In 1808, the Spanish King Ferdinand VII had been imprisoned by the Napoleonic Empire and subsequently replaced by Joseph Bonaparte. The Seven-Part Code recognized the right of "good and honest" persons to form Juntas in absence of the king. In Spain, resistant governing juntas were formed, claiming sovereignty in the absence of the legitimate King. Following the 1810 disbanding of the central governing Supreme Central and Governing Junta of the Kingdom, Spanish American peoples assumed, in turn, their right to appoint new local authorities, and recovered the tradition of the open cabildos. But the Seven-Part Code implied that the territory was still under the sovereignty of the King and that the Juntas were only a temporary fix. The principle of retroversion of sovereignty added the twist that, in such a case, sovereignty would return to the peoples, who would have a right to reject the authority of the king and appoint new authorities.