Spanish authority continued to crumble throughout this process, and as the cracks deepened into chasms, new ideas and leaders emerged. In New Spain, a middle-class creole priest, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, tolled a church bell on the morning of Sunday, September 16, 1810, in the town of Dolores, about two hundred miles north of the capital in the Bajío region. He was calling the faithful not to Mass, but to a rebellion, a moment known as the Grito de Dolores, or the cry of Dolores. Hidalgo had been plotting with other members of the middle class—landowners with medium-sized holdings, army officers, and the clergy—who were frustrated by the instability in Spain, the inability of gachupines to initiate reform, and the fact that too much trade remained in the hands of Spanish and European merchants.17 Hidalgo and some of the other creoles organized a revolutionary junta, which supported Fernando VII, but when they were uncovered, they decided to take more drastic action.
Hidalgo sensed the opportunity for a wider-reaching change, and it was not only the middle classes who enlisted in his fight; he attracted people from many backgrounds: mestizos, mulattoes, Indians, laborers, and artisans, among others.18 The demographic reality was that the Spanish were far outnumbered; by 1800 there were about 6 million people in New Spain. Of that population about 1.1 million or 18 percent were white creoles, while there were only 15,000 Spaniards from the peninsula. Indians made up about 60 percent of the population, and castas, including mestizo, mulatto, and black people, constituted the remaining 22 percent.19
Taking up arms in the name of the king and marching under the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe with cries of “Death to the gachupines,” Hidalgo and tens of thousands of followers fought their way south to Mexico City.20 Yet they had not picked up many creole supporters. Instead, many creoles at this juncture saw themselves as distinct from the castas and Indians and, in fact, feared that racial violence might be directed at them. This concern was not unique to New Spain, and as factions formed throughout Latin America, ideas about race became another factor in an increasingly complex period.
Hidalgo’s march was stopped by the military. He managed to escape for a short while before being captured, imprisoned, and shot in July 1811. Earlier in that same month, Simón Bolívar had issued a declaration of independence in Venezuela.21 France’s occupation of Spain exposed Spain’s many weaknesses, despite the efforts of the juntas to preserve some sort of national sovereignty. Uncertainty reigned in this period on both sides of the Atlantic. The Spanish were trying to hold their own nation together while also attempting to highlight Spain’s place in the Americas by appealing to their “brothers” across the Atlantic through their shared language and religion as a justification for a continued connection, while burying the claims of past injustices.22
Leaders in the United States were paying close attention to the unheralded events across the hemisphere. President Madison told Congress in his annual message of November 1811 that the events of the “great communities which occupy the southern portion of our own hemisphere and extend into our neighborhood” elicited in the United States “an obligation to take a deep interest in their destinies.”23 Jefferson, however, expressed a less optimistic sentiment about the people of Spanish America, believing “the degrading ignorance into which their priests and kings have sunk them” rendered the people “disqualified … from the maintenance or even knowledge of their rights.”24 The instability, however, might settle the Florida matter for good, as Jefferson explained in 1809 in a letter to Madison, and it also raised the enticing possibility of obtaining Cuba: “Napoleon will certainly give his consent without difficulty to our receiving the Floridas, & with some difficulty, Cuba.”25 The growing profitability of the sugar island of Cuba, with its proximity to the United States, made it attractive to Jefferson and others as a natural addition to the slaveholding South. Indeed, even some New England investors already held stakes in Cuban plantations.26
However, Cuba, along with the fellow Spanish island of Puerto Rico, was not following the same path as the rest of Spanish America. While attempts were made to set up a junta, the island remained a strong military garrison.27 In addition, the planters and merchants who saw what had happened in Haiti feared that a similar slave rebellion would erupt should colonial authority be eroded during a struggle for independence. In fact, Cuba was forced to confront one consequence of the revolution in Haiti: refugees. When Saint-Domingue was ablaze during that revolution, thousands of people fled to Cuba. Many set up coffee plantations in the east, around Santiago, thinking they would one day return to their homes, but the establishment of the black republic of Haiti in 1804 changed their plans and they remained in Cuba. However, when the news of a Bonaparte on the Spanish throne reached Cuban royalists, they quickly set up a junta to expel these so-called French. Around ten thousand people were deported but, not wishing to go to Haiti, many arrived instead in New Orleans throughout 1809–10, hoping to connect with the existing French-speaking community there.28
