Bolivar: American Liberator

by Arana, Marie

  When the politicians and pundits who had heaped every possible abuse on Bolívar learned of his march on Bogotá, they trembled with alarm. The most vociferous among them feigned illness and left the capital. Santander tried to dissuade Bolívar from advancing any farther, arguing weakly that to bring too many troops into Bogotá would put an untenable burden on the city: soldiers would die of hunger; there was not enough food to go around; their presence would be a scandal. But the Liberator pressed on. Grasping at straws now, Santander reminded Bolívar that he had no power, that he had never actually taken the oath of the presidency, that his “extraordinary faculties” had all been rendered null; but this, too, had no effect. The vice president even went so far as to plan a preposterous scheme in which he would mount a new revolutionary force to repel Bolívar. The minister of war, Carlos Soublette, rejected the proposal out of hand. Suddenly, it seemed all tables had turned. The very heart of the republic was awaiting Bolívar’s wrath. If anyone noted the irony, few had the nerve to say it: the revolution had twisted so far upon itself that the people of Bogotá were afraid of their own liberator.

  CHAPTER 16

  Man of Difficulties

  Nobody loves me in New Granada . . . they think of me as a necessary evil. Why should I sacrifice myself for them? With weapons. I defended their rights, and now, with weapons, I must force them to do what they should?

  —Simón Bolívar

  Before his arrival in Bogotá on September 10, 1827, Bolívar let it be known that he expected nothing less than absolute power. “Let me say this as clearly as I can,” he announced in advance, “The republic will be lost unless it gives me the fullest authority.” He was no longer willing to delegate the presidency in order to pursue a larger vision. That vision had been utterly shattered: there would be no federation now. “Can you believe it!” he fumed, “They ask me to dismember the army even as they report the latest calamities!” Peru had declared itself an enemy; the territory of Ecuador had been invaded; Sucre was reporting trouble in Bolivia. As far as Bolívar was concerned, Vice President Santander and a diabolical congress had been the ruin of his ambition for Latin America. They had undermined the army, frittered away the money, imposed a political system that worked only in Bogotá. It would take a colossal military effort to travel the distances and subdue the mess. He communicated to the president of the senate that he expected to take the oath of the presidency immediately upon entering the capital. His demands were clear: a congressional assembly was to receive him on his arrival, his old mansion of La Quinta was to be made available, and—although he didn’t have a peso to his name—he would scrounge money from friends until he could pay it back. Not one government cent was to be spent on his behalf.

  Trying to make the best of an exceedingly nervous situation, the government of Bogotá sent a welcoming party to greet him a hundred miles from the city. Among that number was the secretary of war, Carlos Soublette, an associate of his for years, who over time, Bolívar suspected, had lost some of his love for him. But a gaggle of good friends, too, insisted on riding out to welcome the prodigal warrior. It was a civil but solemn rendezvous, made somewhat lighter by the Liberator, who burst out laughing when he heard that he had sent his most raucous critics running for the hills.

  On they went into the crowded streets of Bogotá, which had been abundantly decorated for the occasion. Grateful that he was entering in peace, the city had rushed to erect triumphal arches along the Calle Real; colorful bunting hung from the stately houses. For as far as the eye could see, balconies were filled with elegantly turned out ladies. But, overall, it was a muted reception. Citizens didn’t know how to respond. Santander, who had spewed every imaginable accusation against Bolívar—comparing him to the cruel Spanish general Morillo—now found himself powerless in the face of congress’s decision to receive Bolívar according to the Liberator’s wishes. He sat in the presidential palace and anticipated the worst.

  The senators had all gathered at the nave of the ancient convent of Santo Domingo and seated themselves in a double circle of chairs. Before them was a table with a thick Bible on it. As Bolívar made his way through the capital, a noisy congregation crowded into every possible cranny of the church. Gossiping, buzzing, the people glanced over their shoulders in anticipation, placing bets on when the Liberator would appear and whether he would actually take the oath. He had, after all, tried to renounce the presidency numerous times. From time to time, a false rumor that he had arrived would electrify the crowd, and the more audacious would stand on their seats, craning to see the door.

