Simon Bolivar

by John Lynch

  Peru was Bolívar’s nemesis. A great prize in anticipation, it became a battleground of his hopes and achievements. The Peruvian ruling class was torn between resentment of Bolívar’s dictatorship and fear of anarchy, social unrest and slave rebellion if he should leave. Bolívar exploited this ambiguity; he decided to impose the Bolivian Constitution on Peru, in the expectation, perhaps, of being elected life–president. Peru brought out the worst in Bolívar, at once flattering and frustrating his taste for glory and leadership. Even his devoted aide noted that these were ‘the days of the lost purity and innocence of his principles’. He attributed the change to his conversations with José María Pando, an able limeño and recent convert to independence, whom he had appointed his minister of finance, regarding him as incorruptible and intelligent, superior even to Revenga. Pando praised the Bolivian Constitution unreservedly as adaptable to any government and told Bolívar what he wanted to hear, that it was a work of genius and perfection.52

  It is true that Peru was not an end in itself for Bolívar. He wanted a confederation of the Andean countries, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, and he knew that this would be more easily organized if each component had the same constitution, and if he himself exercised a powerful influence. But this too was a serious miscalculation. He was tempted to spend more time in Peru than was good for either him or Peruvians. Treated as a supreme guide and philosopher, visited by admirers, and loved by Manuela, the lord of La Magdalena liked the luxury and revelled in the role. Life would not be true without a conspiracy or two against him, but he brushed them off without too much thought. On 16 August 1826 the electoral college of Lima, with some help from the Liberator, adopted the Bolivian Constitution and nominated Bolívar president for life. A life–president, backed by a foreign army – is this what Peruvians understood by liberation? It could not be. Bolívar recovered his political sense, influenced by events in Colombia as much as in Peru. He refused to accept the presidency and prepared to return to Bogotá, leaving a disconsolate Manuela and a party of pleading ladies in Lima, and an elite that suddenly rediscovered the insecurity of life without the Liberator. He also left the Colombian army, creating hostility by its mere presence. The country he abandoned was subject to unbearable tensions, torn between ambitious military and self–seeking creoles, parasites both on the Indians and castes. According to Pando, Peru was ‘incapable of governing herself and unwilling to be governed’.53 Was there any way ahead for Spanish America? Did Bolívar have anything further to offer?

  An Ever Greater America

  Spanish America was at once receptive and indifferent to nationalist projects. Bolívar understood their significance. As a doctrine, dividing the world into nations, describing their character and interests, and testing their existence in terms of language, race, culture and religion, nationalism frequently appears in his writings. As an organized political movement, designed to further the aims and interests of a nation and ensure that the nation constitutes a sovereign state, nationalism was at the heart of his revolution. In its more active sense nationalism is frequently a response to foreign pressure, political, economic, or cultural, which is perceived as a threat to national identity and interests. Spanish Americans found their identity first in reaction to the imperial pressure of the Bourbon state, then in the long war against Spain, and subsequently in conflicts with their neighbours and relations with foreign states. One of the first objectives of nationalism is independence, that is, the creation of a sovereign state in which the nation is dominant. This was partially achieved in Spanish America in the years 1810–30. Bolívar was coming to believe that it was the revolution’s only achievement: ‘I am ashamed to admit it, but independence is the only benefit we have gained, at the cost of everything else.’54 A second object of nationalism is national unity, the incorporation within the frontiers of the new state of all groups considered to belong to the nation. There is in some cases a third objective, to build a nation within an independent state, by extending down to the people as a whole the belief in the existence of the nation, hitherto held only by a minority.55 The Liberator was aware of the need for national unity and national awareness among the people, but his policy was not completely successful in achieving them.

  Bolívar saw the revolution as a struggle for independence, and independence as the creation of a nation. In his early political thought Venezuela and New Granada, inheriting colonial administrative divisions, were described as incipient nations, and the nation state as the basis of stable government, towards which ‘a national spirit’ was required to nurture the citizen’s allegiance. Patriotism, the love of the patria, obedience to the new states, these concepts were taken for granted by Bolívar, for, as he said to Venezuelans in 1818, ‘You are all Venezuelans, children of the same patria, members of the same society, citizens of the same Republic.’56 Spanish America was already dividing into different states, conforming not only to colonial boundaries but also to national feelings. He admitted he was a foreigner in Peru, that Colombians were not Peruvians, that Venezuelans were not popular among Bolivians. In the Jamaica Letter he agreed with De Pradt in dividing America into fifteen or seventeen independent states.57

  From the very beginning of the revolution, however, Bolívar’s sense of national identity transcended individual nations to embrace a greater America. He was supreme among the Americanists, a small minority among the creole elites that included the distinguished names of Francisco de Miranda and Andrés Bello. He had long desired the creation of the great state of Colombia, embracing Venezuela, New Granada and Ecuador. In 1813 he argued that ‘union under one supreme government will give us strength and make us formidable to everyone’.58 But this vision was not confined to Colombia: he believed that the union of Venezuela and New Granada would inspire a greater Spanish American unity. These ideas, of course, operated at different levels of planning and possibility.59 He made it clear from the beginning that he did not see America as a single nation; unity of this kind would be impossible, and a single government for all America would need the power of God to marshal all its resources and people. At its highest level, his thought envisaged a league, or confederation, of Spanish American nations. The enemy of federalism within a nation, he was an advocate of continental federalism, a structure for Spanish American unity.

