Bolivar: American Liberator

by Arana, Marie

  The cost of liberty, as Bolívar well knew, had been staggering—far more so than in the United States. Vast, populated regions of Latin America had been devastated. A revolution begun by polite society on the assumption that its wins would be painless had become mired in two decades of catastrophic losses, rivaling in carnage the twentieth century’s more heavily armed conflicts. Populations had been cut in half. Regional economies had come to a rumbling halt. Indeed, the republics Bolívar had liberated were far worse off economically than they had been under the Spaniards; whole provinces had been laid waste. Silver mines had been abandoned; farmlands burned to ash, textile production stopped cold. The chance for a new America to create a robust, interregional market had been lost to squabbling border struggles. Although indigenous and black generals appeared in the army for the first time—a phenomenon that would transform the face of South America—the great masses of Indians and blacks were no better off after the revolution. For a long while, they would be far worse off than they had been under Spain’s oppressive laws. Slavery, which Bolívar had worked hard to eradicate, had been supplanted by other forms of subjugation; Creoles had appropriated the Spanish rule. The Americas that were emerging under Bolívar’s horrified eyes were feudalistic, divisive, militaristic, racist, ruled by warlords who strove to keep the ignorant masses blinkered and under bigoted control. Eventually this would change. There is a vast difference, after all, between slavery and freedom; between opportunity and a shut door; between a ballot and totalitarian rule. But those fundamental transformations would take a century and a half to work through the continent. Latin America lay in financial and social ruin, its cities on the verge of anarchy. It was hardly the enlightened world the Liberator had envisioned.

  Bolívar needed time to mull these questions and vent his sorrows. He decided to leave the stifling ambit of Bogotá altogether for a long rest in the country. But before he departed, he moved to divest himself of at least part of the crushing burden of leadership. He wrote to the general he loved best, Antonio Sucre, who had just arrived in Guayaquil. “You will see in the attached documents,” Bolívar told Sucre, “that I am naming you absolute ruler of southern Colombia. All my powers—the good along with the bad—I now cede to you. Make war, make peace, save or lose the South; you are master of your fate, and I invest all my hopes in you. . . . Ask Flores and O’Leary to read this, too, so that they can know that I have willed you the very essence of Simón Bolívar.”

  THERE WAS A REASON BOLÍVAR had wanted Flores and O’Leary to read the letter in which he invested his “favorite son” with so much power. Flores was the general in charge of the region Bolívar called “Ecuador,” the southern portion of Greater Colombia he had just handed to Sucre; Bolívar knew the news would surprise Flores. He expected O’Leary to explain.

  At age twenty-seven, General Juan José Flores had already spent sixteen years in the liberating army. Abandoned by his father, orphaned by his mother’s death, he had joined the Venezuelan revolution at the age of twelve, when child recruits were being swept into service by desperate generals. His life had been spared when Boves’s hordes stormed through Valencia in 1813, reducing the city to flames and slitting the throats of all revolutionaries; they had taken pity on the soldier boy. Flores had gone on to serve under Páez, from whom he had learned gall, grit, and the art of disciplining a fighting force. By fifteen, he was a lieutenant; by seventeen, captain. Bright, curious, he had taught himself to read and write. He went on to fight with Bolívar in Carabobo, Bomboná, Pichincha. Eventually, Bolívar had put him in charge of Pasto, the most stubborn and difficult region in the republic. Ruling Pasto with a deft hand, Flores had managed to quell its ardently royalist population without resorting to the rampant butchery it had endured during the “liberation.” He had made up his mind that he would govern the entire region, including Quito, someday. Even so, he was no Sucre—no victor of the defining Battle of Ayacucho, no shaper of nations—no “shining, unblemished” exemplar of all Bolívar imagined a great American could be. Now Flores was being told in no uncertain terms that Sucre was to be the Liberator’s successor.

