by Arana, Marie
“How could a minority”: Humboldt, Personal Narrative, II, 472–76.
complacent, indolent, etc.: Humboldt-Lettres, Aug. 12, 1804, quoted in Madariaga, 62.
“During my time in America”: Humboldt to O’Leary, Berlin, 1853, in Charles Minguet, Las relaciones entre Alexander von Humboldt y Simón Bolívar (Caracas: A. Filippi, 1986–92), 746.
Vargas Laguna, Spain’s ambassador, etc.: O’LN, I, 68.
On August 15—a hot, etc.: Manuel Uribe, “El Libertador, su ayo y su capellán,” in Homenaje de Colombia al Libertador (Bogotá: M. Rivas, 1884), 72–74; also Simón Rodríguez, El Libertador al mediodía de América (Arequipa, 1830); also SB, Escritos, IV, 16.
“I will not rest until”: Uribe. Also de la Cruz Herrera, 325.
“Do you remember when”: SB to Rodríguez, Pativilca, Jan. 19, 1824, Simón Rodríguez, Cartas, 109.
“From boyhood I thought of little else”: Paulding, 71.
Paris lodge of the Freemasons: Perú de Lacroix, 73. The author recounts that SB mentioned having joined the Freemasons in Paris out of curiosity, but that his fleeting association with it was enough to judge it as a “ridiculous institution” of “large children.” This aligns with SB’s later prohibition of all secret societies in 1827.
lists him as being inducted: Miriam Blanco-Fombona de Hood, “La masonería en nuestra independencia,” Reportorio Americano, I (1979), 59–70, quoted in Polanco Alcántara, 145. Also Américo Carnicelli, La masonería en la independencia de América, I (Bogotá: Lozano & Cía., 1970), 123. Some sources give the precise induction date in Paris as Nov. 11, 1805.
she was pregnant with her son Eugène: Lecuna, Catalogo, I, 152. The birth notice is recorded in www.guebwiller.net/fr/index, listed under Dervieu du Villars, No. 26362.
listed on the child’s birth certificate: www.guebwiller.net.
might have been his: du Villars to SB, Lyon, Feb. 5, 1821, and Paris, April, 28, 1823, SB, Epistolarios, 126, 129.
an engraved ring: du Villars to SB, Paris, April 6, 1826, ibid., 135.
she would try to borrow money, etc.: du Villars to SB, ibid.
scores of pleading letters: du Villars to SB, Paris, May 14, 1826, ibid., 140.
Take this copy of my likeness: SB to Leandro Palacios, Cartagena, Aug. 14, 1830 (the portrait was delivered by Señor Lesca), Palacios to SB, Paris, Nov. 20, 1830, O’L, IX, 396. Also Boulton, El rostro de Bolívar, p. 70.
under the name of Mr. George Martin: Racine, 155.
a textile factory and a bakery: Ibid., 2.
including Juan Vicente de Bolívar: As mentioned, there is some doubt about this letter. It is part of Miranda’s archives and is signed by Juan Vicente Bolívar, Martín Tovar Blanco, and Juan Nicolás de Ponte, but Racine suspects Miranda himself may have forged it. Ibid., 28.
“a mulatto, a government henchman”: Ibid., 6.
a position his father bought: Ibid., 11.
visiting whorehouses: José Amor y Vázquez, “Palabras preliminares al XXVIII Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana,” in Julio Ortega, Conquista y Contraconquista (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1994), 19.
documents describing Spain’s fortifications: Racine, 106.
sharing their wardrobes and: Ibid., 75.
a brigadier general: André-Jean Libourel y Edgardo Mondolfi, eds., “Brevet de Maréchal de Camp,” in Francisco de Miranda en Francia (Caracas: Monte Avila, 1997), 42.
“traveled to great advantage”: Racine, 91.
one of the Revolution’s heroes: Ibid., 116–30.
“What a country!”: Ibid., 129.
“We have before our eyes”: Miranda to Gual, London, Dec. 31, 1799, Archivo del General Miranda, XV, 404.
left New York harbor: Lloyd, The Trials of William S. Smith and Samuel G. Ogden, 2.
Among them was William Steuben Smith: Ibid., 22.
ill-prepared and badly equipped: Racine, 160–70.
as many as four thousand: Ibid., 163.
total of eleven days: Ibid., 164.
“On August 10th, this officer”: Madariaga, 95.
the talk of New York: Lloyd, 215.
“He’ll only do harm”: SB to Alexandre Déhollain, Paris, June 23, 1806, SBO, I, 28.
