Bolivar: American Liberator
Page 60
Correa fell to the ground: SB to Torices, Feb. 28, 1813, O’L, XIII, 150.
a vast supply of food and ammunition, etc.: Ibid.
only two dead and fourteen wounded: Ibid.
Bolívar was lauded: Groot, III, 232.
including a raging fever: Mancini, 200.
“Loyal republicans!,” etc.: SB, Proclamation to his soldiers, March 1, 1813, Cuartel general de San Antonio de Venezuela, DOC, IV, 770.
“If one country wears chains”: SB to Camilo Torres, March 4, 1813, in Austria, 191–92.
“mad undertaking”: Masur, Simón Bolívar, 167.
anathema to his principles: Ibid.
a friendly letter as a palliative: SB, SBSW, I, 27.
“March at once!,” etc.: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 123.
“General, if two men are enough”: Rafael Urdaneta, Memorias, 14.
tell him about the true condition of his troops: SB to the president of the union (Antonio Nariño), May 3, 1813, SB, Cartas: Santander–Bolívar, 2–4; also Santander to SB, April 30, 1813, SB, Cartas: Santander–Bolívar, 3.
The march to Trujillo promised to tax: SB to Nariño, May 8, 1813, in Austria, 195–96.
“I will await the result”: Ibid.
leading one Spanish commandant: Heredia, 128–29.
murdered some of his own relatives, etc.: Díaz, 39; also Baralt and Díaz, II, 198, 218.
posted a Royal Order: “Real Orden de 11 de enero de 1813,” published in Caracas as a broadside on March 13, 1813, and by Cmdt. Gen. Antonio Tizcar in Barinas on May 3, 1813; Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 271; also Austria, 199.
took off on a bloody campaign: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 124–5.
his 143 soldiers: Díaz, 93.
one of the heads—along with a letter: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 170.
“the work of Satan”: Ibid.
saw himself as the anointed liberator: Urdaneta, Memorias, 21.
twenty Spanish heads, etc.: V. Dávila, Investigaciones Históricas, in Mijares, 246.
The news came as a great blow, etc.: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 125.
“We’ve run out of goodness”: SB, Cuartel general, Mérida, June 8, 1813, in Larrazábal, Vida, I, 170.
All night he pondered it: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 171–72.
“SPANIARDS AND CANARY ISLANDERS”: Austria, 197.
an outright abomination: See Blanco-Fombona, “La proclama de guerra a muerte”; also Larrazábal, Vida, I, 172–73.
the deadly Royal Order: “Real Orden de 11 de enero de 1813.”
“Either Americans allow themselves”: SB to the British governor of Curaçao, J. Hodgson, Valencia, Oct. 2, 1813, SB, Escritos, V, 173–80.
hundreds of royalist troops defected: Sir Walter Scott, ed., The Edinburgh Annual Register for 1816, Vol. IX, Ballantyne, Edinburgh, 1820, 136–37.
if they defected and fought for Spain: Trend, 96.
“I worry that our illustrious”: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 185.
took more than four hundred prisoners: Rafael Urdaneta, Memorias, 7.
a rapid preemptive strike on the city of Barinas: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 136.
fourteen-year-old soldier: Blanco-Fombona’s note, SBC, 1799–1822, 70.
“The glorious hero”: SB to Antonio Rodríguez Picón, Cuartel general de Araure, July 25, 1813, SBC, ibid., 70–71.
“Pause now your weeping to remember”: Cecilio Robelio, El Despertador: Periodico semanario, No. 5 (Jan. 29), Cuernavaca, 1896, 7.
Monteverde had found himself doing too little: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 66.
two or more men to an animal, etc.: Ibid.
offered the Spaniards amnesty, etc.: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 192.
“to show the world”: Ibid.
“Here, your Excellency”: SB to Torres, O’L, XIII, 327.
He rushed to La Guaira in a panic, etc.: Heredia, 145.
horde of six thousand royalists: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 193; Flinter, History of the Revolution, 49.
set sail for Curaçao: Ducoudray, I, 44–45.
elbowed their way onto canoes: Heredia, 152.
cast off the clothes: SB to the Nations of the World, Valencia, Sept. 20, 1813, DOC, IV, 732.
entered Caracas on August 6: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 145.
He arranged to be met, etc.: Ducoudray, I, 44–45; also, Gazeta de Caracas, IV, Aug. 26, 1813.
