Simon Bolivar

by John Lynch

  The armistice was important for Venezuela, ‘valuable for us, fatal for the Spaniards’: it legitimized the struggle; it finally ended the war to the death; and it forced Spain to recognize the existence, if not the legality, of the new state of Colombia, whose president was Bolívar. As Bolívar saw it: ‘The armistice is to our advantage because, with the establishment of uninterrupted communications and with our forces holding good positions in a continuous line of defence, we are in a superior situation to continue operations when the time comes; which, however, I believe will not be necessary, as the greatest advantage of the armistice will, to all appearances, be the end of the war.’58 Even more important, perhaps, it caused Morillo to retire to Spain, leaving the less resolute General La Torre in command and the security forces dispirited. The news from the rest of the subcontinent was also encouraging. The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata were long independent of Spanish authority and free to dispute among themselves for an appropriate form of government. San Martín had defeated the Spaniards in Chile and was now leading a liberating expedition in Peru. Late in 1820 Guayaquil declared its independence, formed a new government and opened its port to foreign trade. The Liberator and his press publicized these news stories and took the propaganda war to the royalists.

  Confident of the future in Venezuela, Bolívar was already thinking of more distant conquests. Quito was in his sights as a prime target, to restore its historical link with Bogotá, to complete the union of Colombia and to guard against a Spanish attack from Peru. He himself had unfinished business in the north, so from Bogotá he chose his most trusted general for the mission. Antonio José de Sucre, ‘the most perfect by far’ of republican commanders, was pure Bolivarian. As a young man, in 1813, he accompanied the expedition of Mariño and fought a number of important actions; but unlike his eastern colleagues he did not aspire to be an independent chieftain. He came from a wealthy Cumaná family and had received an education in Caracas. He was interested in the technology of warfare and became an expert in military engineering. ‘He reduced everything to a method … he was the scourge of disorder,’ Bolívar later wrote of him.59 He served as an officer in the Army of the East for four years, and came under the influence of Bolívar in 1817, accepting appointment to the Liberator’s staff in preference to the factions of the east: ‘I am resolved to obey you blindly and with pleasure.’60 His obedience never faltered. When Vice–President Zea promoted him to the rank of brigadier general, without Bolívar’s cognizance, Sucre explained later ‘that he had never intended to accept promotion without General Bolívar’s approval’.61 Bolívar employed him as one of his armistice commissioners in 1820 and he now gave him a new role as his precursor in the south. In January 1821 Bolívar withdrew Sucre from his duties in Colombia and instructed him to lead an expeditionary force of a thousand to Guayaquil, to consolidate and to extend the revolution in the southern provinces and ‘to incorporate them in the republic of Colombia’.62 A few months before his appointment o’Leary saw Sucre for the first time in Cúcuta and asked Bolívar who the poor horseman was. ‘He is one of the best officers in the army,’ he replied. ‘He combines the professional knowledge of Soublette, the good nature of Briceño, the talent of Santander, and the energy of Salom. Strange as it may seem, no one knows him or even suspects his abilities. I am determined to bring him into the light, convinced that one day he will be my rival.’63

  Carabobo

  The armistice did not last six months. On 28 January 1821 Maracaibo revolted against Spain and declared its independence with republican connivance. Bolívar sought to pacify La Torre with sophistries, arguing that Maracaibo had liberated itself, which it was entitled to do, and Colombian troops had therefore occupied a free nation, not subject to Spanish jurisdiction.64 The Spaniard was no fool, neither was he a warmonger; he did not have the authority to accept Bolívar’s ultimatum of war unless peace and independence were negotiated. Bolívar regarded the lull as a means of rearming and gaining ground. And in April he prepared to move, as a true liberator: ‘This war will not be to the death, nor even a normal war. It will be a holy war, a struggle to disarm the enemy not to destroy him.’65

  The Carabobo campaign was important not only for the defeat of the Spaniards but also for the further integration of the caudillos into a national army. Republican forces from the llanos, the Andes and Maracaibo, overcoming obstacles of distance, terrain and supplies, converged upon the valley of Aragua, while Bermúdez advanced towards Caracas from the east in a diversionary tactic. As divisional commanders, they led their troops out of their homelands to serve under a commander–in–chief whom they had so often repudiated in the past. To bring the republican army to its most effective position at the right time in the course of June 1821 – this marked the true progress in organization and discipline, the direct result of the military reforms of Bolívar. As the army advanced in search of its adversary, from his base at San Carlos Bolívar organized it into three divisions: the first commanded by General Páez, the second under General Cedeño, and the third in reserve commanded by Colonel Plaza. General Mariño served on the General Staff of the Liberator himself. Bolívar described this army as ‘the greatest and finest ever to bear arms in Colombia on any battlefield’.66 But these great troop movements had their price. Out of an anticipated 10,000, Bolívar took the field with only 6,400; the rest were in hospitals in Mérida, Trujillo and Barinas, victims of marches and malaria before the battle began. ‘A bottomless sack,’ was Bolívar’s other description of the army. His soldiers inspired unease as well as pride, especially the llaneros and their leader Páez:

  These are men who have fought for a long time; they believe that they deserve much, yet they feel humiliated and frustrated, and they have lost hope of gathering the fruit of what they have won by their lances. They are resolute, ignorant llaneros, who have never regarded themselves the equals of other men with more knowledge and better appearance. I myself, their leader for so long, still do not know of how much they are capable. I treat them with great consideration; yet even this is not enough to inspire in them the confidence and frankness which should exist among comrades and compatriots. You can be sure that we are over an abyss, or rather a volcano that is about to erupt. I fear peace more than war.67

  Post–war society – and its leaders – already cast a shadow, even in the year of victories.

