by John Lynch
Bolívar was not a lone leader. He had friends and allies among the military, and officers such as Urdaneta who had been with him from the beginning did not waver. In the cabinet he had the support of Soublette and most of the other ministers, and in congress many politicians preferred him to Santander or any other option. And his domestic life improved. Manuela joined him in Bogotá in early January 1828, accompanied from Quito by a few Bolivarian officers and a cavalry unit, the archives still in tow. She took up residence with him at the Villa Quinta on the outskirts of the city and managed his private life.
How did Bolívar look, as he approached the climax of his career? In February 1828 the French doctor and artist François Desirée Roulin sketched a description and profile of Bolívar which became the model of many paintings and statues of the Liberator.19 He was not an easy subject. Another distinguished artist for whom he sat, José María Espinosa, commented that it was difficult to get him to sit still, and he frequently looked across to the window and out into the street. They all wanted to see him in repose, when he would withdraw into a mood of solitude, melancholy and nostalgia. But he could not turn this on at will. Roulin, a specialist in anatomy as well as art, described Bolívar as slightly below medium height, slim and graceful, with a nervous and irritable temperament, restless in his movements, impatient and superior in his demeanour. In his youth his complexion had been very white in the way of a Venezuelan of Spanish descent, but his skin had become brown, burned by the sun and fifteen years of travel and campaigns. His walk was brisk rather than stately, but when standing he frequently crossed his arms and assumed statuesque poses, especially in serious moments. He had a well–shaped head, regular features but with a large forehead, angular face, pointed chin and prominent cheekbones. By now he was always clean–shaven, without a beard. His hair was wavy, curled in a parting on top and combed towards the front. He had a good profile, with a noble brow, straight nose, small mouth and thick, arched eyebrows, giving an impression at once alert and perceptive. His eyes were large, black, lively and deep. He spoke rapidly and incisively, did not waste words and adjusted his speech to the occasion, was sometimes indiscreet in conversation, original and intelligent in correspondence, serious and confident in speeches. His replies to questions or requests were short and quick, and he could be brusque with anyone who irritated him. Judging by Roulin’s assessment, the Liberator’s looks at the age of forty–six had not yet declined and his health was still holding up. We know from o’Leary that his eyesight was good and his sense of hearing exceptionally keen. We can conclude, too, that his mind was as strong as ever and reason still his guide.
Peace of mind, however, was becoming rarer, and his political preoccupations were compounded by personal anxieties. Now, his own future troubled him, as he sought to realize his last remaining asset, the Aroa copper mines. His agent in London, Andrés Bello, struggled dutifully with disputes over ownership and occupancy, and his failure to complete the sale worsened the already fragile relationship between the Liberator and his former tutor.20 In London Bello lived on the edge of poverty; as secretary of the Colombian legation his salary was meagre and often in arrears, and as one who had received his first diplomatic office in 1810 he deserved better. He was a diffident man and could not understand why Bolívar failed to help him. Bolívar, admirer though he was of Bello, found it difficult to promote him, partly because he was out of touch with the scholar and probably did not appreciate his true curriculum vitae of these years, partly because by 1828 he was not in a position to ignore the government of Santander and make any appointment he pleased. Moreover, Bello did not help his own cause. In his poem Alocución a la Poesía, which developed into an account of the wars of independence, Bello used words not designed to wound but whose faint praise was calculated to offend a leader as sensitive of his reputation as the Liberator. Worse still, he saw fit to praise Manuel Piar, Bolívar’s bête noire, whose execution the Liberator now went out of his way to defend as ‘a political necessity and a measure of security, and as a precaution against a war of the blacks against the whites’.21 He regarded his war record as above reproach, and at a time when his political enemies were sharpening their knives, he expected respect from his friends, and Bello was not exempt. Distance and necessity had reduced these two giants of the revolution to mutual incomprehension.
