Simon Bolivar

by John Lynch

  War with Spain and with Nature

  The first republic was established and controlled by the creole elite of Caracas. It was not accepted by all the provinces, or by the popular sectors, both of whom saw themselves excluded from decision–making. Guayana, Maracaibo and Coro, all with strong regional oligarchies, remained aloof. So did the pardos, the blacks and the Canarians. But these disparate elements needed a strong leadership if they were to act together. From bases in Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, Spain could launch combined naval and military operations to reinforce its supporters. One such operation was commanded by Domingo de Monteverde y Ribas, a native Canarian of rich and noble family but one with numerous relations among creole Canarians and poor whites, whose resentment of the Venezuelan elites he shared. A naval captain and a natural caudillo, Monteverde made Coro a base for the counter–revolution, and there he recruited people and priests to his cause.

  Bolívar always cited the failure of the first republic to declare Coro insurgent territory and attack it by land and sea as a basic strategic flaw and another example of that fatal restraint towards the Spanish enemy which undermined the republican cause. Coro was where the rot set in; insignificant in itself, it became the source of counter–revolutionaries from the west who eventually marched into Caracas unopposed.39 The Canarians in particular, resentful of the predominance and exclusiveness of the republican oligarchy, and heirs of their colonial masters, became the backbone of the royalist reaction, and they were immediately rewarded by Monteverde, while his naval companions were given senior appointments in the administration and the army. Monteverde in effect behaved like a caudillo prototype rather than a representative of the king. He rewarded his clients, the Canarians, and they became his principal power base. Eventually they became a particular target of Bolívar.

  The republicans, therefore, found that they faced a determined enemy, if anything more united than they were themselves. Resistance in Valencia presented a serious challenge and one which the republic’s military leader, the marqués del Toro, was incapable of crushing. Miranda was called on to provide a more professional approach. Miranda seemed determined to downgrade Bolívar and prevent him marching with the Aragua militia, describing him as ‘a dangerous young man’.40 Since their return to Caracas relations between the two had foundered, partly through Bolívar’s friendship with the Toros, notorious enemies of the Miranda family, partly through policy differences, Miranda favouring a more indulgent policy towards Spaniards than did Bolívar. Perhaps too he wished to curb the status and ambition of the young revolutionary and remind Venezuelans of his own reputation as an experienced professional soldier who had fought in Europe as well as America. Or perhaps he was pressured by Bolívar’s opponents in congress. Whatever the reason, it was a pointless gesture. Bolívar succeeded in joining the vanguard under Toro as they moved westwards on Valencia and he fought bravely when they encountered heavy resistance, earning the commendation of Miranda for his distinguished service along with other officers.41 In Valencia two groups whom Bolívar would subsequently identify as problems for the republic made their presence felt. The pardos, frustrated by denial of full rights of citizenship, rose against the whites and vigorously repelled the republican forces. Many Canarians, resentful of their second–class status, also took the royalist side. Miranda himself assumed command of the campaign, imposed a blockade on the city and, with the advantage of superior numbers and artillery, forced the town to capitulate on 13 August 1811. He was criticized for his tactics and the heavy casualties he took, and was summoned to Caracas to give an account of his actions to congress, which he did convincingly. But there were lapses in the high command. While the royalists fought without pity and without scruple, the congressional leaders were victims of their own social bias; inflexible towards the coloureds, they were too lenient to the royalists and allowed many to escape and regroup. And Miranda soon made it clear that he preferred defence to attack.

  José Domingo Díaz, who despised republican government, regarded late 1811–early 1812 as the last months of the old Venezuela, ‘a country now without a government but surviving a period of tranquil anarchy through the rule of Spanish laws, the habit of obedience, and public satisfaction in the midst of plenty, unperturbed by the threats of the enemy’. But Spanish and republican peace alike were soon to be shattered.

  On 26 March 1812, an oppressively hot day, the air calm and the sky cloudless, calamity struck the people of Caracas, crowded into churches for Maundy Thursday.42 A massive earthquake tore across Venezuela from the Andes to the coast, reaching Caracas at seven minutes past four in the afternoon. The first shock was powerful enough to make the bells of the churches toll, followed by a tremendous subterranean roar, louder than the rolling of thunder, and now the ground was in a continuous undulating movement, bringing everything above crashing down. Thousands died in churches on this Holy Thursday, soldiers perished on campaign, towns collapsed around the patriots, and in Caracas destruction and casualties were traumatic. ‘The processions,’ wrote Humboldt, ‘had not yet set out, but the crowd was so great in the churches that nearly three or four thousand persons were crushed by the fall of their vaulted roofs…. Estimating at nine or ten thousand the number of the dead in the city of Caracas, we do not include those unhappy persons, who, dangerously wounded, perished several months after, for want of food and proper care.’43 Bolívar was never closer to the revolution than on that hot afternoon; in his shirtsleeves amidst the dust and debris of the stricken capital, beside himself with rage and helplessness, he hurled defiance at nature and vowed to fight back. The evidence for the scene gains credibility from its source, for it comes precisely from José Domingo Díaz, royalist chronicler and enemy of the republican cause. Bolívar had to fight the Church as well as nature, for royalist clergy blamed the revolution for bringing down God’s anger on Venezuela. He personally remonstrated with one of the priests preaching repentance in the square. But he could not hold back the royalist reaction, as people returned to the fold through fear. A second earthquake struck on 4 April, raising the death toll to more than twenty thousand.