  O’Leary, who was on the staff, left an outline of the basic strategy on that day of triumph, 24 June 1821.68 Avoiding a frontal attack, which the royalist general was expecting, Bolívar sent Páez and a force of Colombian infantry to the left along a narrow defile exposed to enemy fire, with instructions to gain possession of the heights and fall upon the right, and weakest, flank of the royalist army. Slashing their way through the undergrowth with machetes, the patriots gained the heights in heavy fighting and with heavy casualties; an attack from the leading Apure battalion had to be backed up with a bayonet charge by the British battalion, and support from two companies of the Tiradores. ‘A small party of thirty of us,’ reported a British officer, ‘charged bayonets on the left flank, against above one hundred of the enemy; finding what was coming they retired in confusion.’69 Once the heights had been won and the Colombian divisions were through the defile, they descended to the plain; the cavalry charged and put the royalists to flight and their infantry was also pushed back. The retreat was orderly, not a rout. Nevertheless, whole battalions surrendered and only one succeeded in reaching Puerto Cabello. The royalist commander, La Torre, subsequently thanked Bolívar for his humane treatment of royalist prisoners, a far cry from the war to the death.70

  Both sides suffered heavy losses, the royalists over a thousand, the republicans many more than the two hundred reported by Bolívar; and the republicans lost the most in leaders and officers. General Cedeño fell in battle. Colonel Plaza, Bolívar’s rival in love, lost his life and Bernardina the man of her choice. The British Legion, going into battle 350 strong, lost eleven officers and ninety–five m
en. Bolívar singled them out as saviours of his country, renamed them the ‘Batallón Carabobo’ and decorated every survivor with the Order of the Liberators.71 Páez was promoted to general–in–chief on the field. And Mariño was left as commander–in–chief of the army, while Bolívar and Páez set off for Caracas.

  Pockets of royalist resistance were then overcome at Maracaibo and Coro; Cartagena, long the greatest fortress of Spain in America, surrendered on 1 October, Cumaná on 16 October; on 10 November Puerto Cabello surrendered and on 11 November Santa Marta fell to the republicans. Panama declared its independence as part of Colombia on 28 November, a strategic acquisition as Bolívar appreciated, preventing Spain from using the isthmus to supply its territories in Pacific South America. Thus the whole of the Caribbean coast was freed, and the Liberator’s first objective secured. Now, Pasto in the south was the only province of New Granada in royalist control.

  Bolívar entered Caracas on 29 June. The streets had been deserted until news of Carabobo had been confirmed, then suddenly everyone poured out to welcome the capital’s most famous son, the Liberator, the Padre de la Patria, after an absence of seven years. Crowds besieged his house until midnight and all through the following days while he was busy organizing civil affairs and enforcing the surrender of La Guaira. On the way back to Valencia he could not resist visiting his San Mateo estate, the favourite of all his properties, home of his childhood and early adult life, and there reliving the ways of the plantation. ‘Of the thousand slaves he possessed before the revolution he found only three, whom he immediately freed.’72 Who knows what his assets were now? His private affairs were in disorder and he paid himself only modest sums from the state, declining to cash his real salaries. Like his army, he was seriously underpaid, a landed aristocrat but no longer wealthy. After a further brief visit to Caracas, he departed his homeland to take the revolution beyond its borders. He was not only a Venezuelan. He was president of Colombia and a liberator with further freedoms to win. He left his respected colleague Carlos Soublette as vice–president of Venezuela. But real power lay with Páez, leader of the llaneros, hero of Carabobo, one of the idols of Venezuela, who was inevitably given military command of the province. Bermúdez and Mariño were also appointed to high office, as the military caudillos entered their inheritance.