There were rounds of artillery, etc.: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 196; also Gazeta de Caracas, IV, Aug. 26, 1813.
stepping off his cart to embrace: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 196.
Colorful silks hung, etc.: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 50.
could not restrain tears of joy: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 196.
the faithful mastiff Nevado: Carlos Chalbaud Zerpa, Historia de Mérida (Mérida: Universidad de los Andes, 1983), 365. Also Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 78.
daughter of a prosperous bourgeois family, etc.: Liévano Aguirre, 149.
as dungeons emptied of rebel prisoners: Ducoudray, I, 49.
She had full lips, a hearty, infectious laugh, etc.: Liévano Aguirre, 150.
“The most important business”: Ducoudray, 49.
CHAPTER 7: THE LEGIONS OF HELL
Epigraph: “All murderers shall be punished”: Voltaire, Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Droit, www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/18/droit.htm.
When the governor of Barinas, etc.: Gil Fortoul, Historia, I, 221.
Even as Santiago Mariño: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 142–43.
“will look ridiculous”: SB to Mariño, Dec. 16, 1813, SBC, I, 88.
“Spain does not treat with insurgents”: General Monteverde, quoted in A. Walker, Colombia, II (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1822), 346.
imprisoned the priest: Palacio Fajardo, Bosquejo, 91.
he decided to stage a funeral: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 230–31.
A British traveler in the employ of Spain, etc.: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 60.
“Kill him!”: Ibid.
an enormous head, etc.: H.N.M., Escuelas Cristianas, Historia de Venezuela (1927), 127, quoted in Cunninghame Graham, José Antonio Páez, 65.
“Of all the monsters”: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 172.
needed few worldly goods, etc.: Cunninghame Graham, 107–25.
nearly eradicated them, along with their horses: Mitre, Emancipation of South America, 338.
slaughtered them all: O’L, XXVII, Part I, 175.
former haberdasher and a former butcher: Austria, 265; and T. Peréz Tenreiro, Para acercarnos a don Francisco Tomás Morales (Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1994), 12.
killing every last inhabitant: G. Crichfield, American Supremacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1908), 21.
“Citizens!”: SB, Escritos, VI, 4–9.
“There are more illustrious citizens,” etc.: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 267.
in order to forge bullets, etc.: Lecuna, La guerra a muerte, XVIII, 150, in Masur, Simón Bolívar, 209.
categorically refused to sell arms: Whitaker, 95, 113–14.
some historians claim: Lecuna, La guerra a muerte, XVII, 365, in Masur, Simón Bolívar, 210.
letter to Lord Wellesley: SB to Wellesley, Maracay, Jan. 14, 1814, SBO, I, 85.
haughty, ambitious—the privileged son: J. M. Gómez, Libertadores de Venezuela (Caracas: Meneven, 1983), 266–71.
a brig and five schooners: Slatta and Lucas de Grummond, 91.
he had ordered Piar to withdraw: Baralt and Díaz, 178.
but the Liberator of the East never showed up: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 278.
hanging in little pieces: Austria, 265.
Skeletons dangled from trees: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 287.
Some soldiers deserted: Archer, Wars of Independence, 36.
children as young as twelve: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 183.
army of a thousand slaves: Mitre, Emancipation of South America, 366.
the blood of old men: Baralt and Díaz, 191.
found a lone priest: M. Briceño, Historia de la isla Margarita, Bio
grafías del General Juan B. Arismendi (Caracas: El Monitor, 1885), 40.
But a sack flung on the roadside: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 282.
Leandro Palacios: Ibid., 284.
What sprang to mind: SB confesses this in a letter to Archbishop Narciso Coll y Pratt, in which he tries to justify the killings (Feb. 8, 1814, SBO, I, 91). It’s worth mentioning here that the dates of the executions given in various accounts don’t align. SB’s letter to the archbishop is cited as Feb. 8, for instance, the evidence being the handwritten note in the margin; but documentation by Palacios in La Guaira indicates that the executions took place between Feb. 13 and 16.