The Road to Ocaña and Power
In September 1827 congress voted that a Grand National Convention meet, not in 1831 as foreseen by the congress of Cúcuta, but on 2 March 1828 in Ocaña, to review and revise the constitution of Colombia. From Caracas Bolívar himself had proclaimed the urgent necessity of such a convention; it was ‘the cry of Colombia’, to save its people from anarchy and, although he did not say it outright, to adopt the Bolivian Constitution.22 The prospect divided Colombians into three parties. One for strong central government, giving more power to the executive and with a vice–president in each department, would preserve the integrity of the union; this was Bolívar’s position, and for that reason commanded considerable, though not universal, support.23 A second party, supported by Santander and the constitutionalists, wanted federalism though there was no agreement over what administrative divisions should be federated. A third party wanted Venezuela, New Granada and Quito to be independent states.
The congress of Ocaña, thought Bolívar, was ‘Colombia’s last chance’, but ill–starred from the start it never looked equal to its role. He expected that ‘the spirit of party will dictate interests, not laws; it will be the final triumph of the demagogy of the rabble. These are my deepest fears … but I am not prepared to go under and bury my glory in the ruins of Colombia.’24 The election campaign itself made things worse for Bolívar. He could not compete with the propaganda of Santander who stood as a candidate and campaigned with the constitutionalists in open opposition to Bolívar, on a federal platform and assisted by a sympathetic press.25 Bolívar scrupulously kept the government out of the political fray, though that did not prevent Bolivarian partisans in the military intimidating their opponents. When the returns were known it was clear that Santander and a majority of his candidates had been elected. Bolívar cried fraud, yet conceded that Santander was ‘the idol of the people’. The British minister agreed that Santander, whom he described as ‘an habitual gamester who paid his bills out of the treasury’, had a considerable following, assembled from clients who owed their appointments and privileges to him over a long period of power. But Santander also had the support of many lawyers, who resented Bolívar’s ‘military faction’ and viewed with alarm the possibility of a strong centralized state blocking their access to power.26 Amidst these concerns the news from Venezuela was an almost welcome distraction.
Spain was striving to revive its presence in the Orinoco and royalist vessels from Puerto Rico were increasing their activities along the coast, exploiting unrest among the black population inland. Bolívar told Páez that he was coming to help him, but also took the opportunity to preach the virtues of unity: ‘Without union, adios to the republic, adios to General Páez, and adios to your friend, Bolívar.’27 He left Bogotá on 16 March 1828, travelling the familiar route from Tunja to Cúcuta, but on the way he received news that a royalist revolt in Coro had been crushed and Venezuelan commanders had suppressed guerrilla–inspired revolts in the rest of the country. Hardly had he rejoiced in these events when he received news of another revolt, this time in Cartagena, where blacks and pardos of the coast were being recruited for a race war. He abruptly changed his route towards Cartagena and paused in Bucaramanga.
José Prudencio Padilla, a survivor of Trafalgar, naval veteran of the war against Spain and hero of the battle of Lake Maracaibo in 1823, proclaimed himself commandant–general and intendant of Cartagena, and sought to raise the people of the coast against Bolívar and ‘tyranny’.28 Padilla was a pardo, or, as o’Leary put it, a ‘mulatto, ferocious and sanguinary’; he appealed to the pardos, who were a majority of the population in the Magdalena department, and wh
om he defined as ‘my class’, as opposed to the whites, whom he scorned as enemies of freedom and equality and threatened with the sword.29 Padilla had already come to the attention of Bolívar, ever aware of racism from whatever side it came. While he could not fault him for loyalty to the revolution, he had some reservations about his social and political ambitions: ‘Equality before the law is not enough for the people in their present mood. They want absolute equality as a public and a social right. Next they will demand pardocracia, that they, the pardos, should rule. This is a very natural inclination which will ultimately lead to the extermination of the privileged class.’30 Cartagena was a dilemma for Bolívar. General Mariano Montilla, commander–in–chief of the Magdalena department and a committed Bolivarian, was from the white elite and lacked a mass following. Padilla, denied top office and agitating for equality, was a pardo, popular among his people. On 2 March 1828 Padilla addressed a group of pardo officers and let it be known that he was leading the people to protect their freedom. Montilla then moved smartly, ordered all military units out of Cartagena and lured Padilla into mobilizing his followers and declaring himself military commander of the department. But the rebel had gone too far, placed himself outside the law, and in the event failed to receive the support he expected. While Montilla restored security to Cartagena, Padilla fled to Ocaña, hoping for protection from Santander. o’Leary interviewed him there and reported to Bolívar: ‘Your Excellency has formed a very exaggerated idea of events in Cartagena. The steps which Padillo took there and his behaviour with me show without any doubt that he has no party at all.’ o’Leary advised against putting Padilla on trial in Cartagena, for although he had been abandoned by the people and the army when his actions were unlawful, he might be regarded with sympathy if he were to become a victim.31
