Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros
Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros y de la Torre was a Spanish naval officer born in Cartagena. He took part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent and the Battle of Trafalgar, in the Spanish resistance against Napoleon's invasion in 1808, he was appointed Viceroy of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, replacing Santiago de Liniers. He disestablished the government Junta of Javier de Elío and quelled the Chuquisaca Revolution and the La Paz revolution. An open cabildo deposed him as viceroy during the May Revolution, but he attempted to be the president of the new government junta, thus retaining power; the popular unrest in Buenos Aires did not allow that, so he resigned. He was banished back to Spain shortly after that, died in 1829. Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros was born on January 6, 1756, the religious feast of Epiphany day, Hence he was named Baltasar after one of the Biblical Magi. Son of Francisco Hidalgo de Cisneros y Seijas, lieutenant of the Spanish Royal Navy, Manuela de la Torre y Galindo de Espinosa.
He commenced his naval career in 1770 and went to the coasts of Africa and Peru and took part in the military campaign at Algiers. He was involved in the capture of an enemy ship in the English Channel, was promoted to ship's lieutenant. In 1795 he was promoted to commander of the San Pablo, part of the Spanish fleet under José de Córdoba y Ramos. Spain at that time was engaged in the Anglo-Spanish War; the fleet was defeated in the Battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1803 he was in charge of the arsenal of his city of birth. In 1805 he was the captain of the largest Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad during the battle of Trafalgar, a major British victory over the combined Spanish and French fleets; the ship, whilst engaged in battle, lost a mast. This caused concussion, which left him deaf for the rest of his life. After the incident, Hidalgo de Cisneros was nicknamed "El sordo", his ship, regarded as one of the most powerful of its time, was captured by HMS Neptune but sank the following day.
Cisneros received medical care. Whilst under capture he was awarded battle honours and on returning to Spain he was promoted to lieutenant general. After recovering from his wounds, Hidalgo de Cisneros received further promotion and served as vice-president of the governing council of Cartagena; the superior Junta of Seville resolved to end the insurrection in the Río de la Plata, sending Cisneros to replace the viceroy Santiago de Liniers. The Junta regarded Liniers as a rebel with Bonapartist sympathies known in Spanish as an afrancesado; the mutiny of Álzaga, a failed coup by conservative peninsulars against Liniers, supported by the emerging local bourgeois, was regarded as rebellion by Liniers, influenced by French ideas but, not a Napoleonic agent. The Junta gave Hidalgo de Cisneros orders to land in Montevideo, raise armies against Liniers, prosecute him with court-martial and return him under guard to Spain and to dissolve the local criollo militia. Cisneros had orders to seek and punish Napoleonic sympathisers.
The Junta created a political office to conduct direct foreign relations with colonial Brazil, to reign in the autonomy being exercised by the viceroy, seen as insubordinate and secessionist. He arrived in Montevideo in June 1809. Manuel Belgrano proposed Liniers to resist his removal and to reject the appointment of Cisneros, on the grounds that Liniers had been confirmed as Viceroy by the authority of a Spanish king, while Cisneros would lack such legitimacy. Liniers accepted to give up his government to Cisneros without resistance. Noticing that Liniers was not the rebel governor that the Junta thought, he authorized him to stay in the Viceroyalty. Javier de Elío accepted as well the authority of the new Viceroy and dissolved the Junta of Montevideo, becoming once again the Governor of the city. Cisneros tried to take a conciliating policy with the many conflicting political groups, he kept the criollo militias, granted their commanders to achieve veteran status, which so far was only allowed to peninsular military.
He rearmed back the Spanish militias. He pardoned the responsibles. However, the attempts to please the criollos found resistance from the Junta, which did not approve the request to promote Cornelio Saavedra to colonel rank, he tried to stay in good relations with the British and the landowners by removing the laws that forbid free trade, but retailers forced Cisneros to restore such laws. Mariano Moreno, a criollo lawyer, wrote a document to request Cisneros the reopening of free trade, entitled "The Representation of the Landowners", it is considered the most comprehensive economic report of the time. Cisneros decided to grant an extension of free trade, which would end on May 19, 1810. On May 25, 1809, a revolution in Chuquisaca deposed the governor and president of the Royal Audiencia of Charcas, Ramón García de León y Pizarro, accused him of supporting a Portuguese protectorate under the authority of Charlotte Joaquina. Military command fell to Colonel Juan Antonio Alvarez de Arenales who, due to uncertainty as to who should be in charge of the civilian affairs exercised some civil powers.