  In the aftermath of Carabobo, Bolívar’s satisfaction was tempered by his awareness of post–war political problems. He despaired of Venezuela: ‘This is chaos; it is impossible to do anything good here, because the good men have disappeared and the bad have multiplied. Venezuela presents a picture of a people suddenly emerging from prolonged lethargy and no one knows what its condition is, what it ought to do, and what it is.’73 One thing he knew: if Venezuela were to organize itself peacefully, it was essential to satisfy and to co–opt the caudillos. This he did in two ways: he gave them regional appointments and granted them land.74

  On 16 July 1821 Bolívar issued a decree which in effect institutionalized caudillism. In the west he established two politico–military regions, one for Páez, the other for Mariño.75 The eastern provinces he assigned to Bermúdez. Overtly all three were equal, and the country so divided into departments entered into the republic of Colombia on the same footing as other provinces. But from the start, the government of Páez enjoyed hegemony, and from regional caudillo Páez became a national hero, indisputable military and political leader of Venezuela. Established in the country’s socio–economic centre around Caracas, commander of what remained of a disciplined army, the soldiers of the llanos of Apure, Páez was well placed to impose his authority over the other military caudillos, attentive to the oligarchy who surrounded him and the masses who idolized him. It was one of the supreme ironies of Bolívar’s life that Caracas, his birthplace and first choice for liberation, was taken over by the man appointed by him and so given the means to assert his independence and to take Venezuela out of Colombia, Bolívar’s own creation. Meanwhile, they had to cooperate, but their relationship continued to be one of convenience rather than trust. Having won the war in Venezuela, Bolívar had no alternative but to leave the new state to the caudillos while he moved on to supervise the constitutional settlement of Colombia and take the revolution to the south.

  Bolívar’s acceptance of the warlords in Venezuela exemplified the sense of realism and readiness to work with the inevitable that was a conspicuous quality of his leadership. In these years of glory from Angostura to Boyacá and onwards to Carabobo, many aspects of his authority were on display, as soldier, politician and statesman. Above all he had shown why people, even recalcitrants, would follow him through marches, battles, disputed constitutions and risky policies. Of all the makers of the revolution, he was the leader with the most powerful sense of purpose who could impose his will on others. His leadership had been tested and found solid. But he had never believed that revolution was the final goal or liberty an end in itself. He also wanted justice. In the closing words of his address to the congress of Angostura he professed a vision of a new world where the rule of law would prevail and equality and freedom triumph, and he commended two measures as his personal priorities: the absolute freedom of the slaves and the distribution of national property to the soldiers of the revolution. Social justice – this was the next challenge of the revolution.

  Chapter 7

  SOCIETY ACCORDING TO BOLÍVAR

  Rousseau in Retreat

  Leadership could win campaigns and deliver liberation, and in northern South America Bolívar was supreme leader. But the work of one man could not in itself transform society or reorder the economy. Bolívar might dominate events but not conditions. Amidst post–war turbulence he never ceased to identify needs, project policies or consider solutions. But people’s lives were conditioned by the societies and economies in which they found themselves and which the war had not basically changed, except, perhaps, for the worse. Moreover, solutions were canvassed not only by Bolívar but by a multitude of politicians, interest groups and rivals, with whose opinions he more often than not disagreed. As peace loomed his forebodings grew.

  The government of the republic moved from Angostura to Cúcuta in early 1821 and made preparations for a congress to endow the new state of Colombia with a constitution. After the death of the vice–president, Juan Germán Roscio, and of his successor, Luis Eduardo Azuola, Bolívar appointed Antonio Nariño, a known centralist and unitarist and recently returned from his prison exile in Spain, as provisional vice–president to preside over the congress, which met from 6 May to 14 October. Bolívar trusted Nariño; he was a soldier fit to govern a ‘military republic’ at a time when Colombia, ‘far from being a social body is a military camp’.1 The anti–centralists were also represented, those who saw federalism as more democratic, more republican, a greater guarantee of liberty and a firmer restraint on the executive. These were not only provincial opinions; some interests at the centre were also federalist, unwilling as they were to carry the weight and costs of the provinces, while civilian Cundinamarca had the further fear of domination by the Venezuelan military.

  Bolívar’s views on these matters were well known – strong central government was the only way to secure independence and the only way to constrain the social anarchy which independence released. Shortly before the battle of Carabobo, surrounded by soldiers who were already causing him some disquiet, he turned his gaze on the politicians in Cúcuta. He spoke with scorn of the ‘delirium’ of those who favoured federation: politicians and lawyers who believed that their opinion was the will of the people and who would go to such extremes that they would have to be banished from Colombia, as were the poets from Plato’s republic:

  In fact in Colombia the people are the army, those who have actually liberated the country from the tyrants; these are the people who choose, the people who act, the people who determine. The rest of the population are inert, either malign or patriotic, with no right to be more than passive citizens. We will have to develop this policy, which certainly does
not derive from Rousseau, otherwise these gentlemen will again be our ruin. They believe that Colombia is filled with simpletons huddled around the firesides of Bogotá, Tunja and Pamplona. They have not bothered to notice the Caribs of the Orinoco, the herdsmen of the Apure, the seamen of Maracaibo, the boatmen of the Magdalena, the bandits of Patía, the ungovernable people of Pasto, the Guajibos of Casanare, and all the savage hordes from Africa and America who roam like wild deer in the wilderness of Colombia. Don’t you think, my dear Santander, that these legislators, ignorant rather than malicious and presumptuous rather than ambitious, are leading us on the road to anarchy, and from there to tyranny, and always to ruin? I am sure of it. And if the llaneros do not bring us down, the philosophers will.2