by John Lynch
He [Bolívar] walked slowly and wearily, and his voice was so low that he had to strain to make himself heard; he preferred to walk by the banks of a brook that winds silently through the picturesque countryside, and with arms crossed he stopped to watch the stream, an image of life. ‘How long,’ he said to me, ‘will this water take before it dissolves into the immense ocean, as man decomposes in the grave and merges into the earth from which he came? Much of it will evaporate and disappear, like human glory, like fame. Isn’t it true, Colonel?’…. And then in a trembling voice he exclaimed, ‘My glory! My glory! Why do they take it from me? Why do they slander me?’60
Meanwhile the politicians continued to agitate, stirring the ashes of Bolívar’s rule. The weeks spent by congress debating the new constitution allowed more political activity to flare up, factionalism to flourish, conflicting ideas to descend upon Bolívar, and new uncertainties to disturb his mind and spirit and trouble the Bolivarians. Did Congress want him, or not? Did the people want him, or not? And if not him, who? There was even time for him to have a row, and reconciliation, with Urdaneta, one of his oldest colleagues. But none of this was surprising. How could a world leader suddenly disappear into a soundproof cell? How could he stifle the clamour of critics, or prevent politicians making politics? By the end of April he knew that Colombian liberals still hated him, that his friends were divided, and that his leadership was irretrievably ended. He shook off all doubts and doubters, and on 27 April he informed congress yet again that he renounced the presidency and intended to leave the country: ‘Be assured that the good of the patria demands of me the sacrifice of leaving for ever the country that gave me life, so that my presence in Colombia will not stand in the way of the happiness of my fellow citizens.’61
While preparing the new constitution congress was also facing the challenge from Páez, who had declared Venezuela an independent and sovereign state. But the Venezuelans could not even secede gracefully. o’Leary, whose troops were stationed on the north–east frontier, repudiated an ‘insolent’ challenge from Mariño, who had dared him to take a step beyond Táchira.62 The Venezuelans cut off the pensions of the dependants of military and civil personnel serving outside Venezuela, specifically including the pensions granted by Bolívar out of his own salaries.63 They held off the Colombian commissioners, Sucre and Bishop Esteves, and kept them waiting in Cúcuta, outside Venezuelan territory, until mid–April for Venezuelan negotiators to arrive, and then conceded nothing. The Colombian congress now realized that Venezuelan independence was not negotiable, and soon it also knew that Páez was insisting on Bolívar’s expulsion from Colombia as a condition of any settlement.64 When congress finally accepted Bolívar’s resignation it appointed the New Granadan liberal politician Joaquín Mosquera as President.
Bolívar now wanted to leave Colombia. The immediate problem was money. Could he afford it? He was not a wealthy man. His landed wealth had been eroded by wartime sequestrations. His major asset, the Aroa copper mines, had become a major headache, ‘a mortal agony’ in his final years. In 1824 with the help of his sister María Antonia he had rented them to an English company, which yielded some returns, but not enough. Since 1826 his agents in London had been trying to sell them, but they had still not succeeded by 1830.65 Congress confirmed the 30,000 pesos yearly for life which he had been granted in 1823, but payment was never absolutely secure and he had always used what he did receive to fund Bolivarian social security. He had already begun to sell his few possessions and prepare for his journey: his silver table service raised 2,500 pesos; jewels, horses and other possessions brought in 17,000 pesos.66 He began his journey with only a few thousand pesos in ready cash, and anxious about the mines.
The mob was out in the streets, rejoicing at the departure of Bolívar, burning his portraits and shouting for Santander. He still had friends and fighters on his side. Sucre was one of them: ‘In his principles,’ recorded o’Leary, ‘he was liberal, but no republican. The last words he ever said to me were: “Tell the Liberator to concentrate all the troops he can dispose of and not allow himself to be dictated to by anyone. Tell him that now is the time to save the country and, if he thinks that the monarchic form is what Colombia wants, let him say it and he shall not need men who will support him.”’67 But in Bogotá it was tense. The Venezuelan troops, 600 Granaderos and 180 Húsares de Apure, finally rebelled against their unpopularity in Colombia and left for home ahead of Bolívar, silently marching out of the capital, followed by the ‘daughters of the regiment’.68 Life became precarious for him. He departed on 8 May to an emotional farewell from the leading people. An escort of ministers, diplomats, military and civilian friends, and foreign residents escorted him for some miles out of the city.