On July 16, in the city of La Paz, a second revolutionary movement led by Colonel Pedro Domingo Murillo forced the governor to resign and replaced him with a Junta, the "Junta Tuitiva de los Derechos del Pueblo", headed by Murillo. A quick reaction from the Spanish officials soon defeated these rebellions. An army
Argentine War of Independence
The Argentine War of Independence was fought from 1810 to 1818 by Argentine patriotic forces under Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli and José de San Martín against royalist forces loyal to the Spanish crown. On July 9, 1816, an assembly met in San Miguel de Tucumán, declared full independence with provisions for a national constitution; the territory of modern Argentina was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, with its capital city in Buenos Aires, seat of government of the Spanish viceroy. Modern Uruguay and Bolivia were part of the viceroyalty, began their push for autonomy during the conflict, becoming independent states afterwards; the vast area of the territory and slow communications led most populated areas to become isolated from each other. The wealthiest regions of the viceroyalty were in Upper Peru. Salta and Córdoba had closer ties with Upper Peru than with Buenos Aires. Mendoza in the west had closer ties with the Captaincy General of Chile, although the Andes mountain range was a natural barrier.
Buenos Aires and Montevideo, who had a local rivalry, located in the La Plata Basin, had naval communications allowing them to be more in contact with European ideas and economic advances than the inland populations. Paraguay was isolated from all other regions. In the political structure most authoritative positions were filled by people designated by the Spanish monarchy, most of them Spanish people from Europe known as peninsulares, without strong compromises for American problems or interests; this created a growing rivalry between the Criollos, white people born in Latin America, the peninsulares, Spanish people who arrived from Europe. Despite the fact that all of them were considered Spanish, that there was no legal distinction between Criollos and Peninsulares, most Criollos thought that Peninsulares had undue weight in political matters; the ideas of the American and French Revolutions, the Age of Enlightenment, promoted desires of social change among the criollos. The full prohibition imposed by Spain to trade with other nations was seen as damaging to the viceroyalty's economy.
The population of Buenos Aires was militarized during the British invasions of the Río de la Plata, part of the Anglo-Spanish War. Buenos Aires was captured in 1806, liberated by Santiago de Liniers with forces from Montevideo. Fearing a counter-attack, all the population of Buenos Aires capable of bearing arms was arranged in military bodies, including slaves. A new British attack in 1807 captured Montevideo, but was defeated in Buenos Aires, forced to leave the viceroyalty; the viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte was deposed by the criollos during the conflict, the Regiment of Patricians became a influential force in local politics after the end of the British threat. The transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil generated military concern, it was feared that the British would launch a third attack, this time allied with Portugal. However, no military conflict took place, as when the Peninsular War started Britain and Portugal became allies of Spain against France; when the Spanish king Ferdinand VII was captured, his sister Carlota Joaquina sought to rule in the Americas as regent, but nothing came out of it because of the lack of support from both the Spanish Americans and the British.
Javier de Elío created a Junta in Montevideo and Martín de Álzaga sought to make a similar move by organizing a mutiny in Buenos Aires, but the local military forces intervened and thwarted it. Spain appointed a new viceroy, Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, Liniers handed the government to him without resistance, despite the proposals of the military to reject him; the military conflict in Spain worsened by 1810. The city of Seville had been invaded by French armies, which were dominating most of the Iberian Peninsula; the Junta of Seville was disestablished, several members fled to Cádiz, the last portion of Spain still resisting. They established a Council of Regency, with political tendencies closer to absolutism than the former Junta; this began the May Revolution in Buenos Aires, as soon. Several citizens thought that Cisneros, appointed by the disestablished Junta, did not have the right to rule anymore, requested the convening of an open cabildo to discuss the fate of the local government.