  Sucre did not want the job. After five years in Peru and Bolivia, the great warrior of Ayacucho had looked forward to returning to his elegant bride in Quito, whom he had married by proxy. He had already served the revolution in capacities he had never sought or wanted—in faraway governments, overseeing populations that regarded him by turns as savior and occupier. The disintegration of Bolivia had been a soul-killing experience. Generals Santa Cruz and Gamarra—skilled soldiers of the revolution—had invaded Bolivia from Peru and overthrown his presidency. He had had to speed away with a bullet in his arm, and the nation had gone on to replace him with three presidents in five harrowing days, two of whom were assassinated. All Sucre aspired to now was a quiet life, away from all that. The last thing he wanted was to encroach on anyone’s command and he said so—emphatically—to Flores and O’Leary.

  Time and circumstance would force his hand. On November 12, 1828, as Bolívar recuperated in the tiny village of Chia, hoping to rid himself of the black mood that had descended on him since the attempted assassination, a disgruntled colonel led a rebellion in the very region that fell under Flores’s and Sucre’s command. José María Obando, the offending colonel, had begun his career as an officer in the Spanish army. But in 1822, when Bolívar undertook his historic march from Bogotá to Guayaquil, Obando had switched sides and fought as a revolutionary. In the intervening years, Obando had grown disenchanted with Greater Colombia. He considered himself first and foremost a Granadan. At first, he showed his displeasure by simply resigning from the army. But months later, in a breathtaking about-face, he wrote to General La Mar and offered Peru his services in the impending Peruvian invasion of Colombia. To show that he meant business, Obando attacked Popayán, seized control of the city, ejected its Bolívarian governor, and declared himself at war with the Liberator.

  Bolívar had known for a long time that a confrontation with Peru was inevitable. It was why he had put Sucre in charge. For months, Bolívar had been sparring with Peru’s ambassador—an adversary appointed, quite obviously, to goad him. He refused to see the man. Bolívar announced that he was raising a robust army of forty thousand to settle the border squabbles; he communicated to Peru that its refusal to repay a $3.5 million debt to Colombia was, in itself, a casus belli. Bolívar had been planning a wartime strategy even as he had sat in his bath on that fateful night when the conspirators had sped through the palace intending to slay him in bed. War with Peru had always been certain. And a war couldn’t be won without Colombian solidarity. He instructed Flores and O’Leary to go to Guayaquil on the pretense of negotiating peace with Peruvians who—by then—had blockaded the city, but in reality, he was trying to buy time so that he could consolidate his forces after Obando’s defection. The last thing Bolívar needed now was a rebel colonel fanning enemy fires in that nervous region. The ailing liberator had not fully recovered—he was only ten days into a convalescence that should have lasted two months—but he cut short his cure and rushed back to Bogotá. He was working on instinct now.

  By early December, fueled by little more than Herculean will, Bolívar undertook the arduous six-hundred-mile trip over the Andes to the menaced border. Seized by violent fits of coughing, he could barely ride two hours at a time. The rains were incessant, the heat and pestilence intolerable. But speed was imperative and he directed one of his most skilled and audacious officers, General Córdova, to put down Obando’s rebellion. Not yet thirty, Córdova had been one of the heroes of Ayacucho and Boyacá; he was loyal, quick-thinking, fierce—a charismatic leader of men. As Bolívar moved overland, Córdova made a quick course for Obando. By January of 1829, the young general had scattered Obando’s forces in a relentless guerrilla campaign.

  In February, Sucre, Flores, and O’Leary finally mobilized against Peru. General José de La Mar had been made the Peruvian president, and his army had swarmed into Guayaqui
l and occupied it a month before, eager to separate it from Colombia. But La Mar’s army hadn’t stopped there; it had overtaken the city of Cuenca and was preparing another incursion north. President La Mar had been born in that disputed land, and he, like General San Martín before him—indeed like many Peruvians—resented its appropriation by Bolívar. He was determined to free it from Colombia’s clutches and annul Peru’s war debt to Bogotá.

