1808: A Crisis of Legitimacy in the Spanish Empire

Spanish American independence began not with a colonial tax protest, as in America, but with the collapse of authority at the empire's center. In 1808 Napoleon forced King Charles IV and his son Ferdinand VII to abdicate at Bayonne and made his brother Joseph king of Spain. Spaniards rose in resistance and formed juntas claiming to rule in Ferdinand's name. Across the Americas, colonists faced a basic question: if the legitimate king was a prisoner, who held sovereignty?

Many argued that power returned to the people, and in 1810 juntas formed in Caracas, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and Santiago, at first professing loyalty to Ferdinand. Only gradually, as Spain refused to treat Americans as equals and Ferdinand restored absolutism in 1814, did autonomy become independence. Comparison with Skocpol's model is striking: an external shock broke the state, and revolution followed.