by John Lynch
The manufacturing sector was even more vulnerable than agriculture and offered little resistance to British competition. Industries such as textiles could simply not compete with the flood of cheaper foreign goods. Manchester and Glasgow supplied Colombia with cotton goods, France with silks and wines, and luxury articles of any kind also came from abroad.69 In Popayán the elites could buy foreign goods and drink wine imported from Chile through Guayaquil and brought inland on mules. Independence did not destroy national industries or entirely remove the protection afforded by isolation and local preference, so in the south and around Quito a traditional manufacture of carpets, course cotton cloths, ruanas and gloves survived. But outside of this, Colombian industry now entered a period of crisis: particular victims were the textiles of Socorro and the wool industry of Boyacá.70 And the survival of the alcabala hardly improved the market conditions for national manufactures. The result was a further expansion of imports, while exports were confined to a moderate output of gold and silver from New Granada and a small trade in plantation products, chiefly cacao, tobacco and coffee. The trade gap was bridged by the illegal export of precious metals and by foreign borrowings, the latter procured in adverse conditions, badly employed and unreliably serviced. This eventually led to a limitation of imports by natural process.
In these conditions there was some reaction against the early optimism of free trade opinion towards ideas of protection and state intervention, as could be seen in the thought of Juan García del Río and José Rafael Revenga, though protection in itself could do little for Colombia without the growth of consumers and the development of labour, capital and skill. Revenga, the economist most closely associated with Bolívar, attributed the decadence of industry in Venezuela to what he called ‘the excessive import of many articles which were previously produced by poor families here…. Foreign soap, for example, has destroyed the various soap factories which we formerly had in the interior. And now we even take candles from abroad, retailed at eight per real, and the few that are still made in this country actually import their wicks from abroad…. It is notorious that the more we rely on foreign interests to supply our needs, the more we diminish our national independence and our reliance now even extends to daily and vital needs.’ Revenga appreciated that Venezuela was not in a position to industrialize: ‘Our country is essentially agricultural; it will develop mining before manufactures; but it must strive to diminish its present dependence on foreign powers.’71 Bolívar was not unaware of the protectionist argument, coming as it did from Páez in Venezuela, manufacturers in New Granada and the textile industry of Ecuador. To some extent he responded. The tendency of his tariff policy was upwards, though higher duties had a revenue as well as a protectionist purpose. And in 1829 he prohibited the import of certain foreign textiles.
Bolívar’s thinking, however, showed little sign of that nationalist reaction to foreign penetration that later generations expressed. While he rejected the Spanish economic monopoly, he welcomed foreigners who subscribed to open trade, who brought much–needed manufactured goods and entrepreneurial skills, and who acquired an interest in preserving independence. Bolívar wanted yet feared British protection, sought yet dreaded dependency. With a British alliance the new republics could survive; without it they would perish. By accepting British dominance, he argued, they could then grow strong and break free from it. ‘We must bind ourselves soul and body to the English, to preserve at least the forms and advantages of a legal and civil government, for to be governed by the Holy Alliance would mean a rule by conquerors and a military government.’72 His language became even more deferential. ‘Politically,’ he wrote, ‘alliance with Great Britain would be a greater victory than Ayacucho, and if we procured it you may be certain that our future happiness is assured. The advantages that will result for Colombia, if we ally ourselves with that mistress of the universe, are incalculable.’73 It made sense, of course, for a young and weak state to acquire a protector – and a liberal protector – against the Holy Alliance, especially as Britain itself had no political pretensions in Spanish America. But while it was expressed in political terms, dependence could also have an economic application.
