Junta Central

The Junta Central became Spain’s governing authority during the collapse of royal power in 1808, when French armies occupied Madrid and Ferdinand VII was captured and forced to abdicate. Its retreat under military pressure to Cádiz helped produce a constitutional response to the crisis: the Junta formed the Cortes, which in 1812 promulgated a constitution based on popular sovereignty. At the same time, disputes across colonial Latin America over whether the Junta had legitimate authority helped create a path from institutional crisis toward independence.

Formation During the Invasion

In February 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte’s French armies invaded Spain; by May they had taken Madrid, and by September Ferdinand VII had been captured and had abdicated. The Junta Central took the place of the king and continued the struggle against the French. It first met at Aranjuez, but withdrew south as French forces advanced, eventually reaching Cádiz. Though besieged by Napoleonic forces, the port held out, providing the setting in which the Junta established a parliament called the Cortes.

The Cortes and the Cádiz Constitution

In 1812, the Cortes produced the Cádiz Constitution, which called for a constitutional monarchy grounded in popular sovereignty. It also demanded an end to special privileges and equality before the law. Those principles challenged the established order in Spain’s American colonies, where elites exercised power within an institutional system shaped by the encomienda, forced labor, and colonial authority. The Junta’s role in convening the Cortes thus connected Spain’s struggle against French rule to a constitutional program with far-reaching implications for its colonies.

Authority Contested in the Colonies

The collapse of the Spanish state created a constitutional crisis across colonial Latin America. Whether to recognize the Junta Central’s authority became a point of dispute, and many Latin Americans responded by forming their own juntas. The first declaration of independence came in La Paz, Bolivia, in 1809, although Spanish troops sent from Peru quickly suppressed it. The Junta did not itself represent a settled or universally accepted source of authority: the uncertainty surrounding its legitimacy helped set off political action beyond Spain.

Mexico’s political elite viewed the Cádiz Constitution with particular suspicion. The 1810 Hidalgo Revolt had helped shape that stance: after Hidalgo’s army sacked Guanajuato on September 23, it killed the intendant and began killing white inhabitants indiscriminately. The episode, described as resembling class or ethnic warfare rather than an independence movement, united elites in opposition. They feared that independence could bring popular participation in politics, and consequently rejected the legitimacy of a constitution that opened the way to such participation.

Restoration and Renewed Constitutional Crisis

In 1815, as Napoleon’s empire in Europe collapsed, Ferdinand VII returned to power and the Cádiz Constitution was abrogated. The Crown began trying to recover its American colonies, but faced no problem with loyalist Mexico at that point. In 1820, however, a Spanish army assembled at Cádiz to sail to the Americas and restore royal authority mutinied against Ferdinand. Army units elsewhere soon joined the revolt, forcing the king to restore the constitution and recall the Cortes.

The recalled Cortes was more radical than the body that had written the Cádiz Constitution. It proposed abolishing all forms of labor coercion and challenged special privileges, including the military’s right to try crimes in its own courts. The prospect of this renewed constitutional program being imposed in Mexico again brought colonial elites into conflict with the political direction coming from Spain. The Junta Central’s historical significance lies in this chain of events: a wartime governing body convened a constitutional parliament, while the contested authority and principles that followed helped unsettle Spain’s colonial order.