Simón Bolívar and Francisco de Miranda lead rebellions in the Viceroyalties of Peru, Venezuela and New Granada, but loyalist troops prevail, forcing Bolívar into Jamaican exile in 1814.

The restoration of Ferdinand VII had signified an important change, since most of the political and legal changes done on both sides of the Atlantic—the myriad of juntas, the Cortes in Spain and several of the congresses in the Americas, and many of the constitutions and new legal codes—had been done in his name.

Once in Spain, he had realized that he had significant support from conservatives in the general population and the hierarchy of the Spanish Catholic Church, so on May 4 he had repudiated the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and ordered the arrest of liberal leaders who had created it on May 10.

Ferdinand had justified his actions by stating that the Constitution and other changes had been made by a Cortes assembled in his absence and without his consent.

He had also declared all of the juntas and constitutions written in Spanish America invalid and restored the former law codes and political institutions.

News of the events arrived through Spanish America during the next three weeks to nine months, depending on time it took goods and people to travel from Spain.

This, in effect, constituted a definitive break with two groups that could have been allies of Ferdinand VII: the autonomous governments, which had not yet declared formal independence, and Spanish liberals who had created a representative government that would fully include the overseas possessions and was seen as an alternative to independence by many in New Spain, Central America, the Caribbean, Quito (today Ecuador), Peru, Upper Peru (today, Bolivia) and Chile.

Most Spanish Americans are moderates who have decided to wait and see what will come out of the restoration of normalcy.

Spanish Americans in royalist areas who are committed to independence have already joined guerrilla movements.

Ferdinand's actions do set areas outside of the control of the royalist armies on the path to full independence.

The governments of these regions, which have their origins in the juntas of 1810—and even moderates there who had entertained a reconciliation with the crown—now see the need to separate from Spain, if they are to protect the reforms they had enacted

A major expedition of Spanish veterans under General Pablo Morillo sets sail early in 1815 for America, landing first on the coast of Venezuela in April to mop up what remained of patriot resistance there.

Its next target is New Granada.

Correctly diagnosing the patriots' cause as hopeless because of their continuing dissensions, Bolivar decamps to the West Indies, to prepare for a better day.

During August-December, Morillo's forces besiege Cartagena, starving it into submission, then advance into the interior, where they will restore Spanish rule in Santa Fe in May 1816.

The Spanish force of the South American reconquest, leaving the port of Cádiz on February 17, 1815, initially lands at Carupano (Venezuela) in April and later invades the island of Margarita, where no resistance is encountered.

After leaving the island, Morillo's troops reinforce existing royalist forces in the Venezuelan mainland, entering Cumaná, La Guaira, Caracas, and Puerto Cabello in May.

A small part of the main corps sets off towards Panamá, while the main contingent is directed towards the Neogranadine coastal city of Santa Marta, which is still in royalist hands.

After picking up supplies and militia volunteers in Santa Marta on July 23, the Spanish expeditionary forces besiege Cartagena de Indias.

After a five-month siege the fortified city falls in December 1815.

Spain will be torn by revolution and counter-revolution throughout much of the nineteenth century, beginning with the French occupation of Spain in 1808.

Spain has attempted since 1814 to recover control of Spanish America, now partly independent,  and the problem of maintaining an inflated wartime army with a permanent economic deficit has foiled all Ferdinand's efforts to assemble a large army and a fleet to send to America.

His ministers can neither reinforce his armies in America nor persuade the British government to collaborate or connive at reconquest.

His domestic policies have effectively destroyed Spanish liberalism and all its works by 1819, leading to a series of insurrections.

Generals, chafing at control by civilian juntas had on occasion overthrown them, thus initiating the phenomenon of the pronunciamiento, or military revolution.

The afrancesados, often men of liberal inclinations but tarred with the accusation of collaboration with the French, remain as an indigestible element within liberalism itself.

Spain's American colonies take advantage of the postwar chaos to proclaim their independence, and most established republican governments.

By 1825 only Cuba and Puerto Rico will remain under the Spanish flag in the New World.

When Ferdinand is restored to the throne in Madrid, he expends wealth and manpower in a vain effort to reassert control over the colonies.

The move is unpopular among liberal officers assigned to the American war.

The ease of the Spanish "reconquest" of New Granada in 1815-16 can be attributed not only to patriot divisions but also to weariness with the hardships and disruptions of wartime.

Moreover, the pro-independence leadership, mainly drawn from criollo upper sectors of society, has generally failed to convince the popular majority that it has a real stake in the outcome.

Although one patriot faction at Cartagena has succeeded in rallying artisans and people of color to participate actively on its side, more aristocratic rivals win local control, not only in Cartagena but also in all of the more populated regions of New Granada by July 1816.

Yet restoration of the old regime is never complete.

Some patriot fighters follow Bolivar into Caribbean exile to continue plotting, and others—including the man destined to become Bolivar's closest New Granadan collaborator and ultimate rival, General Francisco de Paula Santander y Omana—retreat to the eastern plains (llanos), which become a republican sanctuary.

Moreover, the financial exactions of the Spanish authorities together with revulsion against their tactics of repression, which include systematic execution of most top figures of the Patria Boba, turn feeling increasingly against them.

Patriot guerrillas spring up in many parts of the highlands.