Bolívar was prepared to invite a greater British economic presence in Latin America than later generations would find acceptable: ‘Here [Peru], I have sold the mines for two–and–a–half million pesos, and I expect to obtain far more from other sources. I have suggested to the Peruvian government that it sell in England all its mines, lands, properties and other government assets to cover the national debt, which is at least 20 million pesos.’74 British participation in the post–independence economies was considered essential and beneficial to both sides. The alternative, in Bolívar’s view, was isolation and stagnation. This is not to say that he was complacent. He certainly saw the flaws in the Venezuelan economy and deplored the incipient trend towards monoculture. He believed that it was necessary to diversify production and to expand the range of exports. Venezuela depended too much, he argued, on coffee, the price of which declined inexorably throughout the 1820s and, in his view, would never improve; it should be substituted for more marketable products such as indigo and cotton. ‘We must diversify or perish,’ he concluded.75 Bolívar accepted the bias towards primary exports and simply sought to make them yield better results. There was a place for Spanish America in the age of Industrial Revolution, though it was necessarily a subordinate place, exchanging raw materials for manufactured goods and fulfilling a role conforming to its stage of development. The conclusions of the British consul–general in Lima, a familiar figure to Bolívar, were discouraging but realistic:
In Peru there is an especial call for the encouragement of commercial intercourse with foreigners; it has no manufactures of the slightest consequence; it is not likely to have any conducted by natives for many years from not possessing any one of the essentials for their establishment, nor is it desirable to promote them. The introduction, therefore, of every description of foreign manufactures is particularly important; the inhabitants in general are too poor to purchase commodities at high prices; fair trade will be the sure means of their obtaining them at low rates.76
This was classic free trade theory. Bolívar could have written it.
Chapter 8
WAR AND LOVE IN THE ANDES
Mountain Barriers
The next two years, 1822–4, would be critical for Bolívar, the fulfilment or the failure of his hopes. He was determined to take the revolution south to Peru. This, he believed, was his mission, the magnet that drew him on. After the victory of Carabobo, Santander had issued a proclamation in which he described Bolívar as the ‘hijo predilecto de la gloria’.1 A generous tribute, ‘very elegant’ acknowledged Bolívar, who was already imagining his future in the south: ‘But take care, my friend, that you first let me have 4,000 or 5,000 men, so that Peru may give me two brothers of Boyacá and Carabobo. I won’t go if glory does not follow me, for I have reached the point in life when I could either lose my way or follow the path of glory. I do not intend to throw away the achievement of eleven years with a humiliation, nor do I want San Martín to see me in any other role than that of the chosen son’2 Since then his strategic thinking had undergone various changes and, as 1822 began, he had still not finalized his chosen route.
Bolívar had originally planned to liberate Panama after Venezuela, and then move south by sea to Guayaquil. After the liberation of Cartagena, however, Panama achieved its own bloodless revolution and had declared for independence on 28 November 1821. But the principal reason behind Bolívar’s decision to move directly southwards was the fear that San Martín might reach Ecuador first and claim it for Peru. On 9 October 1820 Guayaquil had risen, overthrown the Spanish authorities and established a revolutionary junta. The Fundamental Law of Colombia (17 December 1819) had declared Quito part of Colombia. By the doctrine of uti possidetis, whereby the new states inherited the colonial administrative boundaries, this was correct, for the presidenc
y of Quito had been subject to the viceroy of New Granada since 1740. But law was not the only weapon: ‘The principal object of Bolívar was to make Guayaquil recognize the government of Colombia, by choice or by force.’3 At the beginning of 1821 Bolívar sent General Sucre to Guayaquil with a thousand men to support the revolution against the royalist forces under General Melchor Aymerich and to win the rest of Ecuador for Colombia.4
In the south Sucre was trapped in a political labyrinth, thwarted not only by the royalists, who closed the road to Quito, but also by warring factions within Guayaquil, divided as it was between those who wanted independence from Colombia as well as from Spain and those who demanded union with Peru. But if Sucre needed the insurgents of Guayaquil, these needed Sucre and Colombia, so without mention of the status of Guayaquil an alliance was signed in May 1821. Sucre could now defend the coast and perhaps move inland: he skilfully fended off a two–pronged royalist attack from Quito, defeating one division and forcing the other to withdraw. But he still did not have the power to thrust through the highlands to Quito and a rash attempt to do so met with near disaster; on this front he was glad to accept an armistice in November 1821. Protected by the cordillera on the west, Quito was also impregnable from the north where royalist enclaves closed the mountain passes to the revolution.
