by John Lynch
He was not long in dying. His final days were uncomfortable and restless, as he moved from bed to hammock and back again and fought for breath. ‘Let’s go! Let’s go!’ he said, as in a dream. ‘People in this land do not want me. Come boys! Take my luggage on board the frigate.’87 At the end the doctor advised the waiting company and they gathered round his bed. He died at the age of forty–seven shortly after one o’clock on the afternoon of 17 December 1830, ‘his last moments – the last embers of an expiring volcano – the dust of the Andes still on his garments.’88
Manuela received the fatal news from Peru de Lacroix, whom she had sent from Bogotá to keep her informed. She outlived her lover by twenty–six years, none of them very happy, at first a wandering victim of spite and hostility from their enemies, and to some extent of her own temperament. She finally settled in Paita, a small port in northern Peru. In the 1840s she passed to o’Leary a box of Bolívar’s letters to her, and in 1850 she readily answered his queries concerning the events of 25 September 1828. She died in 1856.
Bolívar’s body was embalmed and people crowded into its resting place in the Custom House to view it. The funeral, on 20 December, drew further crowds to the streets in Santa Marta, where the funeral procession led by Bolívar’s horses draped in black made its way to the cathedral. Solemn marches were played and bells tolled, and a Requiem Mass committed the Liberator to eternity. The cathedral itself housed his tomb. The news of his death was slow in travelling and subdued in its reception. An obituary in The Times of London recorded: ‘It would probably have been impossible for the most skilful political architect to have constructed a permanent edifice of social order and freedom with such materials as were placed in the hands of Bolivar; but whatever could be done he accomplished, and whatever good exists in the present arrangements of Colombia and Peru may be traced to his superior knowledge and capacity.’89 Venezuelans were divided in their sympathies and at that date few would have described his qualities as superior. It would be twelve years before his body was returned to Caracas, twelve years of disillusion with post–Bolivarian politics, when Venezuelans began to learn that there were worse choices than Bolívar. He was buried in the Cathedral of Caracas in December 1842, and in the National Pantheon in October 1876.
Chapter 12
THE LEGACY
Man and Myth
The history of Bolívar is not a seamless web from first protest to last battle. His life unfolded in three stages: revolution, independence and state building. In the first, from 1810 to 1818, the young, enlightened Venezuelan was a revolutionary leader, who fought and legislated for his native land and its neighbour New Granada. In the second, from 1819 to 1826, he was the universal liberator who saw beyond national boundaries and took the revolution to its limit. In the third, from 1827 to 1830, he was the statesman who sought institutions, security and reform for Americans, and left a legacy of national liberation, imperfect in his own mind but recognized as a great achievement by the rest of the world.
Across the chronological divisions there was remarkable continuity in his political ideas from the Cartagena Manifesto of 1812 to the Address to the Admirable Congress of 1830. But each phase had its own character, and in each he faced distinct challenges and responded with specific policies, accumulating experience and adapting to the times, before moving on to the next challenge and the next project. The revolutionary who fought his way through the campaña admirable only to become mired in conflicts with the caudillos and the confusion of his own strategy, had to learn that he could not defeat the Spaniards on the northern coast of Venezuela but needed to open another front in the interior. The liberator who then won independence for Colombia had to secure it by taking the revolution into the heart of royalist Peru, thereby overstretching his lines of military control and exposing his political position at home. The statesman who struggled to shore up the revolution’s defences was finally left with the task of state building in a society deeply divided by region, race and ideology, conscious that his own presence was a further source of division. Was he a man of immutable strategies? Did he defy time and place? Or did he renew his policies as he moved from one phase to the next, deploying further weapons in his armoury and adopting further positions in his project? He was ever the pragmatist, the politician, who was ready to compromise to achieve his aim; he preferred a successful deal to the constraints of dogma, and he advocated ‘not the best system of government, but the one that is most likely to work’.1
Interpretations of Bolívar have occupied writers of history, fiction and polemics from his day to ours, and models of political behaviour have been sought from the materials of his career. No single theory can encompass his life. Historians run the risk of distortion if they enclose him in a conceptual framework and look for models to recreate his past. Psychobiography would devalue the story of his life by forcing it into a structure determined in advance of its actual course. Better to interpret the life of the Liberator after it had run its time rather than to look for clues before it had happened. As he himself advised, ‘To understand revolutions and their participants we must observe them at close range and judge them at great distance.’2 The history of Bolívar has to follow a narrative line, with breaks for analysis and interpretation, and a final pause for appraisal.
