The Spanish colonies of South America remained for three centuries in
quiet submission to the mother country, if we except the desperate
attempt of the Peruvian Indians, under Tupac Amaru, to throw off the
yoke of their oppressors. Never were despotism, avarice and slavish
obsequiousness to power, more thoroughly displayed than in Spanish
America, under the government of the viceroys and captains-general,
who, with all the principal officers of the viceroyal court, were sent
to America from Madrid, and who, without being under any efficient
responsibility, administered their authority with every species of
tyranny and venality. Justice was bought and sold, and the most
important legal decisions were made in favor of the highest bidder.
The mercantile policy of the parent country was equally despotic and
rapacious. The establishment of manufactures was not permitted, while
cargoes of Spanish commodities, the refuse of the shops, were forced,
in barter for silver and gold, upon a half-civilized people, who
neither wanted nor could possibly use them. Foreign commerce was
interdicted on pain of death; all social improvement was suppressed;
and to prevent the inhabitants from knowing the extent of their
degradation, all intercourse whatever was strictly forbidden with any
country or people, besides Spain and Spaniards, and allowed even with
them under many restrictions. Superstition and ignorance were upheld
as the surest support of the colonial system; so that, previous to
1810, the whole continent, from Lima to Monte Video, contained but one
wretched printing-press, and that in the hands of the monks, who
consigned to the dungeons of the Inquisition every man who possessed a
prohibited book.
The example of the revolt of the British North American colonies had a
slow effect in propagating revolutionary ideas in the south; and the
usurpation of the crown of Spain by Napoleon precipitated those
movements which resulted, after a bloody struggle, in wresting from
the dominion of Spain the whole of her continental possessions in
America. In this momentous contest, Simon Bolivar bore the most
conspicuous part, and his life comprises the substance of the history
of the country in which his military exploits were performed during
its most eventful period.
This celebrated man was born in the city of Caraccas, in July, 1783.
He belonged to a family of distinction, and was one of the few natives
of the Spanish colonies who were permitted to visit Europe. After
finishing his studies at Madrid, he went to France, and during his
stay at Paris rendered himself an acceptable guest in its social
circles, by the amenity of his manners, and his other personal
recommendations. In the midst, however, of all the seductions of that
gay capital, his sanguine temper and ardent imagination anticipated
the task which the future fortunes of his country might impose upon
him, and even in his twenty-third year he is said to have contemplated
the establishment of her independence. While at Paris his favorite
occupation was the study of those branches of science which contribute
to the formation of the character of a warrior and statesman. Humboldt
and Bonpland were his intimate friends, and accompanied him in his
excursions in France; nor did he think his travels finished till he
had visited England, Italy, and a part of Germany. On his return to
Madrid, he was married, and shortly afterwards returned to America,
where he arrived in 1810, at the very moment when his countrymen were
about to unfurl the standard of independence. On his passage homeward,
he visited the United States, where he gathered some political
knowledge which subsequent events rendered highly useful to him.
The revolution began in Venezuela on Good Friday, April 19, 1810,
when, by a popular movement, the captain-general of Caraccas was
arrested and deposed, and a congress convened to organize a new
government. The talents and acquirements of Bolivar pointed him out as
the best qualified person to be placed at the helm; but he disapproved
of the system adopted by the congress, and refused a diplomatic
mission to England. He even declined any connection with the
government, though he continued a staunch friend to the cause of
independence. But at length he consented to proceed to England, where
he solicited the British cabinet in vain to espouse the cause of the
revolution. Finding them resolved to maintain a strict neutrality, he
returned to Caraccas after a short stay. In the mean time, the
declaration of independence was boldly maintained by military force.
Miranda was appointed commander-in-chief. Bolivar took the post of
colonel in the army, and governor of Puerto Cabello, the strongest
place in Venezuela.
Success attended the arms of the patriots till 1812, when a remarkable
event caused them the most serious reverses. In March of that year a
violent earthquake devastated the whole province, and among other
places totally destroyed the city of Caraccas, with all its magazines
and munitions of war. This dreadful calamity, in which twenty thousand
persons perished, happened, by a most remarkable coincidence, on the
anniversary of the very day in which the revolution had broken out,
two years before. The priesthood, who, as a body, were devoted to the
royal interest, eagerly seized upon this circumstance. In their hands,
the earthquake became the token of the Divine wrath against the
revolutionary party. The superstitious multitude were easily deluded
and terrified with such representations and denunciations. Priests,
monks, and friars, were stationed in the streets, vociferating in the
midst of credulous throngs of people trembling with fear, while the
royalist commanders improved the occasion by overrunning one district
after another. Bolivar was compelled to evacuate Puerto Cabello.
Miranda’s conduct having become suspicious, he was arrested by the
patriot leaders and delivered up to the Spanish commander, who sent
him to Spain, where he died in a dungeon. Bolivar is supposed to have
had a share in this transaction, in consequence of which he has been
severely censured. There were some circumstances, however, which
appeared to justify a suspicion that Miranda was engaged in a hostile
plot with the British cabinet.
Bolivar was now entrusted with the command of an army of six thousand
men, which he led across the mountains to the further extremity of New
Granada. In the hostilities of this period, deeds of the most
revolting ferocity were perpetrated by the royalist troops, and the
whole country was reduced to a frightful state of misery. On the most
trivial pretexts, old men, women and children, were arrested and
massacred as rebels. Friars and military butchers reigned triumphant.
One of the Spanish officers, named Suasola, cut off the ears of a
great number of patriots, and had them stuck in the caps of his
soldiers for cockades. Bolivar, who had hitherto conducted the war
with great forbearance, was inflamed with indignation at these
cruelties; he swore to avenge his countrymen, and declared that every
royalist who fell into his hands should be consigned to the vengeance
of his soldiery. But this spirit of inexorable justice and retaliation
ill accorded with Bolivar’s character, and it was exercised only on
one occasion, when eight hundred Spaniards were shot. Afterwards it
was formally announced by Bolivar, that ‘no Spaniard shall be put to
death except in battle. The war of death shall cease.’
The royalists, who, by the practice of the most bloody and ferocious
atrocities, had gained possession of nearly the whole country, now
began to give way before the arms of Bolivar. Passing from one victory
to another, he drove the enemy from every post, and on the 4th of
August, 1814, made his triumphant entry into the renovated city of
Caraccas. The enthusiasm and joy of the people exceeded all bounds,
and this was certainly the most brilliant day in his whole career.
Greeted by the acclamations of thousands of the inhabitants,
artillery, bells and music, the Liberator was drawn into the city in a
triumphal car by twelve beautiful young ladies, of the first families
of the capital, dressed in white, and adorned with the patriot colors,
while others crowned him with laurel, and strewed his way with
flowers. All the prisons were thrