Bolivar: American Liberator

by Arana, Marie

  no idea that a coup was afoot: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 119.

  Sometime after the bell tower struck two: Larrazábal, Vida, II, 452.

  the conspirators had vanished, etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 119.

  Soaked to the bone, slathered in mud, etc.: Ibid., 121.

  eyes glistening with tears, etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I; also Larrazábal, Vida, II, 453.

  “Here I am, dying of grief,” etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121.

  his “patriots”: SB to Carabaño, quoted in Larrazábal, Vida, II, 454.

  so battered she could hardly walk: Boussingault, III, 228; also Larrazábal, Vida, II, 454; Murray, For Glory and Bolívar, 66; Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary, Bolívar y la emancipación; Posada Gutiérrez, I, 116.

  By four in the morning: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121.

  “You are the Liberatrix of the Liberator,” etc.: Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary, Bolívar y la emancipación.

  Bolívar’s first impulse, etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121–22.

  “My heart is in pieces,” etc.: Larrazábal, Vida, II, 454. For his general demoralization: Restrepo, IV, 119.

  he preferred to die, etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121–22.

  Colonel Guerra, who had spent the evening: Larrazábal, Vida, II, 454.

  “I am crushing the aborted conspiracy” etc.: Bolívar to Sucre, Oct. 28, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 230–33.

  In the end, of the fifty-nine men identified, etc.: These verdicts are expressed in an official memorandum from Castillo, Vergara, and Córdova to the Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1828, Bogotá, O’L, XXVI, 493–98.

  Santander . . . was issued a death sentence: O’L, XXVI, 493–98.

  “I’ve got conspiracy up to the eyeballs”: Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 242.

  that he was the soul of clemency, etc.: Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary, Bolívar y la emancipación; Manuela was not the only one to note Bolívar’s forgiveness. Among others, Carujo, who deserved death more than most, gave him the same tribute: Carujo to the Sons and Inhabitants of Bogotá, Nov. 13, 1828, O’L, XXVI, 502–3.

  González had prevented his goons from killing her: Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary, Bolívar y la emancipación. Looking back on this, one has to wonder whether González was spared because he was affianced to Bernardina Ibañez, for whom the Liberator had once cared, and who was, after all, the widow of one of Bolívar’s beloved officers.

  inexplicably freed and pardoned: In Nov. of 1828, Carujo eluded a death sentence and was sent to prison in Bocachica (where Santander, too, spent time). Thereafter, he lived an eventful life in and out of favor. González was sentenced to solitary confinement in Bocachica, but after eighteen months was set free. He returned to Colombia in 1831 to serve in Santander’s administration and marry Bernardina Ibañez. Years later, he ran unsuccessfully for president of the republic. In time, he emigrated to Argentina.

  slipped into a fatal spiral: Restrepo, IV, 119.

  CHAPTER 17: PLOWING THE SEA

  Epigraph: No one achieves greatness with impunity: SB to Restrepo, Bucaramanga, June 3, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 136.

  he withdrew to La Quinta to convalesce: Liévano Aguirre, 486.

  Le Moyne, who arrived three months after, etc.: J. O. Melo, Introduction, “El ojo de los franceses,” in Augusto Le Moyne, Viaje y estancia en la Nueva Granada (Bogotá: Ed. Incunables, 1985).

  voyage up the Magdalena in a canoe, etc.: Ibid.

  “We arrived at la Quinta,” etc.: A. Le Moyne, Voyages et séjour (Paris, 1880), in Liévano Aguirre, 486.

  painted by a soldier: This was José M. Espinosa, who created some of the most renowned likenesses of Bolívar. His initial sketches—done from life—were transformed into numerous portraits, the majority of which reside in Caracas. Espinosa wrote about the revolution in his memoir, Memorias de un abanderado, from which the opening scene of this biography is taken.

  the thin hair, sunken cheeks, etc.: Boulton, Los retratos de Bolívar, 110–11.

  listening in turns to Sucre, Manuela, etc.: Sucre to SB, cited in Polanco Alcántara, 992; Nicolasa Ibañez to SB, Bogotá, Duarte French, Las Ibañez, 100.

  Was it right to grant clemency to a white, etc.: SB to Briceño Méndez, Bogotá, Nov. 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 239–40.

  the blood of so many: SB to Briceño Méndez, Bogotá, Nov. 28, 1828, ibid.

  his enemies called themselves “liberals”: SB to Briceño Méndez, Bucaramanga, April 23, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 73–75; also SB to Urdaneta, Purificación, Jan. 1, 1829, ibid., 281–85.

  As one historian put it, etc.: Mijares, 538.

  “Beware the nation,” etc.: SB, Discurso, Caracas, Jan. 1, 1814, SB, Doctrina, 28.

  most radical and impetuous of world revolutionaries: Arciniegas, Bolívar y la revolución, 345.

  filled with a mortal hesitancy: SB to Briceño Méndez, Bogotá, Nov. 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 239–40.