O’Leary had a point. Conditions were not on Padilla’s side. Another Bolivarian officer, Joaquín Posada Gutiérrez, observed:
In our coastal provinces, especially Cartagena, there are educated and sensible pardos. As they enjoy complete equality in possession of political and civil rights, they are well aware of their true interests. They know that knowledge and merit are the best qualifications for preferment, and that they can earn by lawful means due promotion to social positions, working and living honourably. This has a moderating influence on the rest. It is true that among the ignorant blacks of the fields and the lower classes in the towns there exists a certain hostility towards us, but this is directed more towards social status than towards colour, for they have the same aversion to the upper–class pardos.32
It was these depressed pardos whom Padilla tried to revolutionize. His enemies, of course, were indignant. Posada Gutiérrez expressed the hope that time and goodwill would assuage these racial tensions, ‘for which we whites are not responsible’. Others were less complacent: ‘The zambo General Padilla will meet the same fate as Piar, because from his many declarations it is clear that his object has been to kill all the whites and to make this another Santo Domingo.’33 There was a further danger to Bolívar. Politically the movement was linked to Santander and offered Bolívar’s enemy another political base, in an important port and fortress in the Caribbean. Bolívar’s own view was that Padilla should be tried according to the law as an example to others; he had him arrested in Ocaña for trial in Cartagena. But Montilla, apparently taking the same line as o’Leary, sent him to Bogotá.
Manuela was much agitated by events in Cartagena, which she linked with Bolívar’s opponents everywhere, especially those whose names began with a ‘P’. ‘God, let them die all these scoundrels called Paula, Padilla, Páez, it will be a great day for Colombia when they all go, these and others … that will be more humane, that ten die to save millions.’34 She and Bolívar exchanged letters of love and humour and arguments, and he reassured her with a promise that he would not go to Venezuela or Cartagenabut return to Bogotá very soon.35
Bolívar remained at Bucaramanga, some ninety miles south of Ocaña, a convenient place to communicate with o’Leary and the delegates and remain in contact with Cartagena and Bogotá. Among his staff at Bucaramanga was the French officer Louis Peru de Lacroix, veteran of Napoleonic campaigns and of Bolívar’s army from 1823, who for three months observed the lifestyle of the Liberator and chronicled his opinions and recollections. He described his daily routine: he usually went out riding, at a fast pace, but he also liked to go swimming, jogging, and to lie reading in a hammock. His preferred meals were vegetables and fruit rather than meat, he liked wine in moderation, and prepared his own salads; he did not smoke and disliked anyone smoking in his presence. By now he had lost his former passion for dancing. He was in a mood for musing about the past and the present. He wondered about his place in history. Bolívar noticed that his minister, the historian José Manuel Restrepo, was receiving a good press for a recent publication, Historia de la revolución de Colombia, which was generous in its praise for the Liberator, too generous he thought; it held back on criticism ‘because I am alive and have power and he is dependent on me’. He read the book avidly and concluded: ‘We no longer live in times when national histories are written by a privileged historiographer who gains credibility, without scrutiny, for whatever he says. The people alone have the right to write their annals and judge their great men. So let the Colombian people judge me; that is what I want, what I will appreciate, what I believe will make my glory, not the judgement of my Minister of the Interior.’36 He reflected too on Napoleon, though discreetly and not for publication. Urged on no doubt by the Frenchman, he was persuaded to admit that he admired the universal acclaim the emperor received from his countrymen and the glory that awaited a liberator who could emulate him.37 Excited by political news or by passages in Restrepo’s book, he was cool in emergencies. He made a practice of attending mass together with his staff, and he disapproved of anyone sitting cross–legged in church. On one occasion the church was suddenly emptied by alarm – false in the event – at an earth tremor, leaving only the priest at the altar and Bolívar in the choir; when everyone returned he was observed sitting quietly reading, not a missal but a secular periodical.38 News from Ocaña, however, could raise his temper.