The historian of Bolívar cannot ignore the flaws. In his personal life these were common enough, in his relations with people, with colleagues, with women, and do not call for particular comment or censure. His moods could veer between lively and morose, according to his preoccupations, and if he had a short temper his rages were brief and hardly surprising in a leader who had to take political and military decisions in emergency conditions and against the inertia or resistance of colleagues inferior to himself.3 In his leisure moments he tended to gossip about absent colleagues and express his wit at their expense in quick, cutting phrases, a tendency not unknown among those involved in a common enterprise. But in general his instincts were generous and so was his care for others, for war widows and dependants, whom he quietly helped with payments from his own income.
His public life is a different matter and his record of political and military decisions was not impeccable. Once the revolution began he gave signs of impatience with rivals and intolerance of other opinions, concomitants of leadership and conditions of success perhaps, but deadly in their effects. His readiness to write off Miranda and betray him to his enemies was unworthy, no way to treat a precursor of the revolution who at that time had done more to put Spanish America on the map of international awareness than had Bolívar. This was a deep hatred, not a passing resentment, and the anger continued even when he knew the fate of Miranda; for years he denounced him as a coward and refused to let anyone forget it. His vendetta against the Precursor’s memory answered apparently to some sombre interior need to erase a rival’s record. He ignored the possibility that Miranda’s motives were not so different from his own – to live to fight another day – and he seemed to treat Miranda’s decision to capitulate as an action that robbed him of the opportunity to turn defeat into personal triumph and decisive victory.
Liberal opinion in the nineteenth century and later was quick to condemn the war to the death, without considering the imperatives of fighting a ruthless colonial power. The greatest outrage was not the policy itself but its application to non–combatants. The practice veered out of control when, in 1817, the Capuchin missions of southern Venezuela were inadvertently caught in the crossfire between royalist and republican forces and accused of taking part in the defence of Spanish Guayana. Twenty of the captive priests were executed by machete and lance, and their bodies burned. Bolívar was not personally involved but he was the overall commander and he issued no public proclamation on the outrage. The two republican officers directly responsible for the massacre were never punished, and one rose to senior rank in the Liberator’s army. Bolívar was not easily moved to pity. He was a military commander who accepted the casualties of war, whether of his ow
n soldiers at Bomboná and Pantano de Vargas, or among the enemy ranks at Taguanes and Carabobo, or among the helpless victims of atrocities on both sides. He was confident of his moral position. If Spain withdrew from America and Spanish generals showed humanity on the battlefield, all this would end. The war of liberation was a just war. Of that he had not the slightest doubt.