  That outright provocation gave Sucre no choice. Resigned to take up his sword one last time, he led fifteen hundred men against La Mar’s army of five thousand. They met in the high buttes south of Guayaquil, in the rarefied air of Tarqui. Like most battles Sucre waged, the odds at the Battle of Tarqui were out of kilter, against the grain, with far fewer men under his command than troops charging toward him. Nevertheless, despite the rain and treacherous mountain passes—despite Obando’s rebels, who seemed to materialize out of nowhere to block the way—Sucre prevailed. The Colombians were poorly armed, poorly fed, but by now they thought themselves invincible; they gave Peru no quarter. Fifteen hundred Peruvian soldiers were killed, a thousand more wounded or taken prisoner. Sucre offered La Mar an honorable surrender and, for the time being at least, the Peruvians retreated to their stronghold in the south. Weary unto death, Sucre wrote to Bolívar and reported the victory. It had seemed inconceivable that he had had to raise weapons against the very people for whose liberty he had fought so ardently in Ayacucho. But it was done. The war with Peru was over. He told Bolívar that he had assumed command only because the circumstances were urgent; that he would take no such responsibilities in the future. He submitted his resignation. His young wife was expecting their first child in July, and all he wanted now was to be by her side.

  As Sucre was winding his way home through the volcanoes, Bolívar arrived in Pasto. Using the tactic he had employed two years before with Páez, Bolívar now offered the rebels complete amnesty and urged them to rejoin the republic. Obando had little choice. The rescue he had sought from Peru had become impossible. He seized on Bolívar’s bait. A peace treaty was signed, and then to seal it Bolívar promoted Obando to full general. Córdova, who had labored mightily against the insurrectionist, was outraged. How could the Liberator be so peremptory? He railed against the injustice of it—the arbitrariness. Impulsive, frenzied, the young general rode off to vent his indignation. He complained to Bolívar’s friends; he complained to his enemies. He even sought out Obando to gauge the man’s intentions. But by then, General Córdova would have yet another reason to be furious.

  MANUELA SÁENZ WAS NEVER SO celebrated in Bogotá society as she had been during the months that followed her bold rescue of Bolívar. His name for her, “the Liberatrix of the Liberator,” had passed into legend, as had the image of her standing squarely at his bedroom door, brandishing a sword against his assailants. All the invective General Córdova had summoned against her scandalous conduct—the male dress, the pasted mustache, the naughty servants, the high-spirited execution of Santander’s effigy—seemed to wane against the evidence of her cool aplomb. She was admirable; she was heroic. The glow would not last long. But for the moment foreign diplomats clamored to meet her; she made the rounds of a brisk social life; she was even made part of a closed circle that brainstormed the future of the republic.

  The foiled assassination attempt had deeply shocked Bolívar’s council of ministers. What if the colluders had succeeded? What if Bolívar had died? Surely, Colombia would have spun into unspeakable violence, another monstrous civil war. Bolívar’s strongest partisans—his stalwart minister of war General Urdaneta, acting president José María Castillo, foreign minister Estanislao Vergara, and minister of the interior José Manuel Restrepo—now took it upon themselves to avert potential chaos. Taking a cue from Bolívar’s long-held belief that Colombia would not succeed until it had the backing of a world power, they began to look abroad for salvation. They threw themselves into a frenzied plan to recruit a foreign monarch. They knew they were working against time; anyone could see that Bolívar’s health was failing. They also knew that he would resolutely oppose them. He had made his views against crowns and thrones very clear. They decided to keep the plan secret from him for the time being.

  Their notion was simple, and their hope was that it would eradicate the schisms that plagued the young republic. As they saw it, Bolívar would be at the helm until he died, at which point all power would go to a European prince who had been carefully readied for succession. A constitutional monarchy such as England’s promised to be the ideal solution to Colombia’s lurching instability: it would vest power in an indisputable leader, ensure the populace’s hard-won freedoms, yet give government a strong hand over a racially diverse and disorderly nation. Urdaneta, Vergara, and Restrepo had approached French and British diplomats to assist them in the search. As talks continued throughout April and May, they began to favor a prince of the French royal family on the assumption that a nobleman with Catholic roots would have more in common with South American subjects. But for all the ministers’ studiously contrived secrecy, by June Bolívar was well apprised of the scheme. O’Leary had reported much of it; and the British chargé d’affaires—in all his calculating enthusiasm for a monarchical plan—had written the Liberator to ask his opinion.

