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{{Short description|Supporters of the Spanish monarchy during the Spanish-American independence wars}}
{{Infobox
| name = Royalist
| native_name = Realistas
| native_name_lang = es
| war = [[Spanish American Wars of Independence]]
| image =1812SpanishConstitutionMap.svg
| image_size =
| image_alt = Map of the Spanish nation according to the [[Cortes de Cádiz]] (1810)
| caption =
| active = [[1810
| status =
| ideology =
| position =
| motives = Preservation of the territorial integrity of [[Spanish Empire|Spain]]
| allegiance = [[
| clans =
| founders =
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| split_to =
| successor =
| allies = {{flag|Russian Empire}}<ref>{{Citation|title=RUSSIA AND THE EMANCIPATION OF SPANISH AMERICA, 1816–1826|last=William Spence Robertson|date=1941}}</ref>
| opponents = [[Patriot Governments (Spanish American independence)|Patriot Governments]]
| battles =
| organizations =
| website =
| designated_as_terror_group_by =
| identification_symbol_label =
| identification_symbol = [[File:
| identification_symbol_2_label = [[Ensign (flag)|Flag]] of the [[Spanish
| identification_symbol_2 = [[File:Flag of Spain (1785-1873 and 1875-1931).svg|150px]]
}}
The '''royalists''' were the people of [[Hispanic America]] (mostly from native and indigenous peoples)<ref>{{Cite book |title=El Ejército Realista en la guerra de Independencia |last=Luqui Lagleyze |first=Julio |year=1995}}</ref><ref>"Indigenous, African-descended, and mestizo (mixed-race caste) soldiers fought in patriot and royalist armies alike".{{Cite web |url=https://ageofrevolutions.com/2018/03/12/race-or-the-last-colonial-struggle-in-latin-america/ |title=RACE, OR THE LAST COLONIAL STRUGGLE IN LATIN AMERICA |last=Jason McGraw|date=12 March 2018 }}</ref> and [[Peninsulares|Europeans]] that fought to preserve the integrity of the Spanish monarchy during the [[Spanish American wars of independence]].
The '''royalists''' were the [[Hispanic America|Latin American]] and [[Peninsulares|European]] supporters of the various governing bodies of the [[Monarchy of Spain|Spanish Monarchy]], during the [[Spanish American wars of independence]], which lasted from 1808 until the king's death in 1833. In the early years of the conflict, when King [[Ferdinand VII of Spain|Ferdinand VII]] was captive in France, royalists supported the authority in the Americas of the [[Supreme Central and Governing Junta of the Kingdom (Spain)|Supreme Central Junta of Spain and the Indies]] and the [[Cortes of Cádiz]] that ruled in the King's name during the [[Peninsular War]]. After the [[Mid-19th-century Spain#Reaction (1814–1820)|restoration of Ferdinand VII]] in 1814, royalists supported his claim to rule Spanish America, but were split between those that supported his insistence to rule under traditional law and [[Liberalism|liberals]], who sought to reinstate the reforms enacted by the Cortes of Cádiz.▼
▲
== Political evolution ==
[[File:FCNS1.svg|thumb|right|200px|Royalist territories in Western South America after the [[Battle of Chacabuco]] of 1818. [[Chiloé]] and [[Valdivia]] were royalist enclaves accessible only by sea.]]