  Seismic disturbance also struck the patriot war effort and the republican cause swiftly collapsed. Monteverde advanced unchallenged out of Coro at the head of royalist troops reinforced from Puerto Rico and supported by Juan de los Reyes Vargas, an influential Indian who had changed sides. Soon, without even a serious battle, he recovered the whole of western Venezuela. The republic reacted to these disasters by appointing Miranda generalísimo, commander–in–chief with dictatorial powers, on 23 April 1812. But the aged revolutionary could not recover the nerve of his youth or stem the tide of royalism that swept over the republic. He evacuated Valencia and on 3 May Monteverde entered the city with the connivance of the inhabitants and began to reinforce his troops. In the llanos the guerrilla leader Boves joined the royalist cause.

  These national disasters enclosed a personal crisis for Bolívar. On his way to Caracas to collect troops and supplies, Miranda stopped at San Mateo and appointed Bolívar political and military commandant of Puerto Cabello. Bolívar saw the appointment as another attempt to marginalize him, as he wanted to fight at the front against Monteverde, but he accepted, ‘not without reservations’.44 Puerto Cabello was strategically important, commanding communications with the interior and defence against attack from the sea. The fort of San Felipe protected the town and was a prison for leading royalist prisoners, as well as holding a store of arms and supplies; the combination was risky and unprofessional, and discipline was lax. Bolívar took command on 4 May.45 Did he have time to unravel the situation and improve security? Or was the task beyond his training and experience? Whatever the answers, it was vital that he hold on to this important seaport, a difficult task made more hazardous by Monteverde’s dominance in Valencia just to the south, the presence of traitors within, and the non–cooperation of the local authorities.

  Bolívar, therefore, inherited a danger and he was isolated. Neither was
he helped by the commander of the Fort, Colonel Ramón Aymerich, who decided to visit the town and gave command of the fort to a treacherous subordinate, one Vinoni. The traitor promptly released and armed the prisoners, seized the garrison for the royalist cause, and directed the batteries on the city while also controlling the harbour. It is fair to say that since taking command of Puerto Cabello Bolívar had pointed out the danger of keeping top political prisoners, who had wealth and influence, in close proximity to an arms store. Now he had to deal with the consequences. He offered to pardon the ‘prisoners, officers, corporals, and soldiers who have taken possession of San Felipe’ if they surrendered within an hour. The offer was repudiated. For six days he held off the rebels and the enemies outside while the guns bombarded the town, and his own meagre forces, with inferior firepower, suffered heavy casualties, desertions, and defeats. Fearing an attack by Monteverde, he urgently requested reinforcements from Miranda and urged him to attack the enemy in the rear, or he would be lost. ‘That is the way of the world,’ commented Miranda. Bolívar had to extricate his headquarters and retreat along the coast; he reached La Guaira on 7 July along with a few officers, whose good name he defended. For him it was a bitter occasion causing deep humiliation. Ideas, ambitions, hopes for Venezuela, his whole life so far, were now suddenly destroyed by military defeat. After years of mental preparation he became the runner who fell at the first hurdle. His pride hurt, he wrote to Miranda a detailed report on the loss of Puerto Cabello, and an account of his own ignominy and demoralization, ashamed to see him face to face:

  General, my spirits are so depressed that I do not have the heart to command a single soldier. I was presumptuous enough to believe that my desire to succeed and my ardent zeal for my country would supply the talents that I lacked as a commander. I therefore beg you either place me under the orders of your lowest ranking officer or grant me several days leave to compose myself and to recover the confidence that I lost in losing Puerto Cabello. On top of this there is the state of my physical health, for after thirteen sleepless nights and extremes of responsibility and anxiety, I find myself in a condition of virtual collapse…. I did my duty, General, and had but a single soldier stayed with me, I would have fought on, but they abandoned me through no fault of mine.46

  ‘Venezuela is wounded in the heart,’ observed Miranda and he himself began to weaken. His army for an attack on Valencia was more impressive in numbers – five thousand – than in quality and he soon saw his appeals to Valencians ignored and his forces reduced by desertions. He seemed to have had no plan of campaign. He retreated to Maracay where he wrote wordy proclamations and pleaded for international help, but allowed Monteverde to advance further. He retreated to La Victoria, where he stood down his army for weapons cleaning. Again Monteverde attacked and this time the patriot army gave a good account of itself and twice could have turned strong resistance into advance on the enemy had it been allowed to do so, but against the pleas of his officers Miranda halted the troops and withdrew them to defensive lines.47 As he lost the military initiative so he was beginning to lose his own credibility among the military and the politicians, and there were mutter–ings against him and criticisms of his use of power, harsh personality and defensive tactics. The republic had wasted its assets in Valencia and the west and retreated to a narrow strip of territory from La Victoria to Caracas and La Guaira, and in June the towns and cities of the east began to desert to the royalist camp. The core of the republic was under virtual blockade. Miranda decided to call it a day and negotiate surrender terms with Monteverde.48

