These conflicts have been characterized both as wars of national liberation and as civil wars, since, while the goal of one group of belligerents was the independence of the Spanish colonies in the Americas, the majority of combatants on all sides were Spanish Americans and Native Americans. Some of the Spanish Americans believed that independence was necessary, rather most who supported the creation of the new governments saw them as a means to preserve the region's autonomy from the French. Over the course of the next decade, the political instability in Spain and the absolutist restoration under Ferdinand VII convinced more and more Spanish Americans of the need to establish independence from the mother country.