Between 1808 and 1810, the Napoleonic French Empire openly invaded Spain, after deposing King Ferdinand VII and taking him prisoner. A Spanish resistance formed an emergency government, the Supreme Central and Governing Junta of the Kingdom in order to govern themselves and the Spanish Empire in the absence of Ferdinand VII. But, when the Supreme Central Junta dissolved itself on 29 January 1810, under extreme pressure from Napoleonic forces, most of the main cities of Spanish America refused to acknowledge its successor, a Regency Council, as the legitimate depositary of sovereignty. They proceed to name their own local juntas, as a means to exercise government in the absence of the prisoner king.