  They knew that wherever Bolívar went: Lynch, Simón Bolívar, 252–53.

  “You are the anchor of all our hopes,” etc.: Santander to SB, Bogotá, June 8, 1826, O’L, III, 265–66.

  “the magic of his prestige”: O’L, II, 639.

  “Goodbye, sambo!”: Madariaga, 380.

  Populations had been cut in half: B. Hammett, “Popular Insurrection and Royalist Reaction,” in Archer, 50. Also see Jay Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America, (Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 153–57.

  Regional economies had come to a rumbling halt, etc.: Kinsbruner, 130–31.

  The Americas that were emerging, etc.: Liévano Aguirre, 512–13.

  Eventually this would change, etc.: Kinsbruner, xvii.

  vent his sorrows: SB to Briceño Méndez, O’L, XXXI, 239–40; SB to Alamo, Nov. 19, 1828, ibid., 242.

  “You will see in the attached documents,” etc.: SB to Sucre, Bogotá, Oct. 28, 1828, ibid., 230–33.

  “favorite son”: “If God had given us the right to choose our own families,” SB had once said, “I would have chosen General Sucre as my son.” Sucre, Documentos selectos (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1993), vii.

  He expected O’Leary to explain: SB to Flores, Bogotá, Oct. 8, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 223–24.

  Flores had already spent sixteen years, etc.: Vásconez Hurtado, Cartas de Bolívar al General Juan José Flores, Introducción.

  He had made up his mind that he would govern: Madariaga, 582.

  “shining, unblemished” exemplar: SB’s description of Sucre in SB to Sucre, O’L, XXXI, 230–33.

  Now Flores was being told in no uncertain terms: SB to Flores, ibid.

  his elegant bride in Quito: Mariana Carcelén Larréa, the marquesa of Solanda, whom Sucre had met in Quito. He had given power of attorney to General José María Pérez de Urdininea to effect the marriage in 1823. Sucre, De mi propia mano, 470.

  He had had to speed away with a bullet, etc.: Sucre also left behind a mistress: Rosalía Cortés, a Bolivian, with whom he had had a relationship in La Paz. Their illegitimate son, born on Jan. 13, 1826, was José María. Ibid., 464.

  hoping to rid himself of the black mood: SB to Alamo, Chia, Nov. 19, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 241–2.

  he wrote to General La Mar: Obando to La Mar, Pasto, Dec. 14, 1828, O’L, III, 481; also from Guáitara, Dec. 29, 1828, ibid., 483.

  impending Peruvian invasion of Colombia: La Mar, “El Ciudadano General La Mar, Presidente de la República, a los Peruanos,” in O’Leary, Bolívar y la emancipación, 496–98.

  Obando attacked Popayán: Obando’s close colleague in this pro-Granadan rebellion was José Hilario López, a native of Popayán, who was a fervent loyalist of Santander. In time, Santander, López, and Obando all became presidents of the Republic of New Granada.

  a confrontation with Peru was inevitable: SB to Ibarra, Bogotá, July 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 166.

  sparring with Peru’s ambassador: This was José de Villa, the former private secretary and close friend of Gen. Berindoaga, who had abandoned the patriots to join the Spaniards alongside Torre Tagle. Bolívar h
ad had Berindoaga executed for treason. Madariaga, 580.

  a robust army of forty thousand: SB to O’Leary, Bogotá, Aug. 15, 1828, O’L, Ultimos años, 475.

  a convalescence that should have lasted two months: SB to Alamo, ibid.

  He was working on instinct now: SB to Flores, Oct. 8, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 223–24.

  barely ride two hours at a time, etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 140.

  rains were incessant, etc.: SB to Urdaneta, Paniquitá, Jan. 22, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 304–6.

  it had overtaken the city of Cuenca: Peruvian president La Mar’s birthplace. Although he had fought with SB and Sucre in the effort to liberate Peru from Spain, the fact that Cuenca and Guayaquil had been appropriated by Bogotá had always rankled him.

  he led fifteen hundred men, etc.: The actual number of troops (not all represented in the battle): 4,000 Colombians; 8,000 Peruvians. Posada Gutiérrez, I, 146.

  who seemed to materialize out of nowhere, etc.: Monsalve, El ideal político, 196.

  The Colombians were poorly armed, poorly fed, etc.: Ibid.

  Sucre wrote to Bolívar, etc.: Sucre to SB, Cuenca, March 3, 1829, O’L, I, 521–22.

  the very people for whose liberty he had fought: After the battle, Sucre had a monument erected on the battlefield. It was engraved as follows: “On February 27, 1829, eight thousand men of the Peruvian army invaded the land of their liberators and were vanquished here by four thousand stouthearted Colombians.” The discrepancy in numbers is due to the fact that Sucre was using the size of total armies, not numbers of troops on the battlefield. Posada Gutiérrez, I, 146.