The military gave their support to the request. The discussion ruled the removal of viceroy Cisneros and his replacement with a government junta, but the cabildo attempted to keep Cisneros in power by appointing him president of such junta. Further demonstrations ensued, the Junta was forced to resign immediately, it was replaced by the Primera Junta. Buenos Aires requested the other cities in the viceroyalty to acknowledge the new Junta and send deputies; the precise purpose of these deputies, join the Junta or create a congress, was unclear at the time and generated political disputes later. The Junta was resisted by all the main locations around Buenos Aires: Córdoba, Montevideo and the Upper Peru. Santiago de Liniers came out of his retirement in Córdoba and organized an army to capture Buenos Aires, Montevideo had naval supremacy over the city, Vicente Nieto organized the actions at the Upper Peru. Nieto proposed to José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa, viceroy of the Viceroyalty of Peru at the North, to annex the Upper Peru to it.
He thought that the revolution could be contained in Buenos Aires, before launching a definitive attack. Buenos Aires was declared a rogue city by the Council of Regency, which appointed Montevideo as capital of the viceroyalty
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, the "Century of Philosophy". Some consider Descartes' 1637 statement "I think" to have sparked the period. Others cite the publication of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. French historians traditionally date the Enlightenment from 1715 to 1789, from the beginning of the reign of Louis XV until the French Revolution. Most end it with the turn of the 19th century. Philosophers and scientists of the period circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffeehouses and in printed books and pamphlets; the ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church and paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage to the Enlightenment; the Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on reason as the primary source of knowledge and advanced ideals such as liberty, toleration, constitutional government and separation of church and state.
In France, the central doctrines of the Enlightenment philosophers were individual liberty and religious tolerance, in opposition to an absolute monarchy and the fixed dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The Enlightenment was marked by an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy—an attitude captured by the phrase Sapere aude; the Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and associated with the scientific revolution. Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Bacon, Descartes and Spinoza; the major figures of the Enlightenment included Beccaria, Hume, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Voltaire. Some European rulers, including Catherine II of Russia, Joseph II of Austria and Frederick II of Prussia, tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism. Benjamin Franklin visited Europe and contributed to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia.
Thomas Jefferson followed European ideas and incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence. One of his peers, James Madison, incorporated these ideals into the United States Constitution during its framing in 1787; the most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie. Published between 1751 and 1772 in thirty-five volumes, it was compiled by Diderot, d'Alembert and a team of 150 scientists and philosophers, it helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment across Europe and beyond. Other landmark publications were Voltaire's Dictionnaire Letters on the English; the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by the intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes' rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking, his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter.
His skepticism was refined by John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and David Hume's writings in the 1740s. His dualism was challenged by Spinoza's uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics; these laid down two distinct lines of Enlightenment thought: first, the moderate variety, following Descartes and Christian Wolff, which sought accommodation between reform and the traditional systems of power and faith, second, the radical enlightenment, inspired by the philosophy of Spinoza, advocating democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression and eradication of religious authority. The moderate variety tended to be deistic, whereas the radical tendency separated the basis of morality from theology. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment, which sought a return to faith. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines and dogmas.
The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason as in ancient Greece rather than faith and Catholic doctrine, for a new civil order based on natural law, for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept, enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. While the Philosophes of the French Enlightenment were not revolutionaries and many were members of the nobility, their ideas played an important part in undermining the legitimacy of the Old Regime and shaping the French Revolution. Francis Hutcheson, a moral philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers". Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method
History of Paraguay
The history of Paraguay is a result of development and interaction of varying cultures of indigenous peoples in Paraguay and overseas immigrants who together have created the modern-day Paraguay. Paraguay celebrates Independence Day on May 15, from 1811 to now. William E. Barrett wrote: "Paraguay is the country of prophecy. One of the two smallest nations on the American continent, it was the first American communistic state, the first American nation to be governed by an absolute dictator." The first Spaniards reached this territory in early 16th century as part of colonial expeditions that created the global Spanish Empire. They were predominantly young men, as no European women participated in these expeditions, they intermarried with native women, resulting in a mixed and Creole population. Their children spoke the languages of their indigenous mothers but were raised in the Catholic Spanish culture. Paraguay's colonial history was one of general calm punctuated by turbulent political events.
On May 14/15, 1811 Paraguay declared its independence from Spain. Since the country has had a history of dictatorial governments, from the Utopian regime of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia to the suicidal reign of Francisco Solano López, who nearly destroyed the country in warfare against the combined forces of Brazil and Uruguay from 1865 through 1870; the Paraguayan War ended with massive population losses in Paraguay, cessions of extensive territories to Argentina and Brazil. The post-war nation formed a two-party political system which came to be dominated by the Colorado party and only has changed into a multiparty system. Following the period of political turmoil during the first three decades of the 20th century, Paraguay went to Chaco War with Bolivia over the control of the Chaco region. From 1932 to 1935 there were 30,000 Paraguayans and 65,000 Bolivians casualties in the war. From 1870 to 1954, Paraguay was ruled by 44 different men, 24 of whom were forced from office in military coups.
