British intervention in Spanish American independence

British intervention in Spanish American independence

Monument to the British Legions who fought at the Battle of Boyaca on August 7, 1819
Date	1815–1819
Location	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Spanish Empire
Type	Interventionism
Cause	Spanish American wars of independence
Motive	Colonialism and Mercantilism[1]
Target	Soldiers and sailors recruited in United Kingdom for insurgency. Sales of warships, weapons and ammunition.[2]
Participants	British volunteers
End of the event	Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819

Britain's role in the Spanish American Wars of Independence combines the military, political and diplomatic routes adopted by them, as well as its merchants and private citizens during the course of the Spanish American wars of independence. Britain wanted to see an end to Spanish colonialism in the Americas but at the same time wanted to keep her as an ally in post-Napoleonic Europe. British support for the Spanish American revolutionaries was essentially a covert role with both private and state involvement.^[1]

As a combined form of unofficial private enterprise, the British were able to use their merchants in the hope of cutting the Spanish monopoly. Arms, supplies, loans, ships, and hired sailors and soldiers were then sent to support the revolutionaries.^[3] Spanish aid was eventually cut off from their colonies with the clever use of diplomacy, and with the Royal Navy in command of the oceans. All these factors combined were decisive in the struggle for independence of South American republics.^[4]