Captain-General Rafael del Riego y Flórez (7 April 1784 – 7 November 1823) was a Spanish Army officer and politician who played a key role in the Liberal Triennium ( in Spanish). Riego’s liberal uprising marked a turning point in the Spanish American wars of independence. {cite journal |last=Archer |first=Christon I. |title=The Spanish Army and the Loss of America, 1810–1824 |journal=Hispanic American Historical Review |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=586–607 |year=1968 |publisher=Duke University Press |doi=10.1215/00182168-48.4.586|quote=the most important single factor determining the loss of the Río de la Plata}}
Early life
Riego was born on 7 April 1784 in Tuña, Asturias. After graduating in Law from the University of Oviedo in 1807, he moved to Madrid to join the Royal Guard. In March 1808 his company was involved in the Tumult of Aranjuez and dissolved.
Peninsular War
In November 1808, as a captain and aide-de-camp to General Vicente María de Acevedo, he fought at the Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros, after which he once again was taken prisoner. Sent to France, he remained there until January 1814, when he managed to escape and make his way to England, where he joined a unit of foreign soldiers raised by the British government to send to Spain.
Returning shortly before the Spanish Constitution of 1812 was abolished by King Fernando VII, Riego was appointed a captain in the Infantry Regiment of the Princess (Regimiento de Infantería de la Princesa) in 1814. During the six years of absolutism that followed the restoration of the king, Spanish liberals wished to restore the Spanish Constitution, which the King had abolished in May 1814.
1820 revolt
Having joined the Ejército de Ultramar, the expeditionary force commanded by Enrique O'Donnell, Conde de La Bisbal,. Martín-Lanuza, Alberto. "Pedro Sarsfield y Waters". Historia Hispánica. Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 16 March 2025. that was being prepared to put down the Spanish American wars of independence, and later promoted to lieutenant colonel, Riego was incorporated into the Asturian Battalion, then under the command of Evaristo San Miguel, at Las Cabezas de San Juan (Seville). However, the Expeditionary Force, numbering some twenty thousand men, was unable to embark due to the lack of transport ships. Moreover, the troops themselves were badly equipped and morale in general was very low.
San Miguel, from Asturias, like Riego, had also been deported for his liberal ideas and was, at that moment, involved in a plot with other army officers and leading members of the bourgeoisie in Cádiz, including people like Istúriz, Alcalá Galiano, Antonio Quiroga and Mendizábal. However, the plot was discovered when the plotters tried to recruit General Sarsfield, the second-in-command of the expeditionary force, San Miguel, Quiroga, O'Daly and Roten. Martín-Lanuza, Alberto. "Felipe del Arco-Agüero Yolif". Historia Hispánica. Real Academia de la Historia. Retrieved 16 March 2025. among others, were arrested. With the leading plotters imprisoned, Riego decided to go ahead with the mutiny and on 1 January 1820, at the head of his battalion at Cabezas de San Juan proclaimed the restoration of the Spanish Constitution of 1812, the start of what is known as the Pronunciamiento de Riego, a major event in the historiography of Liberalism and radicalism in Spain, along with the Liberal Triennium.
Riego's troops marched through the cities of Andalusia with the hope of starting an anti-absolutist uprising, but the local population was mostly indifferent. An uprising, however, took place in Galicia, and quickly spread throughout Spain.Bullon de Mendoza y Gomez de Valugera, Alfonso. "Revolución y contrarrevolución en España y América (1808–1840)". IN: Javier Parades Alonso (ed.), España Siglo XIX, ACTAS, 1991. , p. 84. On 7 March 1820, the royal palace in Madrid was surrounded by soldiers under the command of General Francisco Ballesteros, and on 10 March, the King agreed to restore the Constitution.
The Great Overseas Expedition
The Great Overseas Expedition (Gran Expedición de Ultramar) was a large Spanish military expedition assembled at Cádiz between 1819 and 1820 to reinforce royalist forces in Spanish America and suppress the independence movements. Commanded by Enrique José O'Donnell, Count of La Bisbal, with the naval forces under Francisco Mourelle, it was the largest expeditionary force Spain prepared after the expedition of Pablo Morillo in 1815. Estimates of its strength range from 20,000 to 25,000 troops, supported by a fleet of ships of the line, frigates, corvettes and transport vessels.
The expedition was never dispatched because the uprising led by Rafael del Riego on 1 January 1820 forced King Ferdinand VII to restore the Constitution of 1812. The revolt, supported by troops assigned to the expedition, prevented its departure and deprived Spain of the reinforcements intended for the royalist armies in America. According to Anthony H. Hull, Riego's liberal uprising marked "the death knell of the Spanish Empire in mainland America".
The uprising led by Rafael del Riego began on 1 January 1820 at Las Cabezas de San Juan. Its purpose was to restore the Constitution of 1812, and it was supported by troops belonging to the army intended to suppress definitively the rebellions in Spain's American territories.José Luis Roca (2007). Ni con Lima ni con Buenos Aires: La formación de un Estado nacional en Charcas. Lima: Plural Editores, p. 476. ISBN 978-99954-1-076-6. This force was known as the Great Overseas Expedition (es:Gran Expedición de Ultramar),Guillén y Tato, Julio F. (1969). Historia marítima española: lecciones para uso de los caballeros Guardias Marinas. Vol. I. Madrid: Instituto Histórico de Marina, p. 339. also called the Great Expedition or the “great expedition overseas”.Puente Candamo, José Agustín de la (1977). Historia marítima del Perú: La Independencia, 1790–1826. Vol. V, part 1. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Histórico-Marítimos del Perú, p. 194.