The Floridas also took a path different from that of their fellow Spanish American territories. In 1809, Carlos de Hault de Lassus was appointed governor of the Baton Rouge district of West Florida, though his unpopularity soon led to irritation and unrest. In 1810, a group of residents wanted to form a Spanish-style junta, which de Lassus permitted, in part to keep relations peaceful. Delegates from all parts of West Florida attended, some of whom were open about their wish to join the United States, while others wanted to ally with the British or simply remain under Spanish rule.29 The group met a number of times in July and August 1810, finally arousing Spanish suspicions. Vincent Folch, the West Florida governor based in Pensacola, threatened to break up the meetings, and rumors circulated that troops were being sent.30 In response, a group of the delegates attacked the small, crumbling fort in Baton Rouge, issuing a declaration of independence in late September, and raising a flag, a single white star on a blue background representing the Republic of West Florida.31
News of this “republic” reached Washington, and President James Madison wrote to Jefferson on October 19, 1810, saying, “The Crisis in W. Florida, as you will see, has come home to our feelings and our interests,” before warning that “it presents at the same time serious questions, as to the Authority of the Executive, and the adequacy of the existing laws of the U.S. for territorial administration.” His concerns, however, did not preclude the U.S. annexation of part of West Florida—the area between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers—in late October. Madison believed this to be part of the Louisiana Purchase territory anyway, and now felt that “the Country to the Perdido [River], being our own, may be fairly taken possession of, if it can be done without violence.”32 On December 10, U.S. troops took formal control of the Baton Rouge area of West Florida.33
East Florida would not escape confrontation either. President Madison sent General George Mathews, a former governor of Georgia; and John McKee, a former agent to the Choctaw Indians, to rally support among Anglos for the colony’s break from Spain.34 By this point, the Embargo Act of 1807 had turned the northern part of the Spanish territory into a hotbed of illicit commerce, including trading in slaves, while in that same year Congress had also passed legislation prohibiting the importation of enslaved people to the United States.
Mathews had tried earlier, in September 1810, to reopen negotiations with the West Florida governor Vicente Folch about transferring that part of Florida. After those failed, Mathews went to East Florida to have a similar conversation with its governor, Enrique White, but the refusal was so clear that the men did not even meet in person. Defeated for the moment, Mathews returned to Washington, D.C.35 The question of Florida did not fade, and in fact rumors that the British might acquire the territory caused some alarm. To prevent this from happening, Congress passed a No Transfer Resolution in January 1811, which was designed to ward off any potential handover of Spanish-American territory to a European power, but was crafted with Britain in mind.36
After the rebellion in Baton Rouge during
the final months of 1810, Folch had a change of heart and was reported to be considering some sort of alliance with the United States, in part because he feared future uprisings. He was willing to cede control of Mobile and Pensacola in exchange for help in securing the rest of West Florida.37 By the time Mathews and McKee returned to the Gulf in March 1811 to negotiate with him, Folch reneged on the idea after receiving orders from Havana to carry on defending West Florida without U.S. assistance.38
Mathews stayed in West Florida for a while, but upon hearing news of the death of Governor White in East Florida, he arrived at the St. Marys River border with Georgia in early June 1811.39 By August, he had started to build up alliances with people who were willing to overthrow the Spanish, a plot that would take some months to organize. While Mathews tried to arrange soldiers and arms, news of the scheme became a source of concern for the Spanish and of consternation for British consuls in nearby Georgia, who did not welcome this meddling.40
Mathews was able to round up enough “Patriots”—this conflict was later known as the Patriot War—to lead an attack on Fernandina, a town on the eastern side of Amelia Island, with ports that faced the St. Marys River. Mathews and his men marched into Fernandina on March 12, 1812, declaring East Florida independent. A few days later, and with the backing of U.S. gunboats, the whole of Amelia Island was ceded, and the Spanish garrison on Fernandina surrendered by March 25.41
From there, Matthews and his men wanted to march on St. Augustine. When news reached the new East Florida governor, Juan José de Estrada, he alerted his Indian allies and black militiamen.42 These groups had good reason to assist the Spanish—they knew U.S. control meant a loss of land and liberties. The Patriots arrived in April and St. Augustine was soon under siege, while protests from angry Spanish diplomats caused President Madison to disavow the whole affair. He wrote in an April 1812 letter to Thomas Jefferson that Mathews “has been playing a tragi-comedy” and was annoyed that “his extravagances place us in the most distressing dilemma.”43 Mathews was recalled from Florida and died in August 1812 on his way to Washington, D.C.
