What is "reconquista"

Historians traditionally mark the beginning of the Reconquista with the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), in which a small Christian army, led by the nobleman Pelagius, defeated an army of the Umayyad Caliphate in the mountains of northern Iberia and established a Christian Kingdom in Asturias.

The Reconquista was the gradual military retaking ("reconquering") of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors.

Reconquista may also refer to:

• Bloodless reconquest, the restoration of colonial government in Spanish New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680
• Reconquista (Spanish America), restoration of Spanish colonial possession in the New World, typically control of colonial governments loyal to Ferdinand VII of Spain following the Peninsular War in Europe
  • Reconquista (Chile), restoration of Spanish colonial possession of Chile during the War of Independence
  • Reconquista (Colombia), restoration of Spanish colonial possession following a rebellion in what is now Colombia
  • Reconquista (Santo Domingo), restoration of Spanish colonial possession of Santo Domingo following a period of French occupation
• Reconquista (Portuguese colonies), restoration of Portuguese colonial possession (or joint Portuguese and Spanish rule) following periods of Dutch occupation
  • Reconquista (Angola)
  • Reconquista (Bahia)
  • Reconquista (Recife)
• Reconquista (Mexico), a modern irredentist movement advocating the restoration of Mexican control over territory now part of the United States

The Reconquista ("reconquest") is a term that is used (not exclusively) to describe the vision by different individuals, groups, and/or nations that the U.S. Southwest should be politically or culturally reconquered by Hispanics, on the basis that those territories had pertained to Mexico before the Texas annexation (1845) and the Mexican Cession (1848), as a consequence of the Mexican American War, for distinct purposes.

In colonial Spanish America, the Reconquista refers to the period following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 during which royalist armies were able to gain the upper hand in the Spanish American wars of independence. The term makes an analogy to the medieval Reconquista, in which Christian forces retook the Iberian Peninsula.

During Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian peninsula, a number of Spanish colonies in the Americas moved for greater autonomy or outright independence due to the political instability in Spain. By 1815 the general outlines of which areas were controlled by royalists and pro-independence forces had been established and a general stalemate set in the war. With the exception of rural areas controlled by guerrillas, North America was under the control of royalists, and in South America only the Southern Cone and New Granada remained outside of royalist control. After French forces left Spain in 1814, the restored Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, declared the developments in the Americas illegal and sent armies to quell the areas still in rebellion. The impact of these expeditions were most notably felt in Chile, New Granada, and Venezuela. The restoration was short lived, reversed by 1820 in these three countries.