In 1954, General Alfredo Stroessner came to power and with the help of Colorado Party ruled until 1989. Although there is little ethnic strife in Paraguay to impede social and economic progress, there is the social conflict caused by underemployment and the enormous economic inequality between the rich and the poor, who are rural inhabitants. Positive steps to correct these inequities have occurred since 1989 ousting of Stroessner, the occupation by the poor of hundreds of thousands of acres of land, which they claimed for subsistence farming; the country's political system is moving toward a functioning democracy. However, the tradition of political hierarchical organizational structures and generous rewarding of political favors prevails; the eastern part of present-day Paraguay was occupied by Guaraní peoples for at least 1,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Evidence indicates that these indigenous Americans developed a sophisticated semi-nomadic culture characterized by numerous tribes, divided by language, who each occupied several independent multi-village communities.
The Guaraní, the Cario, Tapé, Guarajo, Tupí, related subgroups, were generous people who inhabited an immense area stretching from the Guyana Highlands in Brazil to the Río Uruguay. The Guaraní were surrounded by hostile tribes, were at war, they believed that permanent wives were inappropriate for warriors, so their marital relations were loose. Some tribes practiced polygamy intended to increase the number of children. Chiefs had twenty or thirty concubines, whom they shared with visitors, yet they treated their wives well. At the same time, they punished adulterers with death. Like the area's other tribes, the Guaraní were cannibals; as part of a war ritual, they ate their most valiant foes captured in battle in the hope that they would gain the bravery and power of their victims. The Guaraní accepted the arrival of Spaniards and looked to them for protection against fiercer neighboring tribes; the Guaraní hoped the Spaniards would lead them against the Incas. In contrast with the hospitable Guaraní, the Gran Chaco people, such as the Payaguá, Guaycurú, M'bayá, Abipón, Mocobí, Chiriguano resisted European colonization.
Travelers in the Chaco region reported that the natives there were capable of running with incredible bursts of speed and mounting wild horses in full gallop, catching deer bare-handed. Much of the earliest written history of Paraguay comes from records of the Spanish colonization, beginning in 1516 with the Juan Díaz de Solís' failed expedition to the Río de la Plata. On the home voyage, after Solís' death, one of the vessels was wrecked off Santa Catarina Island near the Brazilian coast. Among the survivors was Aleixo Garcia, a Portuguese adventurer who had acquired a working knowledge of the Guaraní language. Garcia was intrigued by reports of "the White King" who lived far to the West and governed cities of incomparable wealth and splendor. For nearly eight years he mustered supplies for a trip to the interior. Garcia's group discovered Iguazú Falls, crossed the Río Paraná and arrived at the site of Asunción, the future capital of the country, thirteen years before it was founded, they tried to cross the Gran Chaco penetrating the outer defenses of the Inca E
Spanish Constitution of 1812
The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy known as the Constitution of Cádiz and as La Pepa, was the first Constitution of Spain and one of the earliest constitutions in world history. It was established on 19 March 1812 by the Cortes of the first Spanish legislature. With the notable exception of proclaiming Roman Catholicism as the official and sole legal religion in Spain, the constitution was one of the most liberal of its time: it affirmed national sovereignty, separation of powers, freedom of the press, free enterprise, abolished feudalism, established a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system, it was one of the first constitutions that allowed universal male suffrage, through a complex indirect electoral system. It was repealed by King Ferdinand VII in 1814 in Valencia. However, the Constitution had many difficulties becoming effective: much of Spain was ruled by the French, while the rest of the country was in the hands of interim Junta governments focused on resistance to the Bonapartes rather than on the immediate establishment of a constitutional regime.