  He entered the church at three in the afternoon and, though bells pealed and bands played when he passed through the doors, the crowd instantly quieted to see the gaunt, weary figure before them. As he walked slowly down the aisle, he seemed in acute discomfort. His stride was steady, yet awkward: the gait of a man too long in the saddle. No longer was he the nimble warrior who—only eight years before—had leapt from his horse to dart up the steps of the viceroy’s palace. At forty-four, he was the very picture of old age.

  The applause was reserved, but he didn’t pay it much mind. He seemed dazed, his health badly shaken by the journey. When he reached the senators, he bowed low, motioned them to sit, and placed his cocked hat on the table. The oath was administered promptly, as he had requested: The president of the senate, Vicente Barrero, fixed his small, fierce eyes on the Liberator, laid his hand on the Bible, and asked him to repeat the words. Bolívar did so firmly. A few cheers rippled through the crowd and the music started up again, but the newly confirmed president called for silence. In a weak, hoarse voice, he began to speak. He seemed agitated, confused; more than once he wiped his brow, said things twice. Mary English, the widow of a British colonel, described it this way:

  My heart bled for him. . . . He spoke of his distress and mortification at the late political disturbances. He said that intrigue and calumny was a monster with a hundred thousand heads, but if his further devotion, his sword and self-sacrifice, could restore tranquility to his bleeding country, he offered all, all to its service.

  It was, despite the frailty of its orator, a moving speech, and he ended it with a flourish by announcing that a constitutional convention to decide the controversial issues would take place in Ocaña within six months. The announcement itself was a breach of sorts: because the congress of Cúcuta had ruled in 1821 that the constitution would be inviolable for ten years. To consider changing the country’s charter before 1831 was to shuffle all the rules. But Bolívar believed that dire times required dire measures. He had hinted about such a convention when he had arrived in Venezuela, and now he decided to hold one and throw rules to the wind.

  Bolívar had long abandoned a number of constitutional rulings. On the day he stepped foot in Colombia from Peru, he had taken power unilaterally into his hands, not bothering to confer with Bogotá about any of his actions. He had flouted the law when he had absolved Páez for his insurrection and made him supreme chief of Venezuela. More serious still, Greater Colombia had been operating for months without a legal executive. Bolívar was, in truth, no longer president. Santander had been acting illegally as vice president. Congress had decreed that Bolívar could hold extraordinary powers until January 1, 1827—the end of his appointed term—after which both men’s authority would lapse. The popular election of December 1826 had reinstated both of them, but the official oath had never been administered. On January 2, when that ceremony was supposed to have taken place, Bolívar was on a march to Caracas, resolved to fix the troubles with Páez. Short of a necessary quorum, congress was unable to convene to decide the question of rule. By law, all power at that moment should have commuted instantly to the president of the senate, the very official who now stood in church with the flashing eyes, swearing in the Liberator. But when Bolívar was informed of the situation, he had cavalierly instructed Santander to appropriate his command; and the vice president, for all his obsession with laws, had gone along with it. Eager to preserv
e his clout, Santander had written to the president of the senate, claiming Bolívar had granted him all authority. He then issued a decree to confirm it. In other words, Santander himself had acted in full contravention of the constitution. No one could call him “the man of laws” now.

  Once the presidential oath was taken, Bolívar repaired to the government palace, where Santander awaited. As he made his way down the old cobblestone streets, the Liberator was showered with roses, thronged by a swarming multitude. The people were eager to witness his meeting with his vice president, and they followed with fevered curiosity, supporters and critics alike. When Bolívar arrived at the foot of the palace stairs—the steps he had taken so readily after his victory at Boyacá—Santander descended apprehensively to greet him. Their encounter was ceremonious, chilly, but not without cordiality. Bolívar could rise to the occasion when necessary and he rose to it now, summoning every bit of charm to put Santander at ease. Santander reciprocated graciously by inviting him to a late lunch at his table. Over polite conversation at that meal, Bolívar told his vice president that those who had evacuated Bogotá fearing persecution should come back at once; they would not be punished for their opinions. For a fleeting moment, peace reigned between rivals.