2,400 francs: Madariaga, 97.
had arrived in Paris sometime before: Mijares, on the other hand, claims that Anacleto traveled with SB in 1803, but gives no source for this. There are no letters, nor is there a mention by du Villars, Rodríguez, or Tristan to confirm it. Lecuna says SB may have brought Anacleto to Paris in 1803, but definitely left Hamburg with him in 1806. SB to Anacleto Clemente, Lima, May 29, 1826, SBC, V, 319; Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 167.
Napoleon’s hussars: J. T. Headley, The Imperial Guard of Napoleon (New York: Scribner, 1852), 57.
Germany through Holland: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 165.
Charleston in January of 1807: Déhollain to SB, London, Aug. 20, 1820, Polanco Alcántara, p. 92.
Mr. M. Cormic of Charleston: Manning, Independence, II, 1322.
by June he was home: Proceso de Briceño contra Bolívar, BANH, no. 52, 605.
slavery was the most profitable: Wood, Empire of Liberty, 3.
one of the most highly commercialized nations: Ibid., 2.
business and profit more glorified: Ibid.
the most evangelically Christian nation: Ibid., 3.
“During my short visit”: Pérez Vila, La formación intelectual del Libertador, 81.
the rancorous trial: The charges against Smith were filed on April 1, 1806, and the case was closed with a not guilty verdict on July 26, 1806. See Lloyd, 215.
On the stand, Smith recounted: Ibid., 118ff.
in clear violation of the Neutrality Act: Ibid., 91.
“My fear”: Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, Paris, Jan. 25, 1786, Paul Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, IV, 188.
“agreeable to the United States”: John Adams to John Jay, London, May 28, 1786, E. Taylor Parks, Colombia and the United States: 1765–1934 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1935), 36.
“You might as well talk about”: Whitaker, The United States and the Independence, 37.
“corrupt and effeminate”: Ibid.
“It accords with our principles”: Jefferson to Gouverneur Morris, 1792, in Ford, VI, 131.
Jefferson moved to make that clear: Jefferson, “Proclamation on Spanish Territory,” Washington, Nov. 27, 1806, Multimedia Archive, Miller Center, University of Virginia.
CHAPTER 4: BUILDING A REVOLUTION
Epigraph “They say grand projects need to be built with calm!”: SB, Speech to the Patriotic Society, July 3–4, 1811, SB, Doctrina, 7.
alongside his slaves: Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 41.
battled his neighbor: Proceso de Briceño contra Bolívar, 7.
in sparkling salons: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 48; Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 180–81.
recited his translations of Voltaire: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 31.
chanced upon some papers: M. Lafuente, Historia General de España, IV (Barcelona: Montaner y Simón, 1879), 428.
the king wrote to Napoleon, etc.: Ibid.
permission to march 25,000 troops: Ibid., 389.
sent quadruple that number: Ibid.
a secret plan to escape: Restrepo, II, 98.
annual salary of 1.5 million pesos: Ibid., 100.
Talleyrand would write: Charles M. de Talleyrand-Périgord, The Memoirs of Prince Talleyrand (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden, and Welsh, 1891), II, 24.
two old, dog-eared issues: Amunátegui, Vida de Don Andrés Bello, 37–51.
The facts were confirmed: Capt. Beaver to Sir Alexander Cochrane, HMS Acasta, La Guayra, July 19, 1808, in Larrazábal, Vida, I, 39–41.
Within days of arrival in Caracas: Ibid.
a letter from Francisco Miranda: Miranda to Marqués del Toro, Londres, Oct. 6, 1808, in Miranda, América espera, 382.
little patience for those who would take up: Conjuración de 1808 en Caracas, Instituto P
anamericano de Geografía y Historia, Comisión de Historia, Comité de Orígenes de la Emancipación, 148–50.
dwarfed the sea that separated him: Unamuno, Simón Bolívar, ix.
refused to compromise: Conjuración de 1808, 112.
On August 3, etc.: Polanco Alcántara, 185.
“But I’m totally innocent!”: BANH, no. 52, 616.
“For the first time”: Díaz, Recuerdos sobre la rebelión, 73.
Tovar drew up a formal letter, etc.: Recorded on Dec. 1, 1808, Lecuna, Catalogo, I, 175–79.
Napoleon had recommended him: Napoleon Bonaparte, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier (New York: AMS Press, 1974), 212–13.
blessed by Napoleon’s bitterest enemy: Polanco Alcántara, 199.
the escapes from servant quarters: Gaceta de Caracas, Oct. 24, 1808, and ff., quoted in Polanco Alcántara, 201.
Emparán had Bolívar taken aside: Heredia, Memorias, 163.
Bolívar hurried down to La Guaira: Díaz, 64.
at three in the morning on Maundy Thursday: Ibid., 64–72, for this whole account, including testimony about the possible presence of the Bolívar brothers.