The creation of [[junta (Peninsular War)|junta]]s in Spanish America in 1810 was a direct reaction to developments in Spain during the previous two years. In 1808 Ferdinand VII had been convinced to [[Abdications of Bayonne|abdicate]] by [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]] in his favor, who granted the throne to his brother, [[Joseph Bonaparte]]. The Supreme Central Junta had led a resistance to Joseph's government and the French occupation of Spain, but suffered a series of reverses resulting in the loss of the northern half of the country. On February 1, 1810, French troops took [[Seville]] and gained control of most of [[Andalusia]]. The Supreme Junta retreated to [[Cádiz]] and dissolved itself in favor of a Regency Council of Spain and the Indies. As news of this arrived throughout Spanish America during the next three weeks to nine months—depending on time it took [[History of transport|goods and people to travel]] from Spain—political fault lines appeared. Royal officials and Spanish Americans were split between those who supported the idea of maintaining the status quo—that is leaving all the government institutions and officers in place—regardless of the developments in Spain, and those who thought that the time had come to establish local rule, initially through the creation of juntas, in order to preserve the independence of Spanish America from the French or from a rump government in Spain that could no longer legitimately claim to rule a vast empire. It is important to note that, at first, the juntas claimed to carry out their actions in the name of the deposed king and did not formally declare independence. Juntas were successfully established in [[Captaincy General of Venezuela|Venezuela]], [[Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata|Río de la Plata]] and [[Viceroyalty of New Granada|New Granada]], and there were unsuccessful movements to do so in other regions. A few juntas initially chose to recognize the Regency, nevertheless the creation of juntas challenged the authority of all sitting royal officials and the right of the government in Spain to rule in the Americas.
In the months following the establishment of the Regency, it became clear that Spain was not lost, and furthermore the government was effectively reconstituting itself. The Regency successfully convened the [[Cortes Generales]], the traditional parliament of the Spanish Monarchy, which in this case included representatives from the Americas. The Regency and Cortes began issuing orders to, and appointing, royal officials throughout the empire. Those who supported the new government came to be called "royalists." Those that supported the idea of maintaining independent juntas called themselves "patriots," and a few among them were proponents of declaring full, formal independence from Spain. As the Cortes instituted liberal reforms and worked on drafting a constitution, a new division appeared among royalists. Conservatives (often called "[[Absolutism (European history)|absolutists]]" in the historiography) did not want to see any innovations in government, while liberals supported them. These differences would become more acute after the restoration of Ferdinand VII, because the king opted to support the conservative position.<ref>Lynch, ''Spanish American Revolutions'', 36–37, 134–135. Rodríguez, ''Independence of Spanish America'', 52–53. Kinsbruner, ''Independence in Spanish America'', 45–46, 53.</ref>
===Role of regional rivalry===
Regional rivalry also played an important role in the internecine wars that broke out in Spanish America as a result of the juntas. The disappearance of a central, imperial authority—and in some cases of even a local, viceregal authority (as in the cases of New Granada and Río de la Plata)—initiated a prolonged period of [[balkanization]] in many regions of Spanish America. It was not clear which political units should replace the empire, and there were - among the [[Criollo people|criollo]] elites at least - no new or old [[Nation|national identities]] to replace the traditional sense of being Spaniards. The original juntas of 1810 appealed first, to sense of being Spanish, which was juxtaposed against the French threat; second, to a general American identity, which was juxtaposed against the Peninsula which was lost to the French; and third, to a sense of belonging to the local province, the ''[[Fatherland|patria]]'' in Spanish.<ref>Lynch, ''Spanish American Revolutions'', 121, 131–132. Rodríguez, ''Independence of Spanish America'', 13–19, 22,</ref> More often than not, juntas sought to maintain a province's independence from the capital of the former viceroyalty or captaincy general, as much as from the Peninsula itself. Armed conflicts broke out between the provinces over the question of whether some provinces were to be subordinate to others in the manner that they had been under the crown. This phenomenon was particularly evident in New Granada and Río de la Plata. This rivalry also
===Restoration of Ferdinand VII===
The restoration of Ferdinand VII signified an important change, since most of the political and legal changes done on both sides of the Atlantic—the myriad of juntas, the Cortes in Spain, and several of the congresses in the Americas that evolved out of the juntas, and the many constitutions and new legal codes—had been done in his name. Once in Spain Ferdinand VII realized that he had significant support from [[conservatism|conservatives]] in the general population and the hierarchy of the [[History of Roman Catholicism in Spain#19th century|Spanish Catholic Church]], and so on May 4, he repudiated the [[Spanish Constitution of 1812]] and ordered the arrest of liberal leaders who had created it on May 10. Ferdinand justified his actions by stating that the Constitution and other changes had been made by a Cortes assembled in his absence and without his consent. He also declared all of the juntas and constitutions written in Spanish America invalid and restored the former law codes and political institutions.<ref>Rodríguez, ''Independence of Spanish America'', 169–172. Kinsbruner, ''Independence in Spanish America'', 56–57.</ref>
This, in effect, constituted a definitive break with two groups that could have been allies of Ferdinand VII: the autonomous governments, which had not yet declared formal independence, and Spanish liberals who had created a representative government that would fully include the overseas possessions and was seen as an alternative to independence by many in New Spain (today [[Mexico]]), [[Central America]], the [[Spanish West Indies|Caribbean]], Venezuela, Quito ([[Ecuador]]), [[Peru]], Upper Peru ([[Bolivia]]) and [[Chile]].
