Revolt of July 20, 1810

The Revolt of July 20, 1810 was a revolution initiated by the Creoles in the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada against the Spanish Empire that gave way to the Independence of what is known today as the Republic of Colombia.

Painting by Pedro Alcántara Quijano depicting Antonio Morales assaulting Gonzalo Llorente on July 20, 1810

The revolt began with an altercation that occurred in Santafé, present-day Bogotá, capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The event, also known as the "El Florero de Llorente" or the "Reyerta of July 20," led to the establishment of the first junta in Santafé and led to the eventual removal of Viceroy Antonio Amar y Borbón and the other royal authorities who had tried to prevent the establishment of the junta. The revolt coupled with other revolts throughout New Granada would lead to the start of the Colombian War of Independence which would last longer than a decade.

As a result, July 20th is commemorated as Colombia's Independence Day. While the goal of conspirators was not to declare independence from Spain, but instead to gain more autonomy within the Spanish Empire, the removal of Viceroy and the royal authorities from power would eventually move the leaders to eventually begin a movement towards full declaration of independence from Spain by 1813.

Prelude

In 1808 the events of the Tumult of Aranjuez and Bayonne Statute which led to the forced abdications orchestrated by Napoleon Bonaparte of King Charles IV and Ferdinand VII of Spain in favor of his brother Joseph Bonaparte led to a crisis of governability within Spain and its Empire in the Americas as well as the outbreak of the Peninsular War. When news reached the Americas of these events there was an initial outpouring of support of Ferdinand VII as well as wearing loyalty to the Supreme Central Junta that ruled Spain in the name of the legitimate King of Spain and a complete rejection by the populace of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain.

However, as time passed and Spain was invaded by French forces, unrest began to develop in the Spanish colonies in the Americas, in Spain itself various Juntas were established to rule in place of the imprisoned Ferdinand VII eventually establishing the Supreme Central Juntawhich acted as the Spanish government. These various juntas inspired many in the Americas to follow suit in an effort to seek more autonomy within the Spanish crown but with the caveat of Ferdinand remaining as their king.

Viceroy of New Granada Antonio José Amar y Borbón

In the Viceroyalty of New Granada various movements began to appear pushing for the establishment of juntas as well as open revolts. This first of these movements occurred in 1809 in Quito followed by in the next year Caracas. Despite these events, in the viceregal capital of Santa Fe de Bogotá the Viceroy of New Granada Antonio Amar y Borbón refused to allow for the establishment of a junta despite the repeated requests of prominent educated and illustrated creoles of Santa Fe and deployed troops in conjunction with troops from the Viceroyalty of Peru to put down the revolt in Quito, in Venezuela too the Captain General of the province suppressed the revolt and arrested the conspirators.

Camilo Torres Tenorio

One of these prominent creoles was Camilo Torres Tenorio who pushed for the establishment of a junta and would publish in 1809 as memorandum known as the Memorandum of Offences . In this publication Torres defended the right of the Viceroyalty of New Granada to establish a junta given the political circumstances. Although the draft expressed many of common sentiments of Criollos at the time and probably was discussed by prominent members of the capital's society, it was never adopted by the cabildo. It would be published for the first time only in 1832. Other publications such as the Suba Letters also expressed these ideas and were distributed clandestinely.

The situation began to grow so serious that Viceroy Amar y Borbón convened a meeting in the Viceroy's palace with the members of the Royal Audiencia to inform them about the secret notices that were coming to him where he was informed of the possibility that a revolutionary force against the Spanish system would explode in the immediate future. Unconcernedly, one of the members of the Royal Audiencia, Hernández de Alba, made his voice heard to say: "Americans are toothless dogs: they bark but they do not bite."

With the collapse of the Supreme Central Junta of Seville with the capture of the city by French forces, the Spanish government fled to Cadiz establishing the Council of Regency. With the situation deteriorating in New Granada the council decided to order the destitution of Amar y Borbon, sending a notification with the royal commissioner Antonio Villavicencio. On March 1, 1810, Villavicencio departed from the port of Cádiz along with another royal commissioner Carlos Montúfar who was bound for Quito. The two arrived in Cartagena on May 8, while Montúfar departed for Quito, Villavicencio headed for Santa Fe. That same month on May 22 the colony's most important port and one of its most important cities Cartagena de Indias revolted and established its own junta. Soon other cities broke out in revolt such as Cali and Pamplona.

On 9 July, In the provincial capital of Socorro the inhabitants of the town rose up against the Corregidor José Váldes de Posada with goal of "Restoring to the people of Socorro the sacred and imprescriptible rights of man", this revolt was suppressed by the local Spanish garrison leading to the death of 8 people.

The news of this massacre reached Santa Fe on July 19, the city was already full of rumors and there was a notable tension in the air. These events inspired a number of prominent creoles of the city to meet secretly that night at the Astronomical Observatory where the director of the observatory Francisco José de Caldas lended his office for their meeting. There they planned an insurrection against the viceroy, this group of conspirators would also try to win over the royal commissioner Antonio Villavicencio who was due to arrive in the coming days for the patriotic cause and at the same time promote a public unrest that would lead to the appointment of the long-awaited Governing Junta. The day chosen to carry out the plan was the next day, Friday July 20, when the traditional market would be held in the Plaza Mayor, thus the plaza would be filled with people.