Many of the overseas territories did not recognize the legitimacy of these interim metropolitan governments, leading to a power vacuum and the establishment of separate juntas on the American continent. On 24 March 1814, six weeks after returning to Spain, Ferdinand VII abolished the constitution; the constitution was reinstated during the Trienio Liberal, again 1836—1837 while the Progressives prepared the Constitution of 1837. The Cortes drafted and adopted the Constitution while besieged by French troops, first on Isla de León an island separated from the mainland by a shallow waterway on the Atlantic side of the Bay of Cádiz, within the small, strategically located city of Cádiz itself. From a Spanish point of view, the Peninsular War was a war of independence against the French Empire and the king installed by Napoleon, his brother Joseph Bonaparte. In 1808, both King Ferdinand VII and his predecessor and father, Charles IV, had resigned their claims to the throne in favor of Napoleon Bonaparte, who in turn passed the crown to his brother Joseph.
While many in elite circles in Madrid were willing to accept Joseph's rule, the Spanish people were not. The war began on the night of 2 May 1808, was immortalized by Francisco Goya's painting The Second of May 1808 known as The Charge of the Mamelukes. From the outbreak of the Spanish revolt against the Bonapartist regime in 1808, Napoleon's forces faced both Spanish armies and partisans, joined by British and Portuguese armies under Arthur Wellesley; the Spanish organized an interim Spanish government, the Supreme Central Junta and called for a Cortes to convene with representatives from all the Spanish provinces throughout the worldwide empire, in order to establish a government with a firm claim to legitimacy. The Junta first met on 25 September 1808 in Aranjuez and in Seville, before retreating to Cádiz; the Supreme Central Junta under the leadership of the elderly Count of Floridablanca tried to consolidate southern and eastern Spain to maintain continuity for a restoration of the Bourbons.
However from the outset they were in physical retreat from Napoleon's forces, the comparative liberalism offered by the Napoleonic regime made Floridablanca's enlightened absolutism an unlikely basis to rally the country. In any event, Floridablanca's strength failed him and he died on 30 December 1808; when the Cortes convened in Cádiz in 1810, there appeared to be two possibilities for Spain's political future if the French could be driven out. The first, represented by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, was the restoration of the absolutist Antiguo Régimen. Retreating before the advancing French and an outbreak of yellow fever, the Supreme Central Junta moved to Isla de León, where it could be supplied and defended with the help of the Spanish and British navies, abolished itself, leaving a regency to rule until the Cortes could convene; the origins of the Cortes did not harbor any revolutionary intentions, since the Junta saw itself as a continuation of the legitimate government of Spain. The opening session of the new Cortes was held on 24 September 1810 in the building now known as the Real Teatro de las Cortes.
The opening ceremonies included a civic procession, a mass, a call by the president of the Regency, Pedro Quevedo y Quintana, the bishop of Ourense, for those present to fulfill their task loyally and efficiently. Still, the act of resistance to the French involved a certain degree of deviation from the doctrine of royal sovereignty: if sovereignty resided in the monarch Charles and Ferdinand's abdications in favor of Napoleon would have made Joseph Bonaparte the legitimate ruler of Spain; the representatives who gathered at Cádiz were far more liberal than the elite of Spain taken as a whole, they produced a document far more liberal than might have been produced in Spain were it not for the war. Few of the most conservative voices were at Cádiz, there was no effective communication with King Ferdinand, a virtual prisoner in France. In the Cortes of 1810–1812, liberal deputies, who had the implicit support of the British who were protecting the city, were in the majority and representatives of the Church and nobility constituted a minority.
Liberals wanted equality before the law, a centralized government, an efficient modern civil service, a reform of the tax system, the replacement of feudal privileges by freedom of contract, the recognition of the property
Argentine Declaration of Independence
What today is referred as the Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9, 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán. In reality, the congressmen who were assembled in Tucumán declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America, still today one of the legal names of the Argentine Republic; the Federal League Provinces, at war with the United Provinces, were not allowed into the Congress. At the same time, several provinces from the Upper Peru that would become part of present-day Bolivia, were represented at the Congress; the 1810 May Revolution followed the deposition of the Spanish king Ferdinand VII by the Napoleonic French. The revolution replaced it with the Primera Junta; when the Spanish monarchy resumed its functions in 1814, Spain was determined to recover control over its colonies in the Americas. Moreover, the royalists from Peru had been victorious at the battles of Sipe-Sipe, Huaqui and Ayohuma, in Upper Peru, threatened the United Provinces from the north. On April 15, 1815 a revolution ended the mandate of Carlos María de Alvear as Supreme Director and demanded that a General Congress be summoned.