The provinces of New Granada had maintained independence from Spain since 1810, unlike neighboring Venezuela, where royalists and pro-independence forces had exchanged control of the region several times. To pacify Venezuela and to retake New Granada, Spain organized in 1815 the largest armed force it ever sent to the New World, consisting of 10,500 troops and nearly sixty ships. (See, [[Spanish reconquest of New Granada]]). Although this force was crucial in retaking a solidly pro-independence region like New Granada, its soldiers were eventually spread out throughout Venezuela, New Granada, Quito, and Peru and were lost to tropical diseases, diluting their impact on the war. More importantly, the majority of the royalist forces were composed, not of soldiers sent from the peninsula, but of Spanish Americans. Other Spanish Americans were moderates who decided to wait and see what would come out of the restoration of normalcy. In fact, in areas of New Spain, Central America, and Quito, governors found it expedient to leave the elected constitutional ''[[Cabildo (council)|ayuntamientos]]'' in place for several years
Spanish Americans in royalist areas who were committed to independence had already joined guerrilla movements. Ferdinand's actions did set areas outside of the control of the royalist armies on the path to full independence. The governments of these regions, which had their origins in the juntas of 1810—and even moderates there who had entertained a reconciliation with the crown—now saw the need to separate from Spain, if they were to protect the reforms they had enacted.<ref>Lynch, ''Spanish American Revolutions'', 162. 171–172, 207. Rodríguez, ''Independence of Spanish America'', 173–175, 192–194</ref>
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{{further|Trienio Liberal}}
Spanish liberals finally had success in forcing Ferdinand VII to restore the Constitution on January 1, 1820, when [[Rafael del Riego|Rafael Riego]] headed a rebellion among troops
Riego's revolt had two significant effects on the war in the Americas. First, in military matters, the large numbers of reinforcements, that were especially needed to retake New Granada and defend the Viceroyalty of Peru, would never arrive. Furthermore, as the royalist situation became more desperate in region after region, the army experienced wholesale defections of units to the patriot side. Second, in political matters, the reinstitution of a liberal regime changed the terms under which the Spanish government sought to engage the insurgents. The new government naively assumed that the insurgents were fighting for Spanish liberalism and that the Spanish Constitution could still be the basis of reconciliation between the two sides.
The Spanish Constitution, it turned out, served as the basis for independence in New Spain and Central America, since in the two regions it was a coalition of conservative and liberal royalist leaders who led the establishment of new states. The restoration of the Spanish Constitution and representative government was enthusiastically welcomed in New Spain and Central America. Elections were held, local governments formed and [[Deputy (legislator)|deputies]] sent to the Cortes. Among liberals, however, there was fear that the new regime would not last, and among conservatives and the Church, that the new liberal government would expand its reforms and anti-clerical legislation. This climate of instability created the conditions for the two sides to
Central America gained its independence along with New Spain. The regional elites supported the terms of the Plan of Iguala and orchestrated the union of Central America with the Mexican Empire in 1821. Two years later following Iturbide's downfall, the region,
In South America independence was spurred by the pro-independence fighters that had held out for the past half decade. [[José de San Martín]] and [[Simón Bolívar]] inadvertently led a continental-wide [[pincer movement]] from southern and northern South America that liberated most of the Spanish American nations on that continent and secured the independence of the [[Southern Cone]] had more or less experienced since 1810. In South America, royalist soldiers, officers (such as [[Andrés de Santa Cruz]]), and whole units also began to desert or defect to the patriots in large numbers as the royal army's situation became dire. During the end of 1820 in Venezuela, after Bolívar and [[Pablo Morillo]] concluded a cease
The collapse of the constitutional regime in Spain in 1823 had other implications for the war in South America. Royalist officers, split between liberals and conservatives, fought an internecine war among themselves. General Pedro Antonio Olañeta, commander in Upper Peru, rebelled against the liberal viceroy of Peru, [[José de la Serna]], in 1823. This conflict provided an opportunity for the republican forces under the command of Bolívar and [[Antonio José de Sucre]] to advance, culminating in the [[Battle of Ayacucho]] on December 9, 1824. The royal army of Upper Peru surrendered after Olañeta was killed on April 2, 1825. Former royalists, however, played an important part in the creation of Peru and Bolivia. In Bolivia, royalists, like [[Casimiro Olañeta]], nephew of General Olañeta, gathered in a congress and declared the country's independence from Peru. And in Peru, after Bolívar's forces left the country in 1827, Peruvian leaders undid many of his political reforms.