In the course of the revolution Bolívar had to associate with many crass characters, but it was usually their military or political offences that outraged him, not their personal behaviour. So the wild Córdova was his protégé until he came out in rebellion in 1829. ‘Fighting like a lion, he fell and expired sternly, proud and unrepentant,’ wrote o’Leary, who may have had a guilty conscience over the gruesome death of his late comrade in arms.4 On people, Bolívar’s sense of judgement was not impeccable. How otherwise could he describe José María Pando as one of the best men in Peru, ‘a man incapable of flattery, utterly straight, and above all well informed and resolute’? That was in 1826. Four years and an act of disloyalty later he had become ‘a scoundrel who would not hold back anything that might reflect upon me’.5 And how account for his lifelong attachment to the eccentric Simón Rodríguez, whose behaviour in Bolivia was no model for the Bolivarian Enlightenment and whose latent talents the long–suffering Sucre could never discover? Bolívar’s judgement of people, however, was normally sound and served him well throughout his life. His selection of Sucre as his leading general and heir presumptive was an inspired decision and said much for the values of Bolívar as well as the qualities of Sucre. His most emotional choice, and one that reveals another side of Bolívar, was his commitment to Manuela Sáenz, friend, adviser, consoler, as well as lover. A free spirit, as independent as he, she was a model for a later age rather than her own; her partnership with Bolívar exemplified a love that was not exploitative and suggests that his views on women did not entirely conform to the culture of the times. Or was she an exception to his more traditional views on women and his concern for reputation? He wanted his niece to marry an honourable and patriotic man, ‘for the family is a treasure in which we all have an interest’, and he once remarked to his sister Antonia that women should not get involved in politics.6
The great objective and ultimate hope of Bolívar, the union of Venezuela, New Granada and Quito in one great Colombia governed by his own constitution, was already illusory in his lifetime, and historians have not failed to criticize his pursuit of a lost cause as a lapse of judgement. Andrés Bello in a positive, but cool, appraisal of Bolívar in 1847 drew attention to the imper–manence of Colombia and the defects of the Bolivian Constitution, and concluded that policies derived from his great ideals could not be sustained.7 But Colombia was born of necessity more than ideals. He saw that the liberation of Venezuela and New Granada could not be accomplished separately, granted Spain’s ability to exploit the dividing line and defend each as a single battlefield, and that it needed a greater strategy and greater resources. This implied a united front. A unified Colombia then had to be protected against Spanish counter–revolution from the south, and so Ecuador had to be won and brought into the union. For its own security against royalist Peru, Colombia had to remain united, pool its resources and secure its defences. The original creation, therefore, was based on military strategy, then prolonged as a matter of national identity and international credibility, before succumbing to realities that Bolívar himself recognized.
The great decisions of Bolívar and the commanding heights of his career overshadow individual lapses of judgement and taste. In pointing the finger at Spain he was not alone. Awareness of the colonial condition of Americans, their pent–up grievances and their growing sense of identity, was shared by many of his compatriots and expressed in many parts of the Americas. But Bolívar began with an advantage over his fellows, not simply in his aristocratic status, independent wealth and European experience, but in his understanding of the international conjuncture. The Spanish American revolution was served, though not driven, by the state of Europe in 1808: a weak Spain, an aggressive France and a watchful Britain. Bolívar understood the weakness of Spain as an imperial power, the danger of a takeover by France and the importance of Britain as a friend in need. This was a beginning, the first incentive to action. Subsequently Spain lost its imperial grip and in compensation looked to France and the Holy Alliance. Bolívar appreciated that Britain, without the need of a great diplomatic gesture, already provided the basic protection Spanish America needed: the British navy, acting in British interests, would prevent any European aggression in the Americas far more effectively than the Monroe Doctrine. Bolívar’s sense of judgement showed itself first in seizing the moment, when Spain’s decline had reached its nadir, and Spanish America had gained a shield. His dominance was then displayed in his military role, in his grand strategic decisions and tactical responses certainly, but also in his place at the head of his armies and his determination always to be available, leading from the front.
Ideas and Ideals
What made Bolívar’s greatness? First, his cause. Not simply his hostility to Spain. The Spanish empire was not an evil empire. As Andrés Bello pointed out, the Spanish colonial regime was not totally tyrannical; like other colonial regimes, it was a mixture of severity, moderation and inefficiency.8 But colonies do not stand still; they have within them the seeds of their own destruction, demands for office, for equality of opportunity, for freer economies, all signs of a growing self–awareness, an increasing sense of nationality. Bolívar recognized that the time had come to release these demands and express them in absolute independence. Liberation was his objective, and liberation itself was a great cause, to free Spanish America from colonial occupation and its peoples from foreign laws. Liberty and equality, these were his pivotal themes, and he made them the foundation of his revolution. He thus advanced beyond those creoles who would have been satisfied with autonomy within the Spanish monarchy and whose commitment to equality was always dubious. He also led with the mind as well as the will. It was Bolívar, the intellectual, the political theorist, who gave Spanish American independence its intellectual underpinning, in works whose style and eloquence resound to this day.