Delegate deputies, each representing 14,000 inhabitants, were sent from all the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata to the sessions, which started on March 24, 1816. However, the Federal League Provinces did not send delegates: the Argentine littoral Provinces, the Eastern Province; the Congress was inaugurated with 33 deputies. The presidency of the Congress would be rotated monthly; because the Congress had the freedom to choose topics to debate, endless discussions ensued. The voting ended on July 9 with a declaration of independence; the Declaration pointed to the circumstances in Europe of the past six years—the removal of the King of Spain by the Napoleon and the subsequent refusal of Ferdinand VII to accept constitutional rule both in the Peninsula and overseas. The Document claimed that Spanish America recovered its sovereignty from the Crown of Castile in 1808, when Ferdinand VII had been deposed, therefore, any union between the overseas dominions of Spain and the Peninsula had been dissolved.
This was a legal concept, invoked by the other Spanish American declarations of independence, such as Venezuela's and Mexico's, which were responding to the same events. The president of the Congress at the time was Francisco Narciso de Laprida, delegate from San Juan Province. Subsequent discussions centered on what form of government; the congress continued its work in Buenos Aires in 1817, but it got stopped in 1820 after the Battle of Cepeda, which deepened the differences between the Unitarian Party, who favored a strong central government, the Federales, who favored a weak central government. The house where the declaration was adopted has been rebuilt and is now a museum and monument: the House of Tucumán. Francisco Narciso de Laprida, Deputy for San Juan, President Mariano Boedo, Deputy for Salta, Vice-president José Mariano Serrano, Deputy for Charcas, Secretary Juan José Paso, Deputy for Buenos Aires, Secretary Dr. Antonio Sáenz, Deputy for Buenos Aires Dr. José Darragueira, Deputy for Buenos Aires Friar Cayetano José Rodríguez, Deputy for Buenos Aires Dr. Pedro Medrano, Deputy for Buenos Aires Dr. Manuel Antonio Acevedo, Deputy for Catamarca Dr. José Ignacio de Gorriti, Deputy for Salta Dr. José Andrés Pacheco de Melo, Deputy for Chibchas Dr. Teodoro Sánchez de Bustamante, Deputy for Jujuy Eduardo Pérez Bulnes, Deputy for Córdoba Tomás Godoy Cruz, Deputy for Mendoza Dr. Pedro Miguel Aráoz, Deputy for Tucumán Dr. Esteban Agustín Gazcón, Deputy for Buenos Aires Pedro Francisco de Uriarte, Deputy for Santiago del Estero Pedro León Gallo, Deputy for Santiago del Estero Pedro Ignacio Rivera, Deputy for Mizque Dr. Mariano Sánchez de Loria, Deputy for Charcas Dr. José Severo Malabia, Deputy for Charcas Dr. Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros, Deputy for La Rioja Lic.
Gerónimo Salguero, Deputy for Córdoba Dr. José Colombres, Deputy for Catamarca Dr. José Ignacio Thames, Deputy for Tucumán Friar Justo de Santa María de Oro, Deputy for San Juan José Antonio Cabrera, Deputy for Córdoba Dr. Juan Agustín Maza, Deputy for Mendoza Tomás Manuel de Anchorena, Deputy for Buenos Aires Kingdom of Hawaii: 1818 Portugal: 1821 Brazil, United States of America: 1822 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland: December 15, 1823 France: 1830 Denmark: 1841 United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway: 1847 Spain: April 29, 1857 The Declaration of Independence of the United Provinces of South America was written in Spanish and translated into Quechua and Aymara; the version in Aymara is attributed to Vicente Pazos Kanki. Argentine War of Independence Congress of Tucumán United Provinces of South America 9 de Julio de 1816: Declaración de la Independencia Act of Independence – Spanish Wikisource
Trienio Liberal
The Trienio Liberal is a period of three years in the modern history of Spain between 1820 and 1823, when a liberal government ruled Spain after a military uprising in January 1820 by the lieutenant-colonel Rafael de Riego against the absolutist rule of Ferdinand VII. It ended in 1823 when, with the approval of the crowned heads of Europe, a French army invaded Spain and reinstated the King's absolute power; this invasion is known in France as the "Spanish Expedition", in Spain as "The Hundred Thousand Sons of St. Louis". King Ferdinand VII provoked widespread unrest in the army, by refusing to accept the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812; the King sought to reclaim the Spanish colonies in the Americas that had revolted consequently depriving Spain from an important source of revenue. In January 1820, soldiers assembled at Cádiz for an expedition to South America, angry over infrequent pay, bad food and poor quarters, mutinied under the leadership of Colonel Rafael del Riego y Nuñez. Pledging fealty to the 1812 Constitution, they seized their commander.