Journey’s End
Three days after arriving in Bogotá on 5 May, Sucre became alarmed at the demonstrations against Bolívar and rushed to his residence, but Bolívar had already left for Cartagena and exile.
When I came to your house to accompany you, you had already left. Perhaps this was just as well, since I was spared the grief of a painful farewell. In this hour, my heart oppressed, I do not know what to say to you. Words cannot express the feeling for you in my soul. You know, for you have known me for many years, and you know that it is not your power but your friendship that inspired in me the tenderest affection for you…. Be happy wherever you may be, and wherever you are you may count on the services and the gratitude of your faithful and devoted, Sucre.
Bolívar received Sucre’s letter as he neared Cartagena. He replied on 26 May, sad but more restrained: ‘Your esteemed undated letter, in which you take leave of me, has filled me with emotion; if it pained you to write it, what of me, for I am leaving not only a friend but also my country…. Words fail the heart in circumstances like these, but accept my sincerest wishes for your well being and happiness.’69 Sucre was the most important man in Colombia after Bolívar, and he was hated by the same people for the same reasons. In Bolivia he was rejected as a foreigner. In Peru he was commander of a Colombian army. In Venezuela he represented union with a foreign state. In Colombia he was an opponent of dissolution and defender of the Venezuelan military. The Congreso Admirable was not so admirable for Sucre: it passed a law making forty the minimum age for president and thus ruling out Sucre for the next five years. He departed for Quito a marked man.
In Bogotá Bolívar bade a fond farewell to Manuela and, still saddened by the separation, cruel for her as well as for him, wrote to her as he began his journey north: ‘I love you, my love, but I will love you even more if you show great prudence, now more than ever. Take care how you go, for if you do not ruin us both, you will ruin yourself. Your ever faithful lover, Bolívar.’70 She did not follow his advice, demonstrating actively on his behalf. Meanwhile, in Honda, waiting for transport down the Magdalena, his mind veered between bitterness and resignation. On a visit to the mines of Santa Ana, he asked Posada Gutiérrez, ‘Why do you think I am here?’ ‘Fate, my General,’ replied his friend. ‘What fate?’ he asked vehemently. ‘No, I am here because I refused to deliver the Republic to the College of San Bartolomé.’71 And as he rested at the Padilla ravine, an oasis in the llanos of Mariquita, with the cordillera in the background and the distant murmur of the River Gualí flowing into the Magdalena, he was overcome by the splendour of nature and exclaimed, ‘What grandeur, what magnificence! God can be seen, felt, and touched! How can men deny it?’ At the mines, the scene of Robert Stephenson’s recent labours, he was moved when the miners and their English colleagues formed up to greet him with the cry, ‘Viva el Libertador!’, a generous tribute to a fallen idol. He travelled north down the Magdalena, its waters a poignant reminder of early triumphs, and after a stop in Turbaco reached Cartagena by the end of June. No one was absolutely sure where he was going: Jamaica, Europe, England? Plans changed and rumours abounded.
