ACADEMIA Letters

In the Service of the King: The Other Story of the

Libertadores
Pedro Damián Cano Borrego

The celebration of the bicentenary of several Spanish-American republics is a good opportu-

nity to remember the services that some of the main actors of them provided to the Spanish
Monarchy, before a varied series of economic, military, social and political circumstances
precipitated its collapse and the birth of the new political bodies, in a long process of intense
instability in both hemispheres, which lasted well into the 19th century.
The Emancipation of Spanish America was a long and bloody civil war, or a whole of
them, and it was unpopular with the vast majority of the population. It is common to find even
today in papers and books the name Spanish army, as a foreign one, as opposed to patriot. The
peninsular population was percentage residual, and also a small part of the royalist armies. It
was the Creole, mestizo, black and Indian population who defended the party from a fateful
monarch, who suffered the war and, subsequently, the stigma of defeat.
The recognition that the birth of each nation was based on fratricide remains taboo in
national historiographies, which continues to seek in a proto-nationalism, null or virtually
non-existent, the cause of each of them. The term colony itself, non-existent in the docu-
mentation of this time, is currently the unanimously used, also coming from the subsequent
process of rewriting history.
The first heroes of Haiti’s independence, black warlords Georges Biassou, Jean-François
Papillon, Jeannot Bullet and Toussaint Louverture, were truly generals of the king’s army of
Spain. Except in the case of the latter, which defected and ended up dying in captivity in Fort
de Jouxel, France, and Bullet, executed by the French, remained at its service until the end of
his days.
Francisco de Miranda, from Venezuela, served from the age of 21 in the Spanish penin-
sular army and in the takeover of Pensacola, and was the field assistant to Bernardo de Galvez

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Pedro Damián Cano Borrego, pietroyanaky@telefonica.net

Citation: Cano Borrego, P.D. (2021). In the Service of the King: The Other Story of the Libertadores.
Academia Letters, Article 3011. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3011.

1
in Haiti. Fleeing from an Inquisition judgment, in 1783 he moved to the United States, begin-
ning a life of adventure and travel that led him to be Field Marshallof the French revolutionary
armies and colonel of the Russian army.
Miranda founded in London in 1798 the Lodge of the Rational Knights, which had sub-
sidiaries in Cadiz, known as Logia Lautaro, and in Madrid. It included some of the main
actors of American independence, and aimed to independence, under the principles of liber-
alism and the establishment of a republican and unitary system of government for the whole
territory, the Greater Colombia.
The trigger for this process was the Spanish War of Independence or Peninsular War.
The Cabildos, Councils, sometimes led to revolutionary boards, such as in Quito, Caracas,
Santiago de Chile or Buenos Aires. The war was transformed during the early years into a
conflict of regions against regions, or regional patricians against regional patricians, with a
regionalist discourse that created or revived supposed signs of local identity.
Carlos de Montufar, from Quito, after studying at the Royal Academy of Nobles, fought
against the French. Awarded by the Central Board of Regency, he was appointed Royal Com-
missioner. On his return trip he acted in the Councils of Caracas and Cartagena in favor of
the rights of Fernando VII, but, upon arriving in Quito and verifying that his own father had
taken part in the independence process, he sponsored the creation of the State of Quito and he
took charge of its military defence.
Simon Bolívar was sent to Spain at the age of sixteen, studying at the Academia de San
Fernando and alternating for two years with the noble and aristocratic society of the court.
There he met the aristocrat María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro. After their wedding, they moved
to Caracas, where he was widowed in 1803. He died at the home of the Cadiz merchant
Joaquin de Mier, who had defected from royalty party in 1820, after the Republicans took
over Santa Marta.
His sister Maria Antonia was a declared realist. In spite of this, she had a cordial relation-
ship and close epistolary contact with him, despite the fact that for her he was nothing more
than the head of the criminals who had made the most detestable mistakes, and repeatedly
asked the Venezuelan government to repatriate his mortal remains.
Domingo de Caycedo, from Santa Fe, fought against the French in the Peninsular War
and was deputy in Cadiz and Secretary of the Court. Vicente Rocafuerte studied at the Noble
Schools of Madrid and Paris, where he met Carlos Montufar and Simon Bolivar. He was
Mayor of Guayaquil and also deputy in the Cortes of Cadiz. Juan Martín de Pueyrredon spent
his youth in Cádiz and had an outstanding intervention against the British invasion of 1806.
Antonio González Balcarce participated in 1806 in the defense of Montevideo. Was promoted
to lieutenant colonel in 1807, and participated in the Spanish War of Independence, fighting

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Pedro Damián Cano Borrego, pietroyanaky@telefonica.net

Citation: Cano Borrego, P.D. (2021). In the Service of the King: The Other Story of the Libertadores.
Academia Letters, Article 3011. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3011.