The next East Florida governor, Sebastián Kindelán, was sent in May from Cuba along with reinforcements, believing the entire incident to be an act of aggression.44 Then, in the middle of this dispute, Britain and the United States officially went to war on June 18, 1812. Despite the skirmishes taking place in Florida, this was not the conflict’s focus. Rather, the War of 1812 had grown out of an unresolved antagonism over naval matters and issues relating to Canada. Most of the land battles against the British took place near Canada’s border.
In Florida, the Patriot War segued into that larger conflict—at this point Britain and Spain were also allies—and the possibility began to present itself of a permanent Florida settlement that would favor the United States, though this was stymied in 1813 as Congress rejected measures for a military seizure of East Florida. Guerrilla attacks and skirmishes continued, this time with heavier involvement of the Seminoles on the side of the Spanish, until a final ambush dealt the last blow for the Patriots in 1814. The Spanish, once again on their guard against the United States, completed Fort San Carlos in Fernandina, a final attempt at protecting East Florida.
Farther west, in New Spain, the revolutionary momentum that had started under Father Hidalgo continued under the leadership of another priest, José María Morelos, and spread to many corners, including the northern frontier. Although the combined populations of Texas, New Mexico, and Baja and Alta California totaled less than 10 percent of the population of New Spain, the region became caught up in the struggle.45 By January 1811, San Antonio had aligned itself with the revolutionaries, and further plans were sketched out to rally additional troops from Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Nuevo Santander, as well as U.S. volunteers.46
Spanish authorities uncovered this plot and some of the leaders were killed, though one organizer, José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, who had been appointed a plenipotentiary for the group, managed to escape and leave for the United States in August 1811. It was a dangerous and deadly expedition—Gutiérrez lost most of his party after they were attacked by royalist troops while crossing the neutral strip. Despite this setback, he made his way across the United States, arriving in Washington, D.C., by December.47 Once there, he met with the secretary of war, William Eustis, who told him that “it would be easy to send an army to the banks of the Río Grande under the pretext that they were going to take possession of the lands which France sold them,” but Gutiérrez was uncomfortable with such a plan and wanted any aid to be “given in such a way as would benefit both.”48 While in Washington, he also briefly met President Madison before having talks with Secretary of State James Monroe, who said Gutiérrez would need to return to New Spain to obtain the correct paperwork for buying arms and “to report the friendly disposition of this country to favor the Republic of Mexico.”49
On his return to Texas, Gutiérrez stopped in New Orleans, where he made contact with the U.S. agent William Shaler and a former U.S. Army officer, Augustus Magee, who helped him recruit around one hundred willing Anglo adventurers to attack the royalists in Texas.50 They captured Nacogdoches on August 12, 1812, and headed toward the Gulf, taking the presidio at La Bahía del Espíritu Santo, near Goliad, in November. The months that followed saw heavy attacks from royalists; Magee was killed and replaced by Samuel Kemper, one of the brothers who had been involved in the 1804 West Florida plot and who now assumed command of the U.S volunteers.51 By late March 1813, Gutiérrez and his “Republican Army of the North” marched into San Antonio de Béxar, imploring residents to embrace the Anglo soldiers fighting alongside them who, he claimed, were “free descendants of the men who fought for the independence of the United States.”52
A few days later, on the night of April 3, 1813, the revolutionary leaders slit the throats of seventeen royalist prisoners.53 The executions unnerved many of the U.S. volunteers, but for the time being Gutiérrez remained in charge. Three days later, he and his men issued a declaration of independence, calling for Texas to be a state that could “take advantage of the opportune occasion that presents itself of Working for the regeneration of the Mexican Pueblo, separating ourselves from the weight of all Foreign domination.”54 However, in the middle of this, Gutiérrez was ousted and replaced by the revolutionary Cuban-born exile José Álvarez de Toledo in August, in part over the loss of confidence by Anglo troops after the earlier killings. Gutiérrez left for Louisiana by July, and in doing so was spared the bloodshed that was to come.55