“Without delay”: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 284.
to the letter, and with relish: Baralt and Díaz, 195.
more than one thousand: This number ranges from 800 to 1,200, depending on the source: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 215 (1,200); Gaceta de Caracas, no. 14, 1815 (1,200); Heredia (close to 900); Larrazábal, Vida, I, 284 (866); Díaz (866); Baralt and Díaz (more than 800); O’Leary (800).
over the course of four days: Palacios to SB, quoted in Gil Fortoul, Historia, I, 225.
mark him as a brutal man: The killing of bound prisoners was certainly not unique in 1813–14; the Legions of Hell had already done a fair amount of it. Archer (29, 36) comments that there was simply more of an official record on SB’s order in La Guaira and, therefore, more of an opportunity to point an accusing finger.
visible as far as thirty miles away: Wood, 691.
pocketed a few knickknacks: William Seale, The President’s House (Washington, DC, White House Historical Association, 1986), 133.
supped on the president’s wine: Wood, 691.
sporting squirming babies: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 140.
asking him to cease unnecessary cruelty: Ibid., 141.
Boves’s response to Cajigal: Ibid., 142.
Gunfire set the tall grasses: Ibid., 153.
four thousand of the enemy’s horses: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 312.
at the head of his roaring horde: Restrepo, Historia, I, 758.
Boves signed a treaty: Austria, 311–13.
stunned and deeply grateful: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 169.
A Spanish general later recounted: Heredia, 203; also Larrazábal, Vida, I, 319.
he beheaded them all: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 171.
sweep of all the precious silver and gold: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 325–28.
as an unrelieved rain fell: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 295.
almost the entire population: Lila Mago de Chópite, “La población de Caracas (1754–1820), Anuario de estudios americanos, LIV-2, July–Dec., Sevilla, 1997, 516. Between 1809 and 1815, Caracas lost one third of its inhabitants to the earthquake or the wars, reducing the population from about 30,000 to 20,000. Mago de Chópite cites parochial church figures, and says they are far more accurate than Humboldt’s or Depons’s.
dwindled to a force of twelve hundred: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 295.
trudge through swamps, etc.: A. Guinassi Morán, Estudios históricos (Caracas: Ministerio de la Defensa, 1954), 36.
Soldiers took the incapacitated, etc.: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 295, 302.
For twenty-three days, etc.: Ibid.
drowned in floods, etc.: Guinassi, 36.
cholera and yellow fever: O’LB, 68. Also Guinassi, 36.
Bolívar told of a starving mother: O’LB, 68.
His hair was long, etc.: This portrait is informed by the famous painting of the evacuation, Emigración a Oriente, by Tito Salas. It was painted in 1913 and benefited from Salas’s consultations with Lecuna, who commissioned the artist to paint pivotal scenes of SB’s life.
plagued by hemorrhoids: Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 229. Also Slatta and Grummond, 268; and a paper presented by Paul G. Auwaerter, M.D., M.B.A., associate professor and clinical director in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, www.physorg.com/news191680201.html.
Bolívar never let on: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 214.
He would not allow his sisters: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 294–95.
like the Marquis de Casa León: Madariaga, 231.
the pyramids of skulls: Lecuna, La guerra a muerte, XVIII, 161, 379, in Masur.
María Antonia, Juana, etc.: Guinassi, 36.
following Bolívar from battle to battle: Ramón Urdaneta, Los amores de Simón Bolívar, 16.
to the island of St. Thomas: Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 86.
sent on to Curaçao: Polanco Alcántara, 407.
a force of eight thousand, etc.: Baralt and Díaz, I, 261.
only hope for equipping a renewed republican offense: Ibid., 282.
Mariño had placed the treasure: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 488.
Bolívar sent Colonel Mariano Montilla, etc.: Parra-Pérez, Mariño y la independencia, I, 440.
the command to open fire: Ibid., 441.
cowardice, desertion, and conspiring to steal, etc.: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 494.
began to have misgivings, too: Parra-Pérez, Mariño y la independencia, 454.
forced to turn over the trunks: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 329.
He set sail from the turbulent coast: Ibid.
intending to shoot them both: Parra-Pérez, Mariño y la independencia, 456.
white flags and a nervous archbishop: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 318.
On the road, he had made it clear: Austria, 316.
red-faced and speechless: Ibid., 317.
sulked and sent off bitter complaints: Gil Fortoul, Historia, I, 229.
Boves issued a proclamation: Austria, 311–13.
archbishop of Venezuela: Arístides Rojas, Obras escojidas, 692.
beggars were sent off, etc.: Langley, 52.
Pardos rose to high positions, etc.: McKinley, 172; also Heredia, 160.
whites were treated as dangerous foes: Gil Fortoul, I, 232.
more than ten thousand: Ibid.
General Piar ignored Field Marshal Ribas’s: DOC, VI, 103.