Whether Bolívar was there: A number of biographers contend that SB may have been confined to his hacienda in Yare (e.g., Polanco Alcántara) or that he took off for San Mateo (e.g., Lynch, Parra-Pérez), but there appears to be no documentary evidence for this. His aide-de-camp, Daniel O’Leary, claims that SB was too much a friend of Emparán to be present at his ouster, although he dearly desired it; and that he was too much of an enemy of the crown to take part in a coup that was essentially monarchist. Larrazábal and Díaz, two of SB’s contemporaries, however, place him on the scene. SB himself never claimed to be present at city hall on April 19, 1810.
large crowd of activists in long capes: Díaz, 67.
“To city hall, Governor!”: Parra-Pérez, Historia, I, 383.
Cortés, swept grandly into the room: Ibid.
“No! No! We don’t want it!” etc.: Ibid., 384; also Gil Fortoul, Historia, I, 168.
recorded into the meeting’s minutes: Masur, Simón Bolívar, 98.
Within two days, Emparán: Mancini, II, 30.
junta was organizing diplomatic missions: Parra-Pérez, Historia, I, 380
offered to pay all costs for the diplomatic mission: O’LB, 21.
expressly by Lord Admiral Cochrane: Cochrane to the Junta de Caracas, May 17, 1810, published in Gaceta de Caracas, II, no. 102 (June 8, 1810), 4.
twelve times the size of Venezuela: Wayne Rasmussen, “Agricultural Colonization and Immigration in Venezuela, 1810–1860,” Agricultural History, 21, no. 3 (July 1947), 155.
Lord Wellesley had expressed: Rich Wellesley’s letter to his brother Henry, ambassador to Cádiz, July 13, 1810, Foreign Office, Spain, 93, confidential dispatches, nos. 2 and 22, quoted in Mancini, 59.
a calculated scheme to force: Ibid.
immense and resplendent lobby: Apsley House (London: English Heritage, 2005), 42–49.
His French was superb: Polanco Alcántara, 229, fn. 11.
He gave Wellesley a spirited account, etc.: Amunátegui, 49.
“eager to shake off”: Minuta de la sesión, July 16, 1810, Revista Bolívariana, II, Nos. 20–21, Bogotá, 1830, 531.
When he was done, the minister looked up: Mancini, 61.
Bolívar was speechless: Ibid. Also Amunátegui, 89.
tempestuous French wife: Richard Holmes, Wellington: The Iron Duke (London: Harper, 2003), 24. Hyacinthe Gabrielle Rolland was a French courtesan who lived with Wellesley and bore him several children before they were married. She had left him during this period because of his rampant womanizing.
an incorrigible voluptuary: Ibid., 157.
“The events in Caracas”: Lord Harrowby, minister without portfolio, in a report dated June 1810, Bolívar y Europa, Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República (Caracas, 1986), I, Doc. 86, 388. From a Spanish translation.
“Despite his age”: Amunátegui, 93.
his house at 27 Grafton Street: Today the house is 58 Grafton. A plaque on the front wall identifies it as Miranda’s house from 1803 to 1810, although his wife and son occupied it until the 1840s. Survey of London, vol. 21 (1949), 50–51, http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65170.
“The only person with whom we consulted”: López Méndez to Venezuelan secretary of state, London, Oct. 3, 1810, quoted in Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 49.
the Foreign Office had been on the verge: Mijares, The Liberator, 183.
the three preeminent figures: Carnicelli, La masonería en la independencia de América, 76. Despite numerous South American histories that insist that Miranda’s lodge was, at one point or another, visited by San Martín, O’Higgins, and Bolívar, it’s worth mentioning here that William Spence Robertson says this is “hardly more than a legend” (Robertson, Rise, 53).
agents intercepted a letter: The letter was dated Oct. 28, 1811, and was one of several from the Argentine Carlos Alvear to Rafael Mérida in Caracas. The letters—intercepted by Antonio Ignacio Cortavarría and reported to the viceroy of New Granada, Don Francisco de Montalvo—were on an English ship, sailing from London to Caracas. Archivo Histórico de Colombia en Bogotá, Sección Histórica, XIII, folios 00581–2, quoted in Carnicelli, 123.
Given his later criticisms: Gould, Library of Freemasonry, IV, 180.
made a point to study its public services: Racine, 54–64.
He spoke of irrigation, mines, schools: Mijares, 186.
the portraitist Charles Gill: Mancini, 315.
“singular adventure”: Perú de Lacroix, Diario (version sin mutilaciones), 57.
police had raided the White Swan: “Police. Bow Street,” London Times, July 10, 1810, Issue 8029. Also “Police. Diabolical Club in Vere-Street,” The Morning Chronicle, July 16, 1810.