  Early the next morning when Bolívar was still in bed, Santander appeared in full uniform at the palace; the Liberator received him with no little surprise. Santander apologized for his handling of the rebel leader of the 3rd Division; Bolívar listened, then deftly turned the conversation to reminiscences of their friendship, their long and intimate correspondence, the glories they had seen together. They went from bedroom to dining room and lunched together again. It was as it had always been and always would be: in Bolívar’s presence, maintaining high wrath was impossible. “His force of personality is such,” Santander soon confessed, “that on countless occasions when I have been filled with hatred and revenge, the mere sight of him, the instant he speaks, I am disarmed, and I come away filled with nothing so much as admiration.”

  But by that afternoon, suspicions came hurtling back. Goaded by followers, the two lost any hope of true reconciliation. Partisan rancor ran deep in Bogotá. The revolution, in which Bolívar had led bickering diehards toward a single goal, had been replaced by a peace in which harmony seemed impossible. Had laws been held sacrosanct, had petty rivalries not taken center stage—had Bolívar himself been firmer about holding his generals to a single standard—perhaps a strong, unified republic might have emerged to forge a different future. As it was, animosities were too extreme, political parties too blinded by narrow aims to compromise. Even as Britain, France, Holland, Germany, Brazil, and the Holy See recognized the republic and sent their congratulations to “the illustrious Liberator”—as Colombia began to find some small measure of glory abroad—a hellfire of belligerence consumed the capital. On the pages of newspapers, in the halls of debate, and at social tertulias throughout Bogotá, Bolívarians and Santanderistas unleashed their fury at one another; and in turn, political reputations teetered. Within a year, as one historian put it, Greater Colombia would be the laughingstock of the world.

  IT WAS NO SECRET THAT the journey from Caracas had drained him of all vigor. Bolívar was spent. The widow of Colonel English had observed it, and although she noted several days later at a palace ball that he seemed somewhat refreshed, it was evident he needed the quiet refuge of La Quinta. He didn’t mingle much at that party, apart from chatting with Mrs. English. He didn’t dance. “He is exhausted,” a flyer announced months before his arrival. “He is weary of serving during the most painful times the Republic has ever known . . . and he is thinking that perhaps the best contribution he can make toward peace is simply to forfeit his destiny and return to a private life.” For the six months between the oath of presidency and the grand constitutional convention that was to take place in Ocaña, he aspired only to be with his mistress and renew his fragile health.

  “The frost of my years melts at the very thought of your beauty and grace,” he wrote to Manuela Sáenz soon after reaching Bogotá. “Your love gives hope to this dwindling existence. I cannot live without you, cannot will away my Manuela. . . . Even at this distance, I see you. Come, come, come!” She could not do otherwise. “I am going because you call me,” she responded, but she hadn’t heard from him in almost a year and so couldn’t help but add a warning: “Don’t tell me to go back to Quito once I arrive.”

  Nature soon gave them a warning of its own. On November 16, a few weeks before her departure from Quito, a major earthquake struck Bogotá, heaving whole buildings from their foundations. The government palace and the sturdy church of Santo Domingo where Bolívar had taken the oath of the presidency surrendered to the undulating earth, their walls collapsing to rubble. Clouds of white dust hung over the city, thinning into an ominous veil that shrouded the valley for days. The convulsion occurred at a quarter past six on a Friday evening, when Bolívar was in his house at La Quinta, at a remove from the city, but he had no doubt that its magnitude was as great as that of the earthquake he had survived in Caracas fifteen years before. As the chill night fell and stars glimmered overhead, it was impossible for him to see the extent of the destruction through the milky haze below, or witness how the desperate were streaming to safety on the open plain. The lurching ground deeply unsettled him, and a terrible sickness clawed at his stomach. He could not summon the strength to leave his house.

