Spanish colonization of the Americas were predominantly "criollos" (Americas-born people of European ancestry, mostly Spanish or Portuguese), bourgeois and influenced by liberalism and in some cases with military training in the mother country. In 1809 the first declarations of independence from Spanish rule occurred in the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The first two were in present-day Bolivia at Sucre (May 25), and La Paz (July 16); and the third in present-day Ecuador at Quito (August 10). In 1810 Mexico declared independence, with the Mexican War of Independence following for over a decade. In 1821 Treaty of Córdoba established Mexican independence from Spain and concluded the
Historiography of Colonial Spanish America disdain. An important example is Mexico's conservative politician and intellectual Lucas Alamán. His five-volume "Historia de Mejico" is the country's first history, covering the colonial era up to and including the struggle for independence. Alamán viewed crown rule during the colonial era as ideal, and political independence that after the brief monarchy of Agustín de Iturbide, the Mexican republic was characterized by liberal demagoguery and factionalism. Writing in the mid-nineteenth century, Mexican liberal Vicente Riva Palacio, grandson of insurgent hero Vicente Guerrero, wrote a five-volume history of the colonial era from a liberal viewpoint, During the era of Porfirio Díaz