  He told Bolívar that he had assumed command, etc.: Sucre to SB, ibid.

  As Sucre was winding his way home: SB to Vergara, Hato Viejo, Feb. 28, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 328–29; and SB to Urdaneta, Pasto, March 9, 1829, ibid., 330–31.

  Bolívar now offered the rebels complete amnesty, etc.: SB to Vergara, Popayán, Jan. 28, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 307–10; also Monsalve, El ideal politico, 192.

  Bolívar promoted Obando to full general: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 150.

  Córdova, who had labored mightily, etc.: Ibid., 136–40.

  Manuela Sáenz was never so celebrated, etc.: O’Leary to Bolívar, Bogotá, May 9, 1829, and Aug. 18, 1829, FJB, Archivo Libertador, Nos. 633, 641.

  foreign diplomats clamored to meet her, etc.: O’Leary to SB, ibid.

  a frenzied plan to recruit a foreign monarch, etc.: O’Leary, Detached Recollections, 12–15.

  O’Leary had reported much of it: Ibid.

  British chargé d’affaires—in all his calculating enthusiasm: Campbell to SB, Bogotá, May 31, 1829, in Liévano Aguirre, 491–92.

  much of the French navy plying American waters: A. Sheldon-Duplaix, “France and Its Navy During the Wars of Latin American Independence,” presentation, 2011 McMullen Naval History Symposium, Sept. 16, 2011, Annapolis.

  a thousand reasons why it wouldn’t work, etc.: Bolívar to Vergara, Campo de Buijó, July 13, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 422–27.

  Bolívar had adamantly rejected, etc.: His views on monarchy have been discussed amply elsewhere in this book. He refers to his enemies’ persistent attempts to tar him with a monarchical brush in SB to Urdaneta, Bojacá, Dec. 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 268; tells Urdaneta that a monarchy is untenable: SB to Urdaneta, Guayaquil, July 13, 1829, Documentos para los anales, 54–56. Also Larrazábal, Vida, II, 493–517.

  Some historians claim he ignored it because, etc.: Liévano Aguirre, 482–83.

  other reasons for Bolívar’s dismissal, etc.: Ibid.

  But his wan response, twisted artfully: Not only SB’s enemies but some of his biographers have misguidedly claimed he had monarchical aspirations. The Spaniard Salvador Madariaga, whose book on SB is relentlessly negative, claims he wanted to be king, as does a highly tendentious biography by former Argentine president Bartolomé Mitre.

  Indeed, those who prayed for Bolívar’s ruin, etc.: Páez had written to Urdaneta to say that he supported any form of government SB wanted, even a monarchy. Among those who trumpeted the notion that SB wanted a crown (especially in Antioquia, Córdova’s region) were the Montoyas and Arrublas, lawyers who were friends of Santander’s. O’Leary, Detached Recollections, 15.

  With little more than three hundred followers: Masur, Simón Bolívar, 659.

  recruit Mosquera to his way of thinking: Mosquera’s testimony, Causa contra el presidente, I, Anales del Congreso, Imprenta de la Nación, Bogotá, 1867, 589; also Posada Gutiérrez, I, 142–43.

  He wrote to Páez: Córdova to Páez, Medellín, Sept. 18, 1829, in Páez, 544–47.

  honored him with one of the jeweled crowns: Cordovez Moure, 1067.

  an army was all he needed to govern a country, etc.: Mosquera, quoted in Causa contra el presidente.

  he could hardly speak; he cried like a baby: Larrazábal, Vida, II, 474.

  He was determined to broker, etc.: J. M. del Castillo, in “Report of the President of the Council of Ministers,” Bogotá, Jan. 25, 1830 (translation), in British and Foreign State Papers, XVII, 1829–30, 1273–81.

  his arrival in Guayaquil at the end of July: July 21 to be exact. SB to Restrepo, Guayaquil, July 23, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 439–41.

  spitting black, etc.: SB to Restrepo, Guayaquil, Aug. 20, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 482; SB to Briceño Méndez, Guayaquil, Aug. 21, 1829, ibid., 488; SB to Páez, Guayaquil, Sept. 5, 1829, ibid., 513.

  all too clearly in his lungs: “When we arrived with the army at the Mayo River [where Obando and the rebels were], the Liberator suffered a grave pulmonary attack.” Mosquera, quoted in Posada Gutiérrez, I, 142; also Mosquera’s testimony about his general state, Causa contra el presidente, 588–89.

  Forced to spend twelve feverish days: SB to Briceño Méndez, O’L, XXXI, 488; also SB to Restrepo, ibid., 482.