  Come morning, it was clear that the city’s infrastructure—more squat and square than that of Caracas—had spared lives. Few were lost, although many were injured; and the city suffered its losses with great equanimity. But the rumbling went on into the night and tremors continued for a full week. Eighty miles away, the ancient volcano of Tolima sighed a long column of smoke, sending a trail of ash over the ruins. “The city is rendered helpless,” Bolívar reported, “and deeply sad.” The rabid politics of Bogotá was suspended—but not for long.

  When Manuela arrived a few months later, the lover she saw was hardly his former self. As he paced the brick floors of La Quinta in his blue uniform, he seemed thinner than she remembered him. His hairline had receded; his curly mane had grown sparse. His eyes appeared clouded with worry until rare, galvanizing moments when they flashed with fury. But for all the toll that thousands of miles of travel had taken on the man, she was still deeply in love with him and made no secret of it.

  She moved into a house within yards of the presidential palace, but whenever he retreated to La Quinta, she lived with him openly, scandalizing the citizens of Bogotá, who felt a mistress should keep her distance and a president should show more decorum. It was bad enough that she was a foreigner, but that she was married, outspoken, and a brazen exhibitionist, who showed no respect for the nation’s capital, was intolerable. She was ridiculed mercilessly by his enemies. Even so, anyone could see she was made of strong stuff: She had traveled hundreds of miles through unfriendly territory with the Liberator’s precious personal archives and a modest entourage of five. She had crossed the formidable Andes, canoed hundreds of miles down crocodile-infested waters. This was no routine voluptuary. She cared for Bolívar like a tigress. She burst in on parties to which she hadn’t been invited, shocking the guests and annoying her lover no end. She was politically astute, aggressive—labeling politicians as either trustworthy or “vile.” Adored by some officers, despised by many more, she was unafraid to stand up to his generals. But to him she was the soul of tenderness. Slowly she nursed him to health; and, ignoring the censure of an outraged public, bustled about La Quinta and made it a sanctuary of repose.

  La Quinta, which had been Bolívar’s home over the years whenever he was in Bogotá, was hardly an opulent mansion. A charming cottage nestled in the hills above the city, it stood in the shadow of two towering peaks that pierced the sky behind it. Ringed by high walls, set back by a driveway of stately cypresses, the house was a one-story, one-bedroom abode in the old colonial style, its rooms furnished in handsome mahogany. Under i
ts red-tiled roof were three fine salons, a dining room, and a game room; outside, a scenic overlook, an orchard and vegetable garden, and a covered pool fed by a rushing stream where the Liberator took his daily bath. During cold mountain nights, fireplaces and braziers afforded warmth; during the day, balconied windows opened to fragrant gardens of honeysuckle, violets, wild roses, and ancient cedars. In the back was a spare room for Bolívar’s manservant, José Palacios. Bustling with servants, gleaming with crystal and silver, La Quinta was the getaway that Bolívar and Sáenz sorely needed after their hard journeys, and it was there that they found a brief interval of joy.

  BOGOTÁ WAS CERTAINLY NO LIMA, as Manuela was swift to observe. It was not as wealthy, not as grand, not as easy to get lost in as the City of Kings. The Colombian capital was a mere 25,000 souls; Lima’s population was nearly its triple. But Bogotá was trying to manage an unwieldy amalgamation of territories—the departments of Venezuela, New Granada, Quito, and Panama—and that fact alone made it a thrilling experiment. For the time being, Venezuela had simmered down under Páez and the region Bolívar called Ecuador had calmed under General Flores, but at any time, it seemed, this lumbering republic might come whirling apart at the seams.