  The union would be articulated by a congress in Panama, where plenipotentiaries of the liberated countries would coordinate American policy towards the rest of the world and simultaneously constitute an organ of conciliation among the American nations, a kind of supranational legislature. On this inspiring theme his imagination knew no bounds. In the Jamaica Letter in 1815 he had already envisaged the meeting of an international congress: ‘How sublime it would be if the Isthmus of Panama could be for us what the Isthmus of Corinth was for the Greeks!’60 In 1822 he declared: ‘The great day of America has not yet dawned. We have expelled our oppressors, broken the tables of their tyrannical laws and founded legitimate institutions. But we still need to establish the basis of the social compact, which ought to form of this world a nation of republics.’61 Whatever he meant by ‘a nation of republics’, he advocated supranational unity of some kind. If this were secured, he asked, ‘who will resist America reunited in heart, subject to one law, and guided by the torch of liberty?’

  The American congress on which he had set his mind opened sessions in Panama. Bolívar deliberately excluded the United States, in deference to British susceptibilities among other reasons, Brazil as a monarchy, and Haiti, like the United States, as ‘foreigners to us and heterogeneous in character’, that is to say, different in language, history, and culture.62 It was only later that the United States and Brazil were invited to attend. But he also invited Britain, convinced as he was that ‘our American federation cannot survive without English protection’.63 In his invitation to the governments of America, dated 7 December 1824 and recalling his invitation of 1822 to the governments of Mexico, Peru, Chile and Argentina, he spoke of giving the American repu
blics a fundamental political basis to secure their future by means of ‘a sublime authority’ directing the policy of their governments. He foresaw the day of the meeting as ‘immortal in the international history of America’.64 In a paper written in 1826 he recorded his maximum agenda for the congress to be held in Panama.65 The new, independent and equal nations would be united under a common law regulating their international relations and guaranteeing their survival through a permanent congress. Spain would make peace out of respect for England, and the Holy Alliance would grant its recognition. The league would have powers of mediation on internal and external disputes, and should intervene in cases of internal anarchy or external aggression. Social and racial discrimination would cease to have significance, and the slave trade must be abolished. America would become the centre of Britain’s relations with Europe and Asia. The British should be given rights of South American citizens, and South Americans should emulate the British and embrace their moral code.

  The republics were not inspired by similar sentiments. Attendance was agonizingly slow, delegates flinching at the pestilential climate of the Isthmus, and some arriving too late. At the meeting in Panama on 22 June 1826 the only delegates present were those from Mexico, Central America, Colombia and Peru. Britain was represented by an observer, Edward Dawkins, who found the deputies ‘much less republican than I expected’.66 The United States observers did not reach the meeting. The congress resolved on ‘union, league and perpetual confederation’ of the states represented and set up a tribunal to arbitrate boundary disputes, to be backed by an army of the confederation.67 In the event, only Colombia ratified these agreements, and the creation of a South American league was no nearer. Trust and collaboration did not come naturally to the new nations. Bolívar observed these events from Lima, refusing to put any pressure on the delegates. He was not impressed. The project did not meet his expectations and he became diffident about its prospects. Yet he had introduced some real issues into American collaboration – issues of security, foreign aid, and social reform –for which future statesmen would receive the credit. He himself played down the significance of the whole enterprise. ‘I called the Congress of Panama in order to cause a stir, to make the name of Colombia and the other South American republics resonate in the world. … I never believed that it would produce an American Alliance, comparable to the Holy Alliance formed at the Congress of Vienna.’68 He referred to the congress as a vain boast, a theatrical show. He had not lost faith in the principles of international cooperation in America, but was aware of the divisive interests involved. ‘I see the Congress of the Isthmus as a theatrical performance, and like Solon I believe the measures promulgated there to be snares for the weak and supports for the strong.’69

  In 1826 as anarchy and infirmity appeared to consume the new states, and the Panama congress failed to inspire great confidence, some of his Peruvian advisers were urging a true federation, to include Peru, Bolivia and Colombia. Bolívar, ever convinced that bigger meant stronger, was attracted to the idea, envisaging an Andean union in which each state would adopt a version of the Bolivian Constitution, and that there would be a federal president (himself), vice president and congress.70 He worked on the idea, ‘the most perfect possible union in federal form’, but it proved to be a purely theoretical structure and did not get beyond the desks of the planners, testimony only to the Liberator’s anxiety over the state of America in these years.