Revolt

House where Llorente's shop was located

On Friday July 20, 1810 the main plaza of Santa Fe was filled with people as it was the traditional market day. Around noon, Luis de Rubio one of the conspirators, was given the task of borrowing a vase for the dinner reception for royal commissioner Antonio Villavicencio from the store of Spaniard José González de Llorente. Llorente was a firm royalist and successful businessman who owned a storefront in the northwest corner of the Plaza Mayor the specialized in imported goods. The creoles knowing that Llorente would reject their request, hoped that they could provoke Llorente into insulting them as they knew he thought lowly of the creoles and thus cause the local populace in the plaza to become involved and start the uprising.

Flower vase that was used as the pretext to start the revolt. Now housed in the Independence Museum in Bogotá

When Llorente refused Rubio's request (as they had hoped) and reportedly gave them an insulting response, it was at this moment that the other conspirators such as the brothers Antonio and Francisco, as well as their father, Francisco Morales, became involved and got into a heated argument with the Spaniard. A crowd began to gather around the store when the situation exploded when Antonio Morales assaulted Llorente, causing a popular tumult of great proportions because it was a market day. Llorente fled and took refuge in the Morenos' house, located on Calle Real, and then returned camouflaged to his home, but three hours later the fury of the crowd demanded that he be taken to jail for the inferred grievance, at this point the Mayor of Santa Fe, Jose Miguel Pey, attempted to calm the crowd, Pey had entered Llorente's store along with Camilo Torres and Lorenzo Marroquín where the commotion was occurring.

The crowd already riled up was further encouraged by the efforts of another conspirator, Jose Maria Carbonell, who began to incite the crowd to express their anger against the perceived abuses of other Spaniards. The crowd then began to gather in the plaza openly shouting for the establishment of an openCabildo (Council). Gathering the crowd in front of the City Hall House, another conspirator José Acevedo y Gómez used his illuminated oratory skills with such mastery that from that moment on he was known as the People's Tribune. Gómez spoke to the crowd telling them "If you miss this moment of effervescence and heat, if you let this unique and happy occasion escape, within twelve hours you will be treated as insurgents..." and he added, as he pointed with his hand at the door of the city prison: "See the dungeons, the handcuffs and the chains that await you..." A warm salvo of applause closed his speech.

Meanwhile, Viceroy Amar y Borbón tried to ignore the crowds' demands. In the capital the Viceroy had a significant number of troops to put down this revolt, the Spanish army units in the city were the Auxiliary Infantry Battalion of Santa Fe and the Viceroy's own cavalry lifeguard squadron along with an artillery squadron armed with many artillery pieces, however these troops were made up of mostly locals who sympathized with the revolt with some officers actively taking part in it these being Antonio Baraya Ricaurte and Jose Maria Moledo who arrested their Spanish commander Colonel Juan de Sámano. With his options waning the Viceroy eventually relented in order to calm the crowd, and agreed to have an extraordinary but not open council meeting which, however, became open under the presidency of the hearer Juan Jurado.

The council convened in the city hall building all night until and did not finish until 6 am the following day July 21 July, when the decision was made to form the Supreme Junta of Santa Fe and loyalty was sworn to the regency council in Cadíz that at that time represented King Ferdinand VII. This first Supreme Junta was made up of twenty-five members, during the meeting an initiative that was put forward by Camilo Torres and José Acevedo Gomez and supported by Frutos Joaquín Gutiérrez would see that Viceroy Antonio Amar y Borbón be made President of the junta and the José Miguel Pey be made vice-president. The viceroy swore fealty to the junta that same day at 8:30 am.

Arrest of the Viceroy

However the appointment of the viceroy as president of the junta was not supported by the populace. Four days later on July 25, rumors also began to circulate that the Viceroy and other royal officials were conspiring in an effort to launch a counterrevolution, by gathering his guard and a considerable number of weapons within the Viceroy's palace.

The prison of the viceroys by Coriolano Leudo Obando, shows Viceroy Amar y Borbón and his wife Francisca Villanova being arrested and escorted out of the viceroy's palace

The citizens of Santa Fe fearing the worst demanded that the junta arrest the viceroy. The junta now ordered his arrest with the presidency now under control of Jose Miguel Pey. Around 4pm the Plaza Mayor was full of people as the observed the troops that were loyal to the junta surrounding the viceroy's palace and placing artillery pieces in front of the palace as a rumor and gone about that the viceroy's guard had armed and loaded rifles as well as gathered artillery within the building. Representatives of the junta then entered the palace and informed the viceroy of his arrest and checked to see if he had stockpiled weapons. After it was found that there were no artillery pieces in the building and that his guard's rifles were not armed, the viceroy and his wife Francisca Villanova along with other royal officials were escorted out of the building and taken to a Covent where they were imprisoned.