Boves had killed eighty thousand: SB to the editor of The Royal Gazette, Kingston, Aug. 15, 1815, SBC, 1799–1822, 29; Blanco-Fombona, Introduction, SBC, I, 95. The Spaniard Díaz additionally writes in his Recuerdos that the Creole population was virtually wiped out (193).
war to the death, too, had executed thousands: McKinley points out that there were only 7,000–8,000 European-born Spaniards in the province of Caracas (171). SB’s “war to the death” policies were strictly in place during the period from June 15 to August 6, 1813, as he marched to the capital, but there is no number for Spanish and royalist deaths directly attributable to the edict.
“all Europeans” he encountered: McKinley, 171; also Madariaga, 210.
calculated result of strategies: McKinley, 171.
killing in cold blood sickened him: Heredia, 157.
unborn child struggling for life: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 222.
took pleasure in watching a boy: Miller, I, 42–43.
hospitals were overrun with invalids: Baralt and Díaz, II, 268–69.
“There are no more provinces left”: Trend, 109.
certainly like no revolution since: Lecuna, Crónica, I, 107.
no uniform group of like-minded whites: D. Armitage, “The Americas on the Eve of Independence Movements,” paper presented at the LOC, Friday, Nov. 19, 2010 (Conference on Creating Freedom in the Americas).
“They must be for, or against us,” etc.: Andrew Jackson, in Robert Remini, Andrew Jackson (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 93.
“Destiny elected me to break your chains”: SB, Manifiesto de Carúpano, Sept. 7, 1814, Derecho constitucional colombiano (Universidad de Medellín, 2007), 431–32.
in the palace of the Spanish bishop: Ducoudray, I, 77.
sharing that grand manse with a family: Ibid. The sisters were Soledad and Isabel. Soledad, who was a little girl at the time, would grow up to marry SB’s most loyal aide-de-camp, Daniel F. O’Leary. Eventually, Isabel married Juan Bautista, an
Italian immigrant. The world of these revolutionaries was so small that Isabel later married Miranda’s son, Leandro, and she and her child, Teresa, lived with Leandro in Miranda’s house on Grafton Street, in London. Ramón Urdaneta, Los amores, 61.
irresistibly flirtatious, etc.: Ducoudray, I, 77; also Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 97; Angell, 97; C. Hispano, Historia secreta de Bolívar (Medellín: Bedout, 1977), 134.
insinuated herself into his political affairs: Ducoudray, I, 49.
the gift of a house: Jesús Rosas Marcano, column in El Nacional, Caracas, July 24, 1983; quoted in Ramón Urdaneta, Los amores, 61.
nest of intrigue: Ducoudray, I, 77–88.
“General, as long as your sword lives on”: Código militar de los Estados Unidos de Colombia (Bogotá: Zapata, 1883), 315.
“I give you my word of honor,” etc.: SB to Juan Jurado, Campo de Techo, Dec. 8, 1814, SBC, I, 99–102.
a glorious Mass in his honor: F. Rivas Vicuña, Las guerras de Bolívar, Vol. 51 (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1934), 147.
set out to blacken Bolívar’s reputation: SB to Torres, Cuartel general de Santafé [Bogotá], Jan. 22, 1815, SBO, I, 119–20; also O’L, XIV, 43–44.
a mad course toward civil war, etc.: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 356.
as smallpox and cholera tore: Ibid., 357.
poisoned its water supply: O’LN, I, 259.
began to sweep down the Magdalena: Ibid., 362.
raising arms against a fellow republican: Ibid., 360.
“I have offered to withdraw”: Mosquera, 161.
On April 24, he sent Bolívar: Larrazábal, Vida, 361; also Mosquera, 162.
sixty ships, etc.: Parra-Pérez, Historia, 30; also Mosquera, 162.
mortal impatience with the tenets of democracy, etc.: Mijares, Liberator, 231.
“Death to the Constitution!”: Quoted ibid.
resign his commission and separate himself: SB to Torres, Cuartel general de la Popa, May 8, 1815, SBO, I, 132–33.
his cousin Florencio Palacios: Ducoudray, I, 100.
“I treated them all with respect,” etc.: Pablo Morillo, Mémoires du général Morillo (Paris: Dufart, 1826); also DOC, VII, 356.
as Bolívar’s ship lost sight: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 367.
“Some day . . . God will punish”: Morillo, broadside, Pampatar, April 15, 1815, JCBL.
“The army of King Ferdinand VII has entered”: Ibid.
five thousand of Boves’s finest: Flinter, History of the Revolution, 186.