Bolívar left Bogotá on 13 December 1821 and made his way south to penetrate this fortress. His original plan was to embark at the Pacific port of Buenaventura with two thousand of his best troops, to assume personal command in Guayaquil, and to strike inland from there. But news that two Spanish frigates were cruising in those waters, while the republic had no sea power in the Pacific to protect his transports, caused him to abandon this idea. He decided instead to move his headquarters from Cali to Popayán and to attack Quito from the north, while Sucre led the second line of strategy from the coast. Across Bolívar’s path lay the highland province of Pasto, its Catholic and conservative beliefs preserved intact through isolation, its royalism as impenetrable as its mountains, and its hatred of republicanism encouraged by an angry bishop.5 The creoles of Pasto calculated that they were more likely to gain the regional power they sought from the monarchy than from the republic, while the Indians in the surrounding mountains trusted the colonial officials they knew more than unknown newcomers.6
The approach to this frontier of the revolution was not auspicious and the Colombian La Guardia Division had to overcome the environment before the enemy. Bolívar’s troops had already marched, some from as far away as Valencia, by plains and páramos, across mountain passes and river gorges, through severe differences of climate before staggering into Popayán more dead than alive and severely decimated by disease and desertion. In early March they left Popayán only three thousand strong and began a nightmare trek across the hot, barren, and pestilential wastes of Patía, infested by guerrillas descended from the fugitive slaves and mulatto bandits of colonial times, before reaching Taminango and then the rugged cliffs and raging waters of the Juanambú River. At that point Bolívar had two thousand men left. Could Pasto itself be worse? But could it be avoided? In an Andean landscape of high mountains and open páramo intersected by deep ravines, the road through the Pasto plateau was the only route from Popayán to Quito.
Bolívar dreaded the encounter. He found the Spanish army, the Church and the people ranged against him, and he delayed action. First, he tried to recruit the bishop of Popayán, Salvador Jiménez, ‘un hombre muy político’ who had great influence over the minds of the people. Bolívar argued that the prevailing assumption of opposition between an anti–religious republic and a Catholic monarchy was no longer valid, that the liberal revolution in Spain was harmful to religion, while in America bishops were already accepting the republican cause. ‘Everything has changed and you also must change.’7 But the bishop was not for conversion. Bolívar then procured forged papers from an obliging Santander, claiming that Spain had now acknowledged Colombian independence; after an elaborate process of deception he presented ‘these lies’, as he called them, to the Spanish commander in Pasto as an inducement to give up the struggle.8 The Spaniard was not deceived. A direct appeal to the pastusos was no more successful. ‘Have no fear of us or of any punishment or vengeance, for we will treat you as friends and brothers,’ he told them.9 But they despised talk of peace.
Combat was his only option. Retreat would be an admission of defeat. On 7 April Bolívar decided to attack the royalist position on the rocky heights of Cariaco, throwing in battalion after battalion of his infantry against fierce resistance; the Rifles* were at the heart of the fighting, advancing upwards with bayonets drawn; and for their heroism they received the distinction ‘First of the Guard’. Sheer persistence dislodged the enemy, but at a terrible cost in dead (116) and wounded (341), according to their own reckoning. Bolívar described this as ‘un triunfo muy glorioso’, but the ‘victory’ of Bomboná was in fact an extravagance, with life held cheaper than glory. The most that can be said of the Pasto campaign is that it divided the Spanish war effort while Sucre was at last making progress towards Quito.10 Bolívar’s health had suffered and he had to be carried away on a litter. He decided to recross the Juanambú and await reinforcements from Popayán.
By the end of May Bolívar had overcome two of the arms opposing him, the military and the clerical, but he had not won the minds of the people. For this reason he leaned heavily on the Bishop of Popayán not to emigrate and abandon his flock but to stay in Colombia and ‘lead the faithful on the road to heaven’.11 The Spanish commissioners negotiated a capitulation, by which Pasto was exempted from taxes and military service, and officials were confirmed in their posts. The Indians were also included in the settlement, though they replied that they only wanted to continue paying the tribute.