In Cartagena he received a generous reception, and a crushing blow. On 1 July at nine in the evening two carriages drew up and Ge
neral Montilla burst out: ‘General, Sucre has been treacherously murdered in the mountains of Berruecos!’ Bolívar hit his brow with his hand in despair: ‘Holy God, they have shed the blood of Abel.’ He asked to be left alone with his thoughts. Pacing the house and patio, he could not settle, sunk deep in depression for Sucre and for Colombia.72 Details began to come in. On his way home to Quito to join his wife, Sucre had passed along the mountain road of Berruecos, on route to Pasto, the land of political bandits and serial rebels, trusting his luck without escort or security; there, on 4 June, he was shot down and his body left lying in a swamp. He was thirty–five. Accusations and recriminations began, and responsibility was soon being attributed to the authorities of Cauca. The author of the crime seemed to be Obando, the hired gunmen were Apolinar Morillo and José Erazo; the former in due course was condemned and executed for having fired the fatal shot.73 In Bolívar’s world Sucre was his spiritual and political heir. His death was the end of the revolution. He wrote to Mariana of the great loss to her, to Colombia, and to America, and of his own ‘deepest and inexpressible sorrow for the death of a friend to whom I owe eternal gratitude for his loyalty, esteem, and services’.74 He now wanted to see Colombia’s Carthage, that lair of the monsters of Cauca, destroyed to avenge Sucre, ‘the most innocent of men’, whose death was being described in Europe as ‘the blackest and most indelible stain on the history of the New World’.75
In Cartagena hope struggled with despair, as news from outside continued to obsess him. On 5 September his former commander and minister, Rafael Urdaneta, led a revolt in Bogotá against President Mosquera, on a platform of Bolívar back to power and Colombia united. Bolívar, conscious of ‘the bronze barrier of legality’ could not accept, and though he warned Urdaneta of the loss of his reputation if he broke the electoral law, he played with the idea of helping Urdaneta in some way. ‘If they give me an army, I shall accept it. If they send me to Venezuela, I shall go.’76 But it was hopeless. ‘Although the best party, the party of national integrity, is the strongest … I have my doubts about the final re–establishment of order.’77 He could not accept office from a mutiny, he told his former minister Estanislao Vergara: ‘Believe me, I have never looked on insurrections with a good eye; and of late I have deplored even our own against the Spaniards…. All my reasons are based on one: I have no hope of salvation for the patria.’78 By the end of October he evidently felt that the ‘restoration of Colombia’ was beyond anyone’s reach; ‘between Venezuela here, assassins in the south, and demagogues everywhere’ a final crash appeared inevitable, but he felt that the people were still with him.79
The man of a thousand places was now isolated in a corner of Colombia, deprived of calm and comfort. The heat and humidity of Cartagena became intolerable, as he waited impatiently for money to finance his exile, money that never came, either from the Aroa mines, still unsold, or from estates that no longer yielded. José Palacios and a few friends moved him to Soledad in October 1830, where Wilson reported him ‘very ill, very wasted’, hardly able to walk across the room and low in spirits. Then they took him to Barranquilla. Reduced to ‘a living skeleton’ as he put it, he was barely able to take a few paces indoors and unable to climb the stairs. He could hardly keep food down. He longed for a little sherry and a glass of beer, or his favourite vegetables, but there were none to be had in the market, and who could he ask? Amidst coughing and struggling for breath, he could still dictate letters, and the news from outside refused to leave him alone. In a lengthy letter to Urdaneta he deplored the state of his health and the condition of helplessness to which he was reduced. He advised his old comrade to take care in the struggle for power, for it would only be resolved by the survival of the ‘the most ferocious’, and he wondered whether it was worth expending life and authority for a situation that was irremediable. ‘The situation of America is so extraordinary and monstrous that no one should flatter himself that he can keep power for long.’80
By now he was reconciled to almost anything. His favourite cause of Union was now finished and he gave his blessing to General Flores, head of the now independent Ecuador. As with Urdaneta, he spoke to him frankly and with a weary realism. In America public opinion means the will of the masses, and power the audacity of a few leaders. He only had one thing to ask Flores: to use his power to punish Pasto and avenge the death of Sucre, in Bolívar’s eyes a man without blemish. And as soon as you feel you are on the way down, get out with honour:
You know that I have ruled for twenty years, and from these I have derived only a few certainties: (1) America is ungovernable, for us; (2) Those who serve a revolution plough the sea; (3) The only thing one can do in America is to emigrate; (4) This country will fall inevitably into the hands of the unbridled masses and then pass almost imperceptibly into the hands of petty tyrants, of all colours and races; (5) Once we have been devoured by every crime and extinguished by utter ferocity, the Europeans will not even regard us as worth conquering; (6) If it were possible for any part of the world to revert to primitive chaos, it would be America in her final hour.81