  The pact was signed at San Mateo on 25 July 1812. The terms protected the lives and property of the patriots, granted a political amnesty and offered passports to those wishing to leave the country. Miranda took leave of the army and returned to Caracas, but seeing no place for himself in Monteverde’s Venezuela he decided to leave the country before the latter occupied the capital. He therefore went discreetly to La Guaira with the intention of embarking immediately for Curaçao. Many Venezuelans, especially among the military, deplored the San Mateo pact. Bolívar was openly horrified when he read the order announcing the disbandment of the army, an army superior to the enemy’s in the number of its troops and the quality of its officers. He tried, though in vain, to organize a resistance movement among his fellow officers. He was convinced that Miranda’s decision to leave the country without awaiting Monteverde’s arrival in Caracas, and knowing that the capitulation would not be observed, was a step that would expose his fellow citizens to certain retribution. He himself had already begun to plan his own departure and to arrange for transfer of funds in the next months to his destination abroad. Two trunks of his luggage, including fifteen hundred silver pesos in cash and sixteen hundred ounces of silver, were taken to La Guaira and loaded on to HMS Sapphire for shipping to Curaçao. This was the same vessel that had brought him from England and it was also waiting to take off Miranda with his books and papers and money from the treasury.49

  Determined to prevent Miranda’s departure, and to escape Monteverde, Bolívar himself moved to La Guaira where, together with Colonels José Mires and Miguel Carabaño and Commander Tomás Montilla, he approached Dr Miguel Peña, the governor, and Colonel Manuel María de las Casas, the military commander of the port, to collaborate in a plan to detain Miranda. According to o’Leary, Bolívar’s intention ‘was limited to seizing Miranda and obliging him to remain in the country, in order to demand from Monteverde full compliance with the articles of capitulation’. The plan may have been limited but it was hardly realistic, and it involved an act of deceit, luring the general into a false sense of security, when he decided to stay a further night ashore rather than board the Sapphire immediately. The men awoke Miranda in the night, to be greeted with reproaches of ‘bochinche, bochinche’ (calumny, calumny). Bolívar and Montilla arrested him and, in the early morning of 31 July, Mires took him up the hill to the fort of San Carlos and left him in chains. Would Bolívar have gone further? Colonel Belford Hinton Wilson, trusted aide of Bolívar in his later years, informed o’Leary that the Liberator had always insisted that ‘he wished to shoot Miranda as a traitor, but was withheld by others’. Colonel Casas, in collusion with Monteverde and anxious to make peace with the victor ‘even at the cost of his honour’, handed Miranda and effectively all the other refugees who had failed to make ship, over to the enemy.50 A predictable end to an extraordinary action. As the first republic died amidst angry recriminations, Monteverde entered Caracas in triumph and established what he called ‘the law of conquest’. The conquering ‘army’ numbered less than three hundred.

  Bolívar left La Guaira for Caracas, where the ubiquitous Spaniard, the marqués de Casa León, gave him asylum in his house and another Spanish royalist, Francisco de Iturbe, a friend of the Bolívar family, requested from Monteverde a pass for him to leave. Very few such passes were being granted, but o’Leary records that Monteverde told Bolívar, ‘You have done a worthy service in arresting Miranda, and that makes you merit the King’s favour.’ ‘since that was not my intention when I seized General Miranda,’ Bolívar retorted, ‘I deny all right to the merit you wish to attribute to me. The reason for my conduct was quite different. I considered him to be a traitor to my country.’ Monteverde then had second thoughts until Iturbe intervened and he grudgingly agreed to grant the passport, which Bolívar described as an example of his ‘stupidity’.51 On the other hand it could have meant that the young colonel was not recognized as a great leader in the making. Stupid or not, it was a fatal decision for Spain.

  The Defeat of the First Republic

  The patria boba, as the first republic came to be called, was shackled by the social structure of the colony. The Spanish royalists, with the support of some creoles and most of the Canarians, fought for the old order. The supporters of independence fought for creole supremacy. The pardos, blacks and slaves fought for their own liberation. So there were a number of movements and each confronted or exploited the other, wh
ile many simply stayed at home as they saw the ancient peace of Venezuela shattered by alien causes. These divisions were ideal conditions for the restoration of royal power. Miranda himself subsequently cited four factors to explain his capitulation: a shortage of provisions in Caracas; the uprising of blacks to the east of Caracas; the effects of the earthquake; and the conflict between Spaniards and Americans. His decision was honourable, if misjudged. He had superior forces which could have done more, and he failed to take the measure of Monteverde. Did he decide to cut and run? Not according to one witness. He seems to have been relocating rather than deserting, with the idea of starting again from Cartagena, rather like Bolívar himself.52 Instead, he spent the next four years a captive of Spain and died in a prison in Cadiz, a tragic and abandoned figure.