Bolívar was dismayed: O’L, XXVII, 35.
“a deadly animosity exists”: Robert Semple, Sketch of the Present State of Caracas (London: Robert Baldwin, 1812), 57.
only member of the junta: Juan Germán Roscio to Andrés Bello, June 8, 1811, Epistolario de la primera república, II, 200.
Expecting to be greeted as the leader: Miranda to Francisco Febles, London, Aug. 3, 1810, Archivo, XXIII, 490.
The coat was sky blue: Angell, Simón Bolívar, 11.
“I saw Miranda enter in triumph”: Díaz, 88.
had bombastically opposed his return: Roscio to Bello, Epistolario, 200.
where he would lodge: Miranda, América espera, 650.
a title of lieutenant general: Toma de Razón, libro de registro de nombramientos y actos oficiales, 1810–1812 (Caracas: Ministerio de Relaciones Interiores, Imprenta Nacional, 1955), 177–78.
demoted him from lieutenant colonel: Ibid., 285–86.
took control of the Gazeta de Caracas: Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 55. The spelling of Gazeta de Caracas changed to Gaceta, depending on which side was publishing the newspaper. Under the editorship of José Domingo Díaz, it was spelled Gaceta. This accounts for the different spellings that occur throughout this book. The Gaceta de Colombia, however, was always spelled the same. Pacheco, Carlos, et al, Nación y Literatura (Caracas: Bigott, 2006), 178.
Miranda’s Patriotic Society was well in the lead: Madariaga, 154–55.
CHAPTER 5: THE RISE AND FALL OF MIRANDA
Epigraph: “Liberty is a succulent food”: From Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Letter to the Polish People, Oeuvres Complétes, V (Paris: Dupont, 1825), 280.
“He listened to toasts”: Germán Roscio to Bello, June 8, 1811, Epistolario de la primera república.
the marquis received more than one letter: Oct. 6, 1808, Miranda, América espera, 650.
he refused to be disloyal: Cristóbal de Mendoza, Prefacio, Documentos relativos a la vida pública del Libertador de Colombia y del Perú Simón Bolívar (Caracas, 1826), I, ix.
too raw a soldier, . . . too impulsive: A. Rojas, Obras escojidas (Paris: 1907), 573.
absconded with the War Departm
ent’s plans: Díaz, 32. Also Parra-Pérez, Historia, II, 50.
the moment had come to discuss: Parra-Pérez, Historia, II, 51.
“Let us valiantly lay the cornerstone”: SB, Discursos (Caracas: Lingkua, 2007), 17.
“Among all the rest”: Richard Colburn, Travels in South America (London, 1813), cited in Gabriel E. Muñoz, Monteverde, cuatro años de historia patria, BANH, I, no. 42, 143–44, translated from the Spanish.
All night long, young revolutionaries, etc.: Díaz, 33.
Miranda took the floor, etc.: Angell, 26. Also Díaz, 33.
duped Juan Vicente into believing: Parra-Pérez, Historia, I, 446–48.
Blacks taunted the wellborn, etc.: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 22.
“carried insolence so far”: Ibid., 23.
cutlasses, muskets, and improvised tin shields, etc.: Díaz, 34.
“Unless we spill blood”: Germán Roscio to Bello, June 8, ibid.
Only citizens who owned property, etc.: Constitución Federal de 1811 (21 de Diciembre, 1811), http://www.dircost.unito.it/cs/docs/Venezuela%201811.htm. Also Parra-Pérez, Historia, I, 370–86.
“enjoy the benefits”: Constitución Federal.
the old nobleman . . . had proceeded to correspond: Angell, 21.
“Because he is a dangerous young man”: Austria, Bosquejo, I, 128.
“How can you refuse me”: Larrazábal, Correspondencia, I, 97.
he singled out Bolívar for his valor: Yanes, Relación documentada, I, 5.
But privately, he was more critical: Mancini, 127.
“Where are the armies”: O’L, XXVII, 46.
debilitating number of dead: There were 4,000 troops total under Miranda’s command during the Valencia campaign. Eight hundred died, 1,500 were wounded (among them, Fernando del Toro, SB’s friend and cousin who traveled with him to Rome): Admiral Fraser to Rowley, July 21, 1811, in W. S. Robertson, Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America (American Historical Association, 1909), I, 450. Also, Eduardo Blanco, Venezuela heroica, xv; and Pedro Rivas, Efemérides americanas (Barcelona: Ramírez, 1884), 255.
hemming and hawing about the rights of man: Lynch, 58; also Eduardo Blanco, Venezuela heroica, XV.