  Peru was not alone in its instability. The insidious anarchy of Colombia, the result of ‘an excess of ill–applied liberalism’, as well as agitation in Venezuela, required Bolívar’s personal attention. He appreciated that, for the moment at least, he must abandon his cosmopolitanism for a more national role. He left Peru for Colombia in September 1826, and in October wrote to General Santa Cruz, for whom he had planned a central role in the Andean union, an eloquent declaration of faith in national interests:

  I have too many problems in my native land, which I have long neglected for other countries in America. Now that I see that the evils have gone too far and that Venezuela is the victim of my very achievements, I have no desire to incur the slur of ingratitude to the land of my birth. … I would avise you to relinquish American plans and pursue a purely Peruvian programme, indeed a programme designed exclusively in the interests of Peru…. I intend to do all the good I can for Venezuela without attempting anything further. Let you and your colleagues, therefore, do the same for Peru. Our native land must take preference above everything, as its elements have shaped our being …. Are there any more sacred claims upon love and devotion? Yes, General, let each serve his native land and let all other things be secondary to this duty.71

  Leaving aside Bolívar’s more extreme flights of fancy, therefore, it is evident that his ideas of confederation and congress assumed the existence of individual nations and simply sought to give them collective security. His ideal of a great Colombia was not a denial of national identity but an affirmation of it. He was merely trying to establish the appropriate size of a viable nation, as he made clear as early as 1813: ‘If we establish two independent authorities, one in the east and the other in the west, we will create two different nations which, because of their inability to maintain themselves as such, or even more to take their place among other nations, will look ridiculous. Only a Venezuela united with New Granada could form a nation that would inspire in others the proper consideration due to her. How can we think of dividing her into two?’72 Bolívar thus sought unity as a means to national strength and economic viability. In the first place, unity would ensure peace and well–being as opposed to the anarchy of local caudillo rule: ‘I do not want these mini–governments. That’s what the hooligans want, to make revolutions and more revolutions. Not me. I am resolved to die amidst the ruins of Colombia, fighting for its fundamental law and for absolute unity.’73 Secondly, unity would earn greater respect from other nations, from the United States and from Britain. In Bolívar’s view foreign indifference and contempt for Latin American independence was a consequence of the proliferation of tiny sovereignties, squabbling among themselves: ‘sections, mere fragments, which, though large in area, possess neither population nor resources, cannot inspire interest or confidence among those who might wish to establish relations with them.’74 Colombia, then, was Bolívar’s nation state, the embodiment of national unity. And its institutions compared well with those of the rest of independent America, ‘with its absolute and dissolute governments, its heroes, its trigarantes, emperors, directors, protectors, delegates, regents, admirals, etc.’75 Colombia was his favourite child. ‘Union, union, union,’ he proclaimed. When all else failed, his hopes rested on England. Towards the United States he was cool and guarded, but not overtly hostile, and he respected its revolutionary and republican credentials. Britain, however, engaged his sympathy as well as his admiration. These sentiments went back to his early years in the struggle. During his exile in Jamaica he wanted British support for independence, offering commercial advantages and even territory –admittedly only Panama and Nicaragua, which were not in his gift – in exchange for aid.76 Basically he doubted the capacity of the people of South America to defend themselves and to democratize their societies; they needed a tutor and protector. He was impressed by the liberal credentials of Britain, a constitutional model for those who wanted freedom and stability. And the ascending power of England since the Napoleonic wars had never ceased to fascinate him. But the authors of British policy were not all–powerful, and Canning, succeeding Castlereagh in the Foreign Office in September 1822, soon found that his own powers were constricted. In October he appointed consuls to the new states, and although he believed that recognition was inevitable, it was December 1824 before he won from the British cabinet a decision to recognize Colombia. Bolívar recorded his sense of loss on the death of Canning: ‘America will never forget that Mr Canning caused her rights to be respected …. Humanity was interested in the existence of this illustrious man, who with caution a
nd wisdom was realizing that which the French Revolution illusively promised, and which America is successfully carrying into effect.’77

  However, more important than British recognition was British power. As the historian of Anglo–American relations in Spanish America observed, ‘It was inevitable that the greatest naval, industrial and financial power in the world should count for more with the infant Spanish American states than did the United States.’78 Bolívar put his finger on the essential contribution of Britain to Latin American independence: the interposition of the British fleet between Europe and America. ‘Do not fear the Allies, for the ditch is large and the English fleet still larger.’ There was no alternative to cooperation with Britain; it was necessary for survival. As for the risks, they were minimal, for Spanish America would become strong under British protection and thus able to escape dependence. He did not hide his contempt for hostile liberal and nationalist opinion: this is my policy, he insisted, and I will take responsibility for it.79 His scheme for Spanish American union depended on British support and ‘cannot be achieved unless the English protect it body and soul’. ‘English power is on a rising curve, unhappy are those who oppose it, or even fail to ally themselves with her. The whole of America together is not equal to a British fleet; the entire Holy Alliance is powerless against her liberal principles combined with immense resources.’80 In his ‘Thought on the Congress of Panama’ of 1826 he spoke of ‘the union of the new states with the British Empire’, which would create ‘the most extensive, most extraordinary, and most powerful league ever to have appeared on earth’.81 In addition to gaining commercial resources and gateways, Britain could contribute to the social well–being of Spanish America. Through Britain, Spanish America could further its own progress, including social reform, fortified by British ‘character and customs’ which would become models for Americans in the future.