After the serious difficulties encountered in organising Pablo Morillo's army in 1815 to suppress the rebellions in America, conditions were even worse for sending a second army in 1820. Regarding the first major force, it has traditionally been argued that it was originally intended to be sent against Buenos Aires. However, the fall of Montevideo, the principal Spanish stronghold in the Río de la Plata, the revolutionary successes in the Venezuelan Captaincy General and the United Provinces of New Granada, the greater proximity of the Isthmus of Panama, which was under threat of invasion (Portobelo campaign - 1819), and the economic importance of Peru, which would otherwise be isolated in the Pacific, led to the expedition being redirected towards Cartagena de Indias.Cisneros, Andrés; Carlos Escudé; and Alejandro L. Corbacho (1998). “Las expediciones militares españolas entre 1811 y 1816”. In Historia general de las relaciones exteriores de la República Argentina. Part I: Las relaciones exteriores de la Argentina embrionaria (1806–1881). Vol. II: Desde los orígenes hasta el reconocimiento de la independencia formal. Buenos Aires: Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales, Centro de Estudios de Política Exterior and Grupo Editor Latinoamericano.
Morillo sailed from Cádiz on 15 February 1815. On 9 May, King Ferdinand VII announced by decree that the fleet was being sent against Costa Firme, that further reinforcements would soon be sent to Panama and Peru, and that a second expedition was being prepared against the Río de la Plata. The latter force was to consist of 20,000 infantrymen, 1,500 cavalrymen and the corresponding artillery.Barros Arana, Diego (1889). Historia general de Chile. Vol. X. Santiago: Rafael Jover, p. 206. Until it reached Puerto Santo, near Carúpano, Venezuela, on 7 April, the expedition caused widespread alarm, particularly in Buenos Aires.Barros Arana, 1889, pp. 206, 436. Because false reports and rumours circulated continuously, it was also believed that the expedition might be directed towards Peru and the Captaincy General of Chile.Barros Arana, 1889, p. 54.
A second force began to be organised in mid-1816 under the direction of the Minister of the Navy, José Vázquez de Figueroa, but the project subsequently languished.Costeloe, Michael P. (1989). La respuesta a la Independencia: la España Imperial y las revoluciones hispanoamericanas, 1810–1840. Translated into Spanish by Mercedes Pizarro. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, p. 105. ISBN 978-968-16-3261-8. On 2 November 1816, Brigadier Francisco Mourelle was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition's naval forces. Two years after Morillo's expedition, the disappointing results of the war had changed the government's position. On 9 November 1816, the Council of the Indies concluded that sending Morillo's costly and well-equipped expedition to Venezuela—while Montevideo had been retained as a diversion—instead of reinforcing Mexico, the most important territory, had been a mistake that altered the course of the war. At the end of the colonial period, Mexican revenues represented approximately 90 per cent of all revenue remitted from Spanish America.
In 1817 only limited reinforcements were assigned to Peru and Chile, and these sailed the following year aboard ships purchased from Russia. Their acquisition under the Treaty of Madrid (1817) was controversial because no officers of the Spanish Navy had accompanied the royal clique responsible for the purchase in order to inspect the ships' condition, which proved to be poor. The vessels were described as obsolete, inefficient and unsatisfactory in both sanitary and navigational terms.
The project for a major expedition was revived when news reached Madrid of the danger created by the loss of Chile in 1818. First, it was no longer possible to recover the Río de la Plata from the Viceroyalty of Peru. Second, the Pacific coast as far north as Mexico had been left exposed. Third, the Viceroyalty of Peru itself was threatened, and the king urgently summoned his privy council. One of its members, Joaquín Gómez de Liaño, proposed sending at least 16,000 men to Buenos Aires. However, a lack of resources and the complications created by the Luso-Brazilian invasion of the Banda Oriental—which could have brought Portuguese forces into conflict with the expedition—led the government to give priority to sending reinforcements to Havana and New Spain, and warships to Lima, Havana, Veracruz and Venezuela. Another factor was pressure from influential groups that regarded the Río de la Plata as a peripheral region of the monarchy and believed that protecting trade with New Spain and the Caribbean should take priority. Finally, after the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, Spain recognised that the other European powers would not support it in preserving its empire and were, in fact, more interested in its collapse.
The Great Expedition was organised by the former viceroy of New Spain and captain general of Andalusia, Félix María Calleja del Rey.Bethell, Leslie (2000). Historia de América Latina: La independencia. Vol. V. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, p. 66. ISBN 84-8432-067-7. By the end of 1819 its land forces assembled at Cádiz and the Isle of León consisted of 20,200 infantrymen, 2,800 cavalrymen and 1,370 artillerymen, equipped with 94 field guns, additional lighter pieces and substantial quantities of ammunition. Shortly afterwards, however, an epidemic of yellow fever broke out.Santana, Arturo; George Woodberry; and María Urreta (1921). La campaña de Carabobo (1821): relación histórica-militar. Caracas: Litografía del Comercio, p. 11. The force included fourteen cavalry squadrons.Pérez López-Portillo, Raúl (2005). La España de Riego. Madrid: Sílex. ISBN 978-84-7737-149-6.