Sucre, meanwhile, reinforced by a division from Peru under Colonel Andrés Santa Cruz, crossed the cordillera in April 1822, marching his army high and hard through a land of volcanoes. He approached Quito, standing at 9,300 feet in the mountains. Instead of attacking from the south as expected, he outflanked the enemy on the left and positioned his forces north of the city, surprising and wrong–footing the Spaniards, and on the slopes of Mount Pichincha, ‘its extinct volcano covered in eternal snows’, his Colombian troops backed by the Albion battalion, ‘with the bravery that has always distinguished this unit’, defeated the Spaniards on 24 May 1822. The battle of Pichincha, the third major victory of the northern revolution, was won by smart tactics and dashing action, with the loss of two hundred men against four hundred of the enemy and the subsequent capture of over two thousand prisoners.12
While Sucre entered Quito and received the surrender of General Aymerich and the acclaim of the people, Bolívar accepted the grudging submission of Pasto. He was at pains to point out that ‘the capitulation of Pasto is an exceptional achievement for us, because these men are extremely tenacious and obstinate; worse, their country is a network of precipices where you cannot move a step without falling’. The pastusos turned on their own side for capitulating, shot at the bishop, attacked the Spanish commander and challenged the Colombians to advance ‘over their dead bodies’. There was tension in the air around the Liberator and he anticipated questions being asked: had Bomboná assisted Sucre, or had Pichincha assisted Bolívar? His concern was understandable. He had undertaken the most difficult of the two battles and the less glamorous, but he made his point too crudely with an inglorious suggestion that Sucre had enough glory without detracting from his own: ‘sucre had more troops than I, and fewer enemies; the country favoured him, owing to its inhabitants and the terrain; while we on the contrary were in a hell struggling with devils. The victory of Bomboná is more beautiful than that of Pichincha. Our loss in both cases was the same and the character of the enemy chiefs very different. General Sucre, on the day of the battle, won no more advantages than I did … we have taken the bastion of the south and he has taken the copy of our conquests.’13 Bolívar left Pasto on 8 June and marched his army
south through lands of indigenous communities to Quito. But he left behind a people more royalist than the king, and he had not heard the last of them.
On 15 June 1822 the Liberator entered Quito, a city of whites and mestizos in the midst of an Indian countryside. He was splendid in dress uniform, mounted on his white horse, Pastor, and ready to receive the cheers of the people. In the by now familiar ceremony, twelve young girls in white crowned him and Sucre with laurels, while another admirer, watching from a balcony, threw her own laurel. This was Bolívar’s first sight of Manuela Sáenz, renewed that evening at the ball given in his honour, where the couple danced the night away. But he had other distractions, too. Leaving a reluctant Sucre as president of a new department of Quito, he had to concentrate on Guayaquil, one of the most intractable problems of his career and a cause of mounting tension between Colombia and Peru. He anticipated trouble from the independent junta and took the precaution of sending troops to Guayaquil under Salom. He went there in person at the beginning of July, travelling south from Quito through scenery alternately stark and lush, surveying a landscape of Indian townships and volcanic cones, and gazing in wonder at Mount Chimborazo, icy without, burning within, and, like the women of Ecuador, stealing his soul.
Bolívar climbed this mountain of 6,267 metres, following in the footsteps of La Condamine and Humboldt. There he underwent a strange transformation into a world of the spirit: he stood high above the earth and saw an apparition which showed him the history of the past and the thoughts of destiny. He remained in this delirium, possessed by the God of Colombia, until the mighty voice of Colombia aroused him. Then, in a state of heightened awareness, he described the experience in Mi delirio sobre el Chimborazo, a document late in appearing and published posthumously. Is the story true? Is this an authentic account of a real event? Or is it an exercise in literary imagination by Bolívar? Or a metaphor for the transfiguration of a new saviour on an American mountain, invented by an early devotee of the cult of Bolívar? For the majority of Bolivarian scholars the composition is authentic. To some it is a revelation of the real Bolívar. Yet it remains a mystery, and the lack of collaborative evidence and contemporary reference invites an agnostic response.14