2
alongside José de San Martín.
Carlos Maria de Alvear, military since 1807, also participated in the fight against the
French, until he returned to Buenos Aires in March 1812. José Matias Zapiola was sent to
Spain to receive naval training, also fighting in 1807 against the British invasions. Bernardino
Rivadavia was a lieutenant in the Galician Volunteer Militia in Buenos Aires. Exiled twice in
Spain, he died in Cádiz in 1845.
José de San Martin settled with his family in Malaga when he was six years old. After
studying at the Royal Seminary of Nobles, he fought in Africa and in the War of Independence.
In 1812, as a lieutenant colonel, he put himself at the service of the United Provinces. His
brothers Juan Fermin, Manuel Tadeo and Justo Rufino were military loyalists in the service of
the king. The latter was the one who maintained the greatest contact, visiting him on several
occasions in his exile in Paris. In it, San Martin was able to survive thanks to an old comrade
in arms in Spain, the Sevillian aristocrat and banker Alejandro Aguado.
José Gervasio Artigas was a soldier in the Blandengues de Montevideo corps. During the
British occupation of Buenos Aires in 1806 he was promoted to captain of the militias. In
1810 he remained loyal to Spain, being sent to the province of Entre Ríos as commander. On
February 15, 1811, as captain, Artigas deserted and moved to Buenos Aires.
Bernardo O’Higgins was sent by his father to Europe, and he studied in Cadiz and London,
where he was a student of Francisco de Miranda. José de la Riva-Agüero spent his youth in
Spain, where he completed his education and fought against the French invaders. Some of the
harshest measures taken against the peninsular population in Lima during the war are due to
him. José Bernardo de Tagle was ordinary Mayor of Lima, deputy in Cádiz, Brigadier and
knight of the Order of Santiago. He returned to Lima in 1819. Dismissed from his post as
President, he found refuge in the Real Felipe del Callao Fortress, the last royal stronghold in
Peru, where he succumbed to scurvy.
Jose Domingo de La Mar was sent to Madrid at the age of two, spending his childhood and
youth in Spain, also highlighting his performance during the wars against the Convention and
in the War of Independence. By war merits already in Peru he was appointed Field Marshal.
In charge of the defense of El Callao, after a three-month siege, he surrendered the square to
San Martin, whom he knew from Spain. Andrés de Santa Cruz served in the royalist army
from the age of 17 until he was taken prisoner at the battle of Cerro de Pasco in 1820, changing
sides on January 8, 1821.
Agustin de Iturbide was an active royalist officer since 1809. In charge of fighting Vicente
Guerrero, he proclaimed the Plan of Iguala on February 24, 1821. On August 24 of that
year, he signed with Juan de O’Donoju, the last superior political leader of the province of
New Spain and first regent on behalf of Fernando VII of the Mexican Empire, the Treaties of

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Pedro Damián Cano Borrego, pietroyanaky@telefonica.net

Citation: Cano Borrego, P.D. (2021). In the Service of the King: The Other Story of the Libertadores.
Academia Letters, Article 3011. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3011.

3
Cordoba. Iturbide was appointed Emperor of Mexico on May 18, 1822. The person in charge
of dethroning him was another former royalist officer, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who
had served in the provinces of Nuevo Santander and Texas, and who had joined the Trigarante
Army on March 25, 1821
The Navarrese Gabino Gainza was a career military man who arrived in Peru in 1783,
participating in the repression of the Tupac Amaru rebellion. As brigadier and commander of
the Royal Regiment of Lima, he was sent to Chile in 1814, as captain general of the Kingdom.
There he signed with Bernardo O’Higgins and Juan Mackenna the Treaty of Lircay, by which
the pro-independence recognized their loyalty to Fernando VII. In 1821 he was Superior Po-
litical Chief of the Province of Guatemala. In this position, and on September 15, he signed
the Act of Independence of Guatemala and became its first independent ruler. On October
23, 1822, he handed over the government to Iturbide and moved to Mexico, where he died in
misery around 1829.
José Alvarez de Toledo y Dubois, from Havana, continued his military career in the navy
since 1794, participating in the wars against Great Britain and for Spanish Independence.
Elected deputy in the Cortes of Cadiz for Santo Domingo, he recommended to the governor
to declare independence in the event of Napoleon’s victory, so he fled to the United States
in 1811. After participating in the invasions of Texas, he accepted the pardon of the Captain
General of Cuba, being appointed as diplomat.

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Pedro Damián Cano Borrego, pietroyanaky@telefonica.net

Citation: Cano Borrego, P.D. (2021). In the Service of the King: The Other Story of the Libertadores.
Academia Letters, Article 3011. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL3011.