Spanish royalist forces, under the leadership of José Joaquín de Arredondo, struck back at this group of rebel Tejanos (Mexican Texans), Anglos, and Indians. He marched eighteen hundred troops into Texas on August 18, 1813, and the Battle of Medina began about six miles from San Antonio, with Arredondo reducing the fourteen hundred rebel troops to about one hundred. From there, the soldiers entered the town itself, killing Tejanos who had not fled, searching for rebels, beating some residents, and putting others in work gangs, while also taking the property of suspected insurgents.56 The devastation stifled any further rebellions in Texas for the time being, and as the Spanish brigadier general in charge of the operation, Arredondo remained commandant-general of the Eastern Internal Provinces until 1821.
BY 1810 THE Cortes in Spain was in session, and the liberal reformers among the delegates seized the opportunity to create a constitution for Spain, an unprecedented move. The March 1812 Constitución política de la Monarquía Española made profound changes in the relationship between the monarch and his subjects. It curbed royal powers and placed sovereignty with the people, bolstering the role of an elected Cortes and promising a fairer share of representation to the Americas.* It also extended the vote to all men—including Indians and mestizos—in the Americas, without any property or literacy requirements, with the very notable exception of free black people.57 This exclusion was in part due to prejudice—black people had been pushed to the lower rungs of the social order through
out most of Spanish America—but it also resulted because the deputies thought that by leaving black voters out, it would give Spain and the Americas a more or less equal franchise, though the numbers cited in the debate varied wildly, with one deputy claiming there were ten million people who could be considered black across Spanish America, and others saying there were as few as forty thousand in Peru and other parts of South America.58
There were many other provisions in the constitution, including abolishing the Inquisition and granting more press freedom. Significantly, however, it did not end the slave trade or the practice of slavery, in part because of pressure from Cuban delegates.59 Overall, this constitution opened the way for greater and more direct political participation for people in Spanish America, but it was not enough to hold the empire together.
The Peninsular War in Spain, which also involved the Portuguese and British, ended in 1814 with the French driven out and Fernando VII restored to the throne. Despite all hopes and expectations to the contrary, he tore up the constitution, rejecting it completely. He instead reasserted his absolute authority, angering many in the Americas. This would stoke the fires in South America, as each former colony began to peel away from this point on: Mexico and Venezuela had been or soon would be joined by New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Río de la Plata (Argentina). Fernando VII dispatched 10,500 men from Spain to end these rebellions.60 Much remained at stake, not least the mines. Mexico’s silver production alone reached a value of 27 million pesos in 1804—up from 5 million pesos in 1702—and accounted for 67 percent of all the silver produced in the Americas.61 Fernando VII was determined to return to the pre-1808 world, though his American colonies no longer shared that desire; his attitude illustrated by a tone-deaf proclamation from 1814, lambasting them: “Do not be ungrateful to your parents; such ingratitude is a scandalous monstrosity.”62 As anger and hostility toward the Spanish Americans set in, it became clear that the colonies were gearing up for a fight. One Spanish official, in a report from 1814, could scarcely contain his scorn, describing the independence leaders as “monsters,” and complaining that “it was not enough for them to ravage, burn and drown in blood the unhappy country in which they were born.”63 The Council of the Indies met in 1814 to discuss the matter, declaring that a “club of villains” was to blame for the problem, while another report claimed that the majority of the population in the Americas did not support emancipation.64 Such assertions could not be immediately proved, and it would take another decade of fighting for the situation to come to a clear resolution.
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