to prevent revolutions like the one that had swept through France in order to save European empires. The Holy Alliance proclaimed its right to get involved in uprisings that posed a challenge to the authority of European monarchs during conferences held in 1820 and 1821. And in 1820–1821, Austrian forces invaded Naples and put down an uprising. The Holy Alliance agreed to support France's Louis XVIII's invasion of Spain in 1822 with the goal of ending the Spanish revolutionary movement and bringing Fernando VII back to the throne, even though they had not intervened in 1820 to support Fernando VII when Spanish liberals had forced him to reinstate the Constitution of 1812. The Holy Alliance members also planned to assert Fernando VII's authority over his American territories who were in rebellion. Both the United States and Britain, which maintained substantial commerce with Latin America, were against this kind of interference. In a joint statement, the foreign minister of Britain suggested that the US join Britain in cautioning France and the Holy Alliance against forcing their will on the former Spanish colonies. But rather than letting the British take the lead, U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams thought it would be "more candid as well as more dignified" for the fledgling nation "to avow our principles explicitly." As a result, in 1823, Adams established the Monroe Doctrine, a tenet of American foreign policy cautioning European powers against meddling in the affairs of sovereign states in the Western Hemisphere, with the reluctant assent of President James Monroe. Bolívar was pleased with the help he received from the United States but placed greater faith in British might to prevent Spain from regaining its American possessions, and he did not consider the Monroe Doctrine to be very important. Gran Colombia was formally recognised by both the United States and Great Britain in 1824 after its delegates secured a sizeable loan from the London financial market. Bolívar called the Congress of Panama in 1826 in order to forge a lasting alliance, establish cooperative programmes, and deepen the bonds of brotherhood among the recently independent countries of former Spanish America. Brazil, Haiti, and the United States were conspicuously missing. The new countries' internal instability, however, posed the biggest challenge. The Spanish American uprisings left behind a mixed legacy. Despite the independence of the new countries from Spain, colonial social structures continued. The enslaved Africans, Indigenous communities, mestizos, pardos, and White people subsequently turned them into a social battle. Provinces engaged in conflict with one another, and popular armies faced civil battles over a new postcolonial order following their victory against royalist troops. Bolívar, San Martín, and other Creole leaders were not the sole heirs to freedom. The primary postcolonial leaders were the indigenous military chieftains, who frequently formed partnerships with affluent Creole landowners in order to maintain their dominance.