  Whether Manuela informed Bolívar of the plan, we do not know; but as a close friend of Urdaneta’s she was surely aware of it. In any case, she had every reason to support the idea. She believed her lover to be a great man and she wanted to perpetuate his vision and ensure his place in history. With all her customary worldliness and gusto, she hosted a glittering party for King Charles X’s official French delegation, which arrived to discuss the monarchical project in early May. Virtually every member of the capital’s diplomatic community swirled through Manuela’s rooms that evening—all, that is, except for the U.S. representative, William Henry Harrison, and a few others who were viscerally opposed to a monarchist state. It isn’t hard to imagine the French delegates’ eagerness as they quaffed champagne in Manuela’s house and toasted the Liberator: Napoleon had always had an eye on the Americas; now, with a Bourbon king back on the throne and much of the French navy plying American waters, an irresistible opportunity had presented itself. The charming soiree in the home of Bolívar’s mistress augured well for the empire of Charles X. Within little more than a year, however, all of it would be a pipe dream: Parisians would revolt, hurling stones into the king’s gardens, and Charles X would evacuate the Palais-Royal in the black of night.

  But in the mists of Bogotá, Bolívar’s ministers could not imagine such an outcome. A monarchy promised order, permanence, and a foreign link—all the rudiments thought necessary for the survival of the republic. When they finally presented the idea to Bolívar, he waved them off with an exasperated hand. There were a thousand reasons why it wouldn’t work, he said: What European prince would want to rule in that utter chaos? How would Colombia support the staggering expense of a monarchy? Most important, Colombia’s humbler classes, accustomed by now to freedom, wouldn’t stand for inequalities of empire. Nor was it likely that a monarchy would be tolerated by Colombia’s new generals, who stood to be stripped of all power and command.

  No, he had no stomach for kings. Since his days in Madrid—days of Miranda, days of San Martín—Bolívar had adamantly rejected all argument that favored a monarchical system. He rejected it now. The monarchy question was like a summer swarm of gnats: constant, annoying, yet so insignificant in his mind as to be swatted away. Some historians claim he ignored it because he had already declared a wish to abandon power; the decision was no longer his. But there were other reasons for Bolívar’s dismissal: his distance from the capital, the delicate question of Córdova’s disaffection, his inability to see the maneuvering at first hand. But his wan response, twisted artfully, was used by his enemies to suggest that he had always hankered after a throne. Indeed, those who prayed for Bolívar’s ruin—including Páez and the supporters of Santander—feigned suppor
t for a monarchy at first, knowing that the only means to destroy Bolívar was to make Colombians believe that he, too, wanted it for himself. And didn’t he, after all? Hadn’t his ministers put it forward? Surely Bolívar himself had instigated it—indeed, been angling for it—all along. When the young, impetuous General Córdova heard about Bogotá’s machinations, his response was immediate and unequivocal. He decided Colombia needed to be rid of Bolívar. For all his past loyalty to the Liberator, he decided to break all ties and dedicate himself to one burning cause.

  By August, when Bolívar had reentered Guayaquil and La Mar had receded into the margins of history, Córdova was on the loose in the rich, green valleys of northwest Colombia, his native home. With little more than three hundred followers, he began a campaign to overthrow Bolívar. He approached Bolívar’s steadfast supporter General Mosquera in the deluded belief that he could recruit Mosquera to his way of thinking; he tried to persuade the rebel Obando to reclaim his seditious stand. He wrote to Páez, congratulating him for his separatist spirit and inviting his support. Córdova had been incomparably brave in the past; indeed Bolívar had honored him with one of the jeweled crowns Peru had given him after the victory at Ayacucho. But Córdova was also rash and egotistical. Thinking he would divvy out the republic piece by piece—Venezuela for Páez, Ecuador for Flores, New Granada for himself—thinking, too, that an army was all he needed to govern a country, Córdova was the essence of a military mirage that would persist into the twenty-first century. For him, it was enough to rule by brute force, not as a government of the people. It was a foolish, atavistic, colonial frame of mind, and it was bound for failure.