== Royalist army ==
{{main|Spanish expeditionary army (Spanish American independence) order of battle}}
[[File:Coronela.png|250px|thumb|right| [[Regimental colours|King's and Regimental Colors of the Foot Regiments of Royalist Army]] modeled on the [[Cross of Burgundy flag]] (the local [[coat of arms]] would replace the grey circles represented here).<br /> Motto: '''''Por la Religión, la Patria y el Rey. Viva Fernando VII'''''<ref>
There are two types of units: '''expeditionary units''' ( in Spanish: '''expedicionarios''') created in Spain and '''[[militia]]s''' (in Spanish: '''
Overall, Europeans formed only about a tenth of the royalist armies in Spanish America, and only about half of the expeditionary units. Since each European soldier [[casualty (person)|casualty]] was substituted by a Spanish American soldier, over time, there were more and more Spanish American soldiers in the expeditionary units. For example, [[Pablo Morillo]], commander in chief in Venezuela and New Granada, reported that he only had 2,000 European soldiers, in other words, only half of the soldiers of his expeditionary force were European. It is estimated that in the [[Battle of Maipú]] only a quarter of the royalist forces were European soldiers, in the [[Battle of Carabobo]] about a fifth, and in the [[Battle of Ayacucho]] less than 1% was European.
The American militias reflected the racial
The last royalist armed group in what is today Argentina and Chile, the [[Pincheira brothers]], was an outlaw gang made of
[[File:Royalist Hispanic American.png|thumb|600px|center|Royalist army]]
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== Royalist leaders ==
{| class="toccolours" style="width: 100%; border-top: none;"
|-align="center"
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*[[Fernando Miyares y Gonzáles]]
*[[José Ceballos]]
*[[Juan Domingo de Monteverde|Domingo de Monteverde]]
*[[Agustín Agualongo]]
*[[José Tomás Boves]]
*[[Juan Manuel Cajigal]]
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*[[José María Barreiro Manjón]]
*[[Melchior Aymerich|Melchor Aymerich]], President of the Quito Audiencia
*[[Basilio Modesto García]],
*[[Jose Arizabalo]],
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*[[Francisco Javier de Elío]]
*[[Gaspar de Vigodet]]
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*[[Manuel Olaguer Feliú]]
|}
== Naval commanders and last fortresses ==
{| class="toccolours" style="width: 100%; border-top: none;"
|-align="center"
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*Roque Guruceta
'''Strongholds'''
*'''[[Montevideo]]''' until June 20,
*'''[[Pasto]]'''
*'''[[Guayaquil]]'''
*'''[[Talcahuano]]'''
*'''[[Valdivia]]'''
*'''[[Chiloé Archipelago|Chiloé]]'''
*'''[[El Callao]]'''
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*
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==See also==
{{Portal|Spain|Latin America
* [[Spanish American wars of independence]]
* [[Spanish expeditionary army (Spanish American independence) order of battle|Spanish expeditionary army
* [[Reconquista (Spanish America)]]
* [[Loyalist (American Revolution)]], the equivalent of the Royalist in Anglo-America
* [[Campaigns of the South]]
==References==
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[[Category:Spanish colonization of the Americas]]
[[Category:Counter-revolutionaries]]
[[Category:Ferdinand VII]]
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