Santander went out of his way to welcome the delegates and pay for their lodgings, but in the event he did not command a majority. When the convention opened on 9 April there were found to be twenty–three santanderistas, twenty–one Bolivarians, and eighteen independents and moderates; of the 108 delegates elected, forty–four were absent. Most delegates agreed on the need for constitutional reform, though not on the details. But while the Bolivarians were determined to behave correctly, free of party spirit, the ‘anarquists’ formed a tight group, eating and living together, and coordinating their tactics, all targeted on weakening the executive. ‘I see this as the beginning of the end,’ said Bolívar. ‘Only a miracle can bring good rather than bad from the Grand Convention.’39 The arguments went on for eight weeks. Santander stood for defence of the law against the danger of dictatorship, moving beyond mere liberalism to ‘federation, as the only recourse left to us to save our national liberties’. o’Leary, who was Bolívar’s personal observer at the convention and detested Santander, ‘a mediocre man with average ability, a lot of effrontery, and no morality’, recorded that from the rostrum he declaimed, ‘I have the heart of a tiger.’ Too true, commented o’Leary, if by that he means supreme conceit, a thick skin, ferocious nature, and other vices.40 Santander reciprocated the hatred and described o’Leary as Bolívar’s spy at Ocaña, whose duty was to report on the work of the deputies and carry out the orders of his master.
Bolívar was rapidly losing what little hope he had in the convention and was strongly critical of its factionalism and hostility to Bolivarian policies. He was outraged when the delegates endorsed the rebellion of Padilla, who in addition to racial incitement had sought to rally Cartagena against Bolívar in favour of Santander and the constitution of Cúcuta, ‘an abominable act’, which aroused two of Bolívar’s
prime susceptibilities, Santander and pardoc–racia.41 Turmoil increased and prevented the adoption of constitutional reform. The Santanderists proposed retaining the existing constitution with article 128 deleted, the article which granted the president extraordinary powers in time of crisis. At this point Bolívar’s supporters deserted the convention to prevent a quorum, and the convention disbanded on 11 June with nothing accomplished. Bolívar had thwarted Santander but did not see where to go next. It was at this time that he began speaking of the possibility of dividing the republic into three or four states and granting self–government to each, an idea born of despair and arousing incredulity among his followers.42 Could he be serious?
The rebellion of Padilla, thought the British consul, had the ‘effect of rallying all the people of property and influence round the person of General Bolívar, as the only one capable of now restoring the tranquillity of Colombia’.43 As the convention of Ocaña broke up in deadlock, Bolívar left Bucaramanga in a rare mood of vacillation, convinced that whatever he did he would be condemned by some as a constitutionalist, by others as a dictator. Meanwhile, on 13 June in Bogotá the intendant and cabildo called an open meeting of the great and the good. These reviewed the dangers threatening the republic from within and without, repudiated the convention of Ocaña, and asked Bolívar to return and take exclusive possession of ‘supreme authority with absolute power’.44 In the course of three hours, five hundred supporting signatures, ‘including those of the archbishop and of the principal people’, were collected. Bolívar paused to think, but not for long. He agreed and rode on. He entered the capital to a saviour’s welcome, attended a mass of thanksgiving in the cathedral and was escorted to government house. He assumed supreme power with apparently wide support, or at least the support of an open plebiscite, mobilized by local authorities in thirty–one towns throughout the country.45 In Popayán the intendant Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera called a cabildo abierto to acknowledge the Liberator as jefe supremo of the nation, specifically excluding the military from attending.46 General Urdaneta told the British minister that the Bolivarians had been inactive for too long and it was necessary to convince the world that ‘Colombia would never permit itself to be ruled by a small faction of demagogues whose measures tended to deluge the country in blood for their own self–interest and to satiate their personal hatreds’.47 Then the bad news began to arrive. Bolívar heard of the rebellion of troops in Chuquisaca and the assault on Sucre on 18 April 1828.48 Peru was now openly belligerent, to the north as well as the south of its frontiers and Guayaquil was in danger. The Liberator could be forgiven for believing that foreign policy alone demanded a strong government in Colombia and a firm response to aggression. Looking ahead, exactions of men and money for the Peruvian war would not be popular, and only decisive action would carry the policy.