  The equatorial heat was relentless, etc.: SB to Urdaneta, Guayaquil, Aug. 20, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 480; SB to Restrepo, ibid., 483.

  La Mar had been deported, etc.: SB to Col. Wilson, Guayaquil, Aug. 3, 1829, O’L, XXX, 462–66.

  The new chief of state, Antonio de La Fuente: La Mar’s immediate successor was La Fuente, who held the position of supreme chief for three months, before Gamarra took over. Bolívar was well disposed to La Fuente probably because La Fuente had done him the service of removing Riva Agüero. La Fuente immediately wrote a conciliatory letter to the Liberator. SB to Briceño Méndez, Guayaquil, July 22, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 435–36.

  The wound this betrayal inflicted on the Liberator, etc.: Posada Gutiérrez, I, 143; also SB, Proclamas y discursos, 34–35. Masur claims Córdova didn’t worry Bolívar in the least, but it is difficult to find a South American historian who would agree.

  although he tried to dismiss it: SB to Urdaneta, Guayaquil, Aug. 3, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 458–60.

  “My strength is almost entirely gone”: SB to O’Leary, Guayaquil, Sept. 8, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 516–19.

  called America the hope of the universe: SB, Proclama, Aug. 2, 1824, DOC, IX, 343.

  little more than a chimera, etc.: SB to Leandro Palacios, Guayaquil, July 27, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 451–52.

  “We have tried everything under the sun”: SB to Urdaneta, Buíjo, July 5, 1829, ibid., 416–18.

  denounced Bolívar as an outright despot: Constant is referred to in SB’s letters from Guayaquil: Urdaneta, July 22; M. Montilla, July 27; R. Wilson, July 28; and Palacios, July 27, 1829; ibid., 442–50.

  “who has murdered thousands,” etc.: G. D. Flinter, letter to King George IV, Island of Margarita, Jan. 28, 1829 (Gazette, Hollman & Co., 1829), JCBL.

  less a lion of liberty than a snake: “Review: Memoirs of Simón Bolívar,” by Gen. H. S. V. Ducoudray-Holstein, The Gentlemen’s Magazine [a compendium of 1829 publications], C-147, I (London: Nichols, 1830), 48–51.

  disseminated by the press: The prevalence of negative press against SB was reported in the American Masonick Record, Albany Saturday Magazine, II, no. 52 (Jan. 24, 1829), 415.

  In Chile, the outcast Riva Ag�
�ero, etc.: Lecuna, Catálago, III, 87ff. and 101; also A. Rey de Castro Arena, Republicanismo (Lima: Universidad de San Marcos, 2010), 238.

  still called himself president of Peru: Riva Agüero had been ejected from Peru in 1823 for siding with the Spaniards, along with Torre Tagle. Basadre, I, 32–36, 87.

  “I’m being accused of an inferno”: SB to O’Leary, Guayaquil, Aug. 17, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 478–79.

  he wrote to General O’Leary insisting, etc.: SB to O’Leary, Guayaquil, Aug. 21, 1829, ibid., 483–86.

  calculating, as some historians have claimed: See Madariaga’s last chapters for a thoroughly negative and distorted portrait of SB, in which SB only pretends to reject the crown because he so ravenously hungers for it. Mitre, an Argentine who far preferred his countryman San Martín to SB, portrayed SB as pathologically duplicitous and dangerously authoritarian. Most recently, the Peruvian historian Morote attributes to SB a diabolical plan to crush Peru.

  under which—as he himself had said: SB, Proclama, Aug. 27, 1828, Bogotá, quoted, with special piquancy, in Santander, Apuntamientos, 116.

  wondered whether he was insisting, etc.: This is most apparent in the correspondence from James Henderson, the British consul general, to the Foreign Office, accusing SB of the lowest motives. PRO/FO, 18/68, Doc. 24, 25, and Henderson’s letters. The emissary was heavily influenced by Santander and Córdova. Also: Henderson’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Fanny, had been maintaining a romantic correspondence with Córdova, which Henderson had read. Madariaga, 592–612.

  drew up a treaty with Peru, etc.: SB to Vergara, Guayaquil, Sept. 20, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 520.

  ingenious plan to finance Colombia’s crippling deficit: Mijares, 539.

  improvements in universities, etc.: Restrepo, Order 654, Bogotá, in O’L, XXVI, 414–16.

  sent military reinforcements to Panama: SB to Vergara, O’L, XXXI, 520.

  He congratulated the army: SB to Urdaneta, Quito, Oct. 26, 1829, Documentos para los anales, 56–57.

  “I have no one to write for me”: SB to Vergara, O’L, XXXI, 520.

  published a circular, etc.: An open referendum. Posada Gutiérrez, I, 171–72. On his genuine disinterest: C. Cantú, Historia de cien años: 1750–1850, II (Madrid: Rivera, 1852), 523–24; also Restrepo, IV, 256–59.