Subsequently, the rebel forces moved to nearby San Fernando, where they began preparations to march on the capital, Madrid. Despite the rebels' relative weakness, Ferdinand accepted the constitution on March 9, 1820, granting power to liberal ministers and ushering in the so-called Liberal Triennium, a period of popular rule. However, political conspiracies of both right and left proliferated in Spain, as was the case across much of the rest of Europe. Liberal revolutionaries stormed the King's palace and seized Ferdinand VII, a prisoner of the Cortes in all but name for the next three years and retired to Aranjuez; the elections to the Cortes Generales in 1822 were won by Rafael del Riego. Ferdinand's supporters set themselves up at Urgell, took up arms and put in place an absolutist regency. Ferdinand's supporters, accompanied by the Royal Guard, staged an uprising in Madrid, subdued by forces supporting the new government and its constitution. Despite the defeat of Ferdinand's supporters at Madrid, civil war erupted in the regions of Castile and Andalusia.
Three years of liberal rule followed. The Progresista government reorganized Spain into 52 provinces, it intended to reduce the regional autonomy, a hallmark of Spanish bureaucracy since Habsburg rule in the 16th and 17th centuries. Opposition of the affected regions, in particular, Aragon and Catalonia, shared in the king's antipathy for the liberal government; the anticlerical policies of the Progresista government led to friction with the Roman Catholic Church, attempts to bring about industrialisation alienated old trade guilds. The Spanish Inquisition, abolished by both Joseph Bonaparte and the Cádiz Cortes during the French occupation, was ended again by the government, which led to accusations of it being nothing more than afrancesados, only six years earlier, had been forced out of the country. More radical liberals attempted to revolt against the entire idea of a monarchy, regardless of how little power it had. In 1821, they were suppressed, but the incident served to illustrate the frail coalition that bound the government together.
The election of a radical liberal government in 1823 further destabilized Spain. The army, whose liberal leanings had brought the government to power, began to waver when the Spanish economy failed to improve, in 1823, a mutiny in Madrid had to be suppressed; the Jesuits, banned by Charles III in the 18th century, only to be rehabilitated by Ferdinand VII after his restoration, were banned again by the government. For the duration of liberal rule, Ferdinand lived under virtual house arrest in Madrid; the Congress of Vienna, ending the Napoleonic Wars, had inaugurated the "Congress system" as an instrument of international stability in Europe. Rebuffed by the "Holy Alliance" of Russia and Prussia in his request for help against the liberal revolutionaries in 1820, by 1822, the "Concert of Europe" was so concerned by Spain's liberal government and its surprising hardiness that it was prepared to intervene on Ferdinand's behalf. In 1822, the Congress of Verona authorized France to intervene. Louis XVIII of France was only too happy to put an end to Spain's liberal experiment, a massive army, the 100,000 Sons of Saint Louis, was dispatched across the Pyrenees in April 1823.
The Spanish army, fraught by internal divisions, offered little resistance to the well organised French force, who seized Madrid and reinstalled Ferdinand as absolute monarch. The liberals' hopes for a new Spanish War of Independence were dashed. Regarding the policy for America in the absolutist period, the new government changed political repression into negotiation. Sending troops was replaced by commissioners to attract pro-independence leaders, who were invited to submit to royal authority in exchange for recognition by Spain. With that in mind, the government announced a ceasefire for negotiations with the rebels until the 1812 Constitution, superseded by Ferdinand's actions, was accepted. According to the ceasefire, Spain would end the persecution and would issue a blanket amnesty for the insurgents; the 11 commissioners failed since the patriots demanded recognition of their independence from Spain. In 1822, Ferdinand VII applied the terms of the Congress of Vienna, lobbied for the assistance of the other absolute monarchs of Europe, in the process joining the Holy Alliance formed by Russia, Prussia and France to restore absolutism.
In France, the ultra-royalists pressured Lo
.jpg)
