Enrique de Gandía, one of the most productive of Latin American historians, continues his multi-volume study in these two weighty tomes. Volume IV will appeal mainly to those readers eager for some new details and more rehashing of material in Volumes II and III—that is, the rehabilitation of Martín de Álzaga. If there is any one who has read Gandía’s three volumes refuting the accusation of treason against Álzaga (for which he was convicted and executed in July 1812) and is still not convinced, then the author’s eloquence and scholarship will indeed have been in vain.
Yolume V takes up the larger theme of the Independence movement in the rest of Hispanic America, as well as in Argentina. Gandía rebukes those historians who have overemphasized the influence of the North American and the French Revolutions and of aid from the United States and Europe. He even declares that “the Hispanic American cities that found themselves at war with Spain received no aid from Europe or the United States” (p. 337); and that “the French Revolution did not have the slightest influence on the declaration of independence of any of the Hispanic American States” (p. 339). Elsewhere he states that the Spanish American countries owed nothing to any government of the world for their independence, except to France. Why France? Because General José San Martín “came to America as the envoy of Napoleon, to fight for American independence” (p. 204).
The author also tells us that after the defeat of Napoleon “the American problem was, we repeat, the world’s greatest problem” (p. 205). Metternich and Castlereagh may not have realized it, but there it was. In Chapter XIX Gandía assures his readers that the Monroe Doctrine was launched from fear of Russian designs on the Americas. In Chapter XXVI he declares that it was a Spaniard, Manuel Torres, in the service of Colombia, who gave John Quincy Adams the idea for the Monroe Doctrine. This chapter concludes with the following statement regarding the possible influence of the United States on the origins of Hispanic American independence:
That influence did not exist in any instance or in any concept. The United States had an influence on the constitutional projects of some Hispanic American nations; but, we repeat, absolutely no influence on the liberty of the Hispanic New World. On the contrary: it was a Spanish diplomat, in the service of the liberal cause of Colombia, who gave to the President of the United States, through Secretary Adams as intermediary, the basis of the so-called Monroe Doctrine. The independence of Hispanic America had its beginnings in the civil war between opposing parties, in the Napoleonic idea of separatism, and the liberal ideals of creoles and Spaniards (p. 355).
There are more, many more, of the author’s views on the origins of the independence movements in Spanish America, in general, and in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Venezuela, in particular. There is also a running commentary on the historiography of those movements, in which Gandía does not spare those who disagree with him. Some of his readers may be infuriated, others delighted and even informed, but few will be indifferent to Gandía’s views.
