America · Part 4

supporters still held much of Venezuela, parts of the Colombian Andes, and all of Ecuador. Conditions became favourable in troops waiting in Cádiz to be sent as part of the crown’s military campaigns revolted. Eventually New Granada and Venezuela were liberated in . A congress held that year in Cúcuta, a Columbian city, chose Bolívar president of a now much more centralised Gran Colombia. Venezuela and New Granada (now Columbia) Inspired by the Haitian revolution, slaves in Venezuela rose in rebellion in the 1790s. Creoles (persons of mixed European and black descent) wanted an expansion of the free trade that was benefiting their plantation economy. At the same time, however, they feared that the removal of Spanish control might bring about a revolution that would destroy their own power. Therefore, they formed the strong loyalist faction in the Viceroyalty of New Granada. In Napoleon had made his brother Joseph the king of Spain after the abdication of the weak king Charles IV in favour of his son Ferdinand. Napoleon had them both imprisoned. With Charles and Ferdinand removed from the scene, the Empire was without a stable government for six years. The political crisis in Spain provided the opportunity for the assertion of its colonies. Soon the rebels as patriots organised revolutionary governments that introduced some social and economic reforms in . In Venezuela the patriots led by Simon Bolivar openly declared a break with Spain following year. The earthquake that wreaked particular destruction in patriot- held areas in provided the pretext for loyalist forces to crush the patriots’ army, and drive Bolivar and others to seek refuge in New Granada (the heart of the viceroyalty). Bolívar soon returned to Venezuela with a new army in and waged a campaign with the army’s motto, “Guerra a muerte” (“War to the death”). The army led by loyalist Jose Tomas Boves again succeeded in driving Bolívar out of his home country. By independence movements in Venezuela and almost all across Spanish South America seemed dead. A large military expedition sent by Ferdinand VII Simon Bolivar