He knew that the Bolivarians were anxious. Men who had served him in good times and bad and depended on him for advice and decisions were now staring into a future without a guide, uncertain what to do next, and not quite trusting each other once the vital link in the chain of allegiance was broken. o’Leary looked to him for advice, but Bolívar had to tell him he was powerless and had nothing to offer; his health was hopeless, his cough unceasing. He could only suggest that he should stick with Urdaneta.82
Joaquín Mier, a wealthy Spaniard, sent Bolívar an invitation to rest in his country house, three miles from Santa Marta, and provided a vessel, the brig Manuel, to take him along the coast. He arrived in Santa Marta on the evening of 1 December and was carried ashore in a sedan chair. A French doctor, Alexandre Prospère Révérend, and a United States navy surgeon, George MacNight, examined him and, though differing in detail, both pointed to a serious lung condition; modern medicine would diagnose tuberculosis.83 On 6 December José Palacios, his long–serving mayordomo, carried him to a carriage that took him to Mier’s villa, San Pedro Alejandrino. Close to him in this retreat were Belford Hinton Wilson, his nephew Fernando, and José Palacios, while General Montilla was his liaison with the outside world, and his French doctor remained in constant attendance. The loyal o’Leary was on duty elsewhere, and in nearby rooms noisy army officers were playing cards. Up to 8 December he was still dictating advice to Urdaneta, seeking to resolve the differences among the Bolivarians.84 By the tenth his physical condition was deteriorating badly, with chest pains and drowsiness. Yet his mind remained clear, and he listened attentively to the bishop of Santa Marta, José María Esteves, who advised him of his terminal condition and his immortal soul. He had to decide what his next move should be: a great leap in the dark or the final step on the Christian journey? He recoiled. Am I so ill? he asked. ‘How will I get out of this labyrinth?’
Bolívar died in the Catholic faith, supported by Bishop Esteves and a priest from a nearby Indian village. He made his confession and received the last rites, answering the responses clearly and firmly. There is speculation concerning his state of mind at this point, much of it sceptical. If he appeared to hesitate, it was probably a desire to stop time, the dread of the finality of the holy viaticum. What he said in confession we do not know. But the rites of extreme unction and the reception of communion are sacraments that invite commitment and it would be fair to conclude that he meant what he did. Then he confirmed his will, in a form of words commonly used at the time, but no less credible because of that. He stated that he believed in the Holy Trinity, in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God, and in all the other mysteries of the Roman Catholic Church, ‘in whose faith and belief I have lived and profess I shall live until I die, as a true Catholic and Christian’.85 He declared he possessed no other goods than the mines of Aroa and some jewellery. He left eight thousand pesos to José Pala
cios, ‘in consideration of his loyal service’. And he bequeathed the residue of all his goods, assets, and incomes to his heirs, his sisters, María Antonia and Juana, and the children of his deceased brother, Juan Vicente. He instructed his executors to return the sword that Sucre had given him to his widow, ‘as a token of the love I have always cherished for the Grand Marshal’, and to give his thanks to General Robert Wilson ‘for the good conduct of his son Colonel Belford Wilson who so faithfully remained with me to the last moments of my life’. He expressed his wish to be buried in his birthplace, the city of Caracas.
As the end day approached, he issued his final valediction to the people of Colombia in a proclamation dated 10 December 1830:
People of Colombia:
You have witnessed my efforts to establish liberty where tyranny once reigned. I have worked unselfishly, sacrificing my fortune and my peace of mind. I resigned my command when I became convinced that you distrusted my detachment. My enemies exploited your credulity and destroyed what is most sacred to me – my reputation and my love of liberty. I have been the victim of my persecutors, who have brought me to the brink of the grave. I forgive them.
As I depart from your midst, my regard for you tells me that I should make known my last wishes. I aspire to no other glory than the consolidation of Colombia. You must all work for the supreme good of the Union: the people, by obeying the present government in order to save themselves from anarchy; the ministers of religion, by addressing their supplications to heaven; and the military, by defending social guarantees with the sword. Colombians! My last wishes are for the happiness of our native land. If my death will help to end factions to consolidate the Union, I shall go to my grave in peace.86
