page_title: Spanish American wars of independence
section_title: South America
hierarchical_section_title: Spanish American wars of independence / Military Campaigns / Independence consolidated, 1820–33 / South America
caption_attribution_description: batalla del lago de maracaibo
context_page_description: The Spanish American wars of independence were the numerous wars against Spanish rule in Spanish America during the early 19th century. With the aim of political independence, these began shortly after the French invasion of Spain in 1807 during Europe's Napoleonic Wars. Although there has been research on the idea of a separate Spanish American identity separate from that of Iberia, political independence was not initially the aim of most Spanish Americans, nor was it necessarily inevitable. With the restoration of Ferdinand VII in 1814, the King rejected any type of popular sovereignty, as seen in the Spanish Constitution of 1812 passed by the Cortes of Cádiz – the parliamentary Regency in place while Ferdinand VII was deposed. The Liberal Triennium of 1820 also did not change the position of the Cádiz constitution against separatism, while Latin Americans were increasingly radicalized seeking political independence.
  The violent conflicts started in 1809 with short-lived governing juntas established in Chuquisaca and Quito in opposing the government of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville.
context_section_description: Unlike in New Spain and Central America, in South America independence was spurred by the pro-independence fighters who had held out for the past half decade. José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar inadvertently led a continent-wide pincer movement from southern and northern South America that liberated most of the Spanish American nations on that continent. After securing the independence of Chile in 1818, San Martín concentrated on building a naval fleet in the Pacific to counter Spanish control of those waters and reach the royalist stronghold of Lima. By mid-1820 San Martín had assembled a fleet of eight warships and sixteen transport ships under the command of Admiral Cochrane. The fleet set sail from Valparaíso to Paracas in southern Peru. On September 7, the army landed at Paracas and successfully took Pisco. After this, San Martín, waiting for a generalized Peruvian revolt, chose to avoid direct military confrontation. San Martín hoped that his presence would initiate an authentic Peruvian revolt against Spanish rule, believing that otherwise any liberation would be ephemeral. In the meantime, San Martín engaged in diplomacy with Viceroy Joaquín de la Pezuela, who was under orders from the constitutional government to negotiate on the basis of the 1812 Constitution and to maintain the unity of the Spanish Monarchy. However, these efforts proved fruitless, since independence and unity of the monarchy could not be reconciled, so the army sailed in late October to a better strategic position in Huacho, in northern Peru. During the next few months, successful land and naval campaigns against the royalists secured the new foothold, and it was at Huacho that San Martín learned that Guayaquil (in Ecuador) had declared independence on October 9.
  Bolívar, learning about the collapse of the Cádiz expedition, spent the year 1820 preparing a liberating campaign in Venezuela. Bolívar was aided by Spain's new policy of seeking engagement with the insurgents, which Morillo implemented, renouncing to the command in chief, and returning to Spain. Although Bolívar rejected the Spanish proposal that the patriots rejoin Spain under the Spanish Constitution, the two sides established a six-month truce and the regularization of the rules of engagement under the law of nations on November 25 and 26. The truce did not last six months. It was apparent to all that the royalist cause had been greatly weakened by the lack of reinforcements. Royalist soldiers and whole units began to desert or defect to the patriots in large numbers. On January 28, 1821, the ayuntamiento of Maracaibo declared the province an independent republic that chose to join the new nation-state of Gran Colombia. Miguel de la Torre, who had replaced Morillo as head of the army, took this to be a violation of the truce, and although the republicans argued that Maracaibo had switched sides of its own volition, both sides began to prepare for renewed war. The fate of Venezuela was sealed when Bolívar returned there in April leading an army of 7,000 from New Granada. At the Battle of Carabobo on June 24, the Gran Colombian forces decisively defeated the royalist forces, assuring control of Venezuela save for Puerto Cabello and guaranteeing Venezuelan independence. Bolívar could now concentrate on Gran Colombia's claims to southern New Granada and Quito.
  In Peru, on January 29, 1821, Viceroy Pezuela was deposed in a coup d'état by José de la Serna, but it would be two months before San Martín moved his army closer to Lima by sailing it to Ancón. During the next few months San Martín once again engaged in negotiations, offering the creation of an independent monarchy; but La Serna insisted on the unity of the Spanish monarchy, so the negotiations came to nothing. By July La Serna judged his hold on Lima to be weak, and on July 8 the royal army abandoned the coastal city in order to reinforce positions in the highlands, with Cuzco as new capital of the viceroyalty. On the 12th San Martín entered Lima, where he was declared "Protector of the Country" on July 28, an office which 
caption: Battle of Lake Maracaibo in 1823 resulted in the final expulsion of the Spanish from Gran Colombia
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