Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Although it had been agreed that the Span-
ish and French branches of the family
would never lay claim to each other's lands,
there were numerous territorial disputes
across the centuries, both in Europe and
overseas. During the middle years of the
18th century the so-called Bourbon Family
Compact brought the countries into con-
tinuing military alliance.
Philip V and succeeding Bourbons F
ERDI
-
NAND
VI and C
HARLES
III attempted, with
varying degrees of success, to introduce
French methods of administration and eco-
nomic development—“the Bourbon
Reforms”—in Spain and many of the colo-
nies. After the French Bourbons were tem-
porarily ousted by the great revolutionary
upheavals of 1789-1815, C
HARLES
IV and
F
ERDINAND
VII of Spain became entangled in
the grand politics of the era, with disastrous
results for their country. The restoration of
the Bourbons on both sides of the Pyrenees
after the fall of Napoléon provided only
intermittent stability. In the case of I
SABELLA
II her unhappy reign came to an end with a
military coup in 1868. Restored in 1875
under A
LFONSO
XII, the Spanish Bourbons
soon saw a new era of ill fortune that coin-
cided with the reign of A
LFONSO
XIII. Mili-
tary defeats abroad and political turmoil at
home led to his departure from his country
in 1931. The remarkable durability of the
Spanish Bourbons was demonstrated more
than 40 years later when his grandson, J
UAN
C
ARLOS
I, ascended the throne at the end of
the Franco dictatorship and ushered in a
period of democracy and rising prosperity.
dence in the Viceroyalty of N
EW
G
RANADA
and the fall of Spanish rule in what is now
C
OLOMBIA
and V
ENEZUELA
. The South
American Liberator, S
IMÓN
B
OLÍVAR
, had
for some time been building up his forces
and simultaneously exhausting those of
his enemy by constant deceptive maneu-
vers. Late on the afternoon of August 7,
he attacked a large body of Royalists
(mostly colonials) as they were attempt-
ing to cross a bridge near Boyacá, in
south-central Colombia. After several
hours of fighting his rebel forces, num-
bering about 2,000, forced the surrender
of some 1,600 soldiers and the senior
Spanish officers. The way now lay open
to Bogotá, from which the viceroy fled
and Bolívar rapidly advanced to the city.
There, a few days later he proclaimed the
independence of the Viceroyalty of New
Granada. This victory tipped the scales in
favor of the Spanish American revolution.
It encouraged the rebels in M
EXICO
and
Central America, who won independence
two years later. By 1824 Bolívar was able
to personally participate in the final
downfall of Spanish rule in South Amer-
ica following the last battle at A
YACUCHO
in the highlands of P
ERU
.
Braga, Teófilo
(1843-1924)
Portuguese writer and statesman
Born in humble circumstances in the
A
ZORES
, Braga managed to secure admis-
sion to the University of Coimbra where he
became associated with the Portuguese dis-
ciples of positivism. Subsequently, as a
teacher at the University of Lisbon, he pro-
moted the philosophical doctrines of the
French thinker Auguste Comte. Gradually,
however, Braga became less interested in
Boyacá, Battle of
(1819)
This battle on August 7, 1819, ended in a
decisive victory for the forces of indepen-
Search WWH ::
Custom Search