Liberty, he said, is ‘the only object worth the sacrifice of a man’s life’, not simply freedom from absolutism but freedom from colonial power.9 From Montesquieu he inherited a hatred of despotism and a belief in moderate constitutional government, in the separation of powers and the rule of law. But liberty in itself is not the key to his political system. He distrusted theoretical concepts of liberty, and his hatred of tyranny did not lead him to the glorification of anarchy. ‘Abstract theories create the pernicious idea of unlimited freedom,’ he said, and he was convinced that absolute liberty invariably deteriorated into absolute power. His search for freedom therefore was a search for a mean between the extremes of anarchy and tyranny, between the rights of the individual and the needs of society. This would be secured essentially by the administration of justice and the rule of law, so that the just and weak could live without fear, and merit and virtue could receive their due reward.10 He believed, with Rousseau, that only the law can be sovereign, and law is the result not of divine or despotic authority but of human will and the sovereignty of the people.
Equality too was a right and an objective in Bolívar’s project. First, equality of Americans with Spaniards, of Venezuela and Colombia with Spain. This equality was absolute, and was the basis of his argument for independence. Second, equality between Americans. European political theorists wrote for communities of relative social homogeneity and appealed to fairly distinct classes, such as the petty bourgeoisie favoured by Rousseau. Bolívar had no such advantage. He had to begin with more complex human material and to legislate for a society with a special racial formation. Americans, he was never tired of saying, were neither European nor indigenous people but a mixture of Spanish, Africans and Indians. All differ visibly in the colour of their skin, a difference which places upon us an oblig
ation of the greatest importance.’11 This obligation was to correct the disparity imposed by nature and inheritance, by making men equal before the law and the constitution. ‘Men are born with equal rights to share the benefits of society,’ he observed, but obviously they do not possess equal talents, virtue, intelligence and strength. This physical, moral and intellectual inequality must be corrected by laws, so that the individual may enjoy political and social equality; thus by education and other opportunities an individual may gain the equality denied him by nature. It was Bolívar’s opinion that ‘the fundamental basis of our political system turns directly and exclusively upon the establishment and practice of equality in Venezuela’. And he explicitly denied that this was inspired by France or North America, where in his view equality had not been a political dogma, a debatable opinion probably influenced by his determination to produce American solutions for American problems. The logic of his own principles led him to conclude that the greater the social inequality, the greater the need for legal equality. Among the practical steps which he envisaged was the extension of free public education to all the people and particular reforms for those sectors who were especially disadvantaged, such as the landless and the slaves.
Liberty and equality, these were the essential objectives. But how could they be realized without sacrificing security, property and stability, those other rights by which society protected the persons and possessions of its citizens? In principle Bolívar was a democrat and he believed that government should be responsible to the people. As he moved into Venezuela to confront the rebellion of Páez in December 1826 he warned the people against warlords and their parties: ‘Only the majority is sovereign; he who takes the place of the people is a tyrant and his power is usurpation.’12 But Bolívar was not such an idealist as to imagine that America was ready for pure democracy, or that the law could instantly annul inequalities of nature and society. Until our people acquire the political virtues of our brothers in North America, he said, I fear that popular systems of government, far from helping us, will be our ruin. He had no confidence in the people en masse as they came out of the colonial system; they had to be re–educated under the tutelage of a strong executive before they could be fit for liberty. Meanwhile: ‘Complete liberty and absolute democracy are but reefs upon which all republican hopes have foundered.’13 He spent his whole political career developing his principles and applying them to American conditions in his own version of the age of revolution. ‘His principle was not to expect too much from a people who unhappily might still be considered little better than a nation of slaves, to give them no more power than they were able to direct, and to have wholesome checks on those who held such power.’14 Until they were educated into political society his solution lay not in a federal system, which he consistently opposed, nor in monarchy, of which he was accused, but in his Bolivian Constitution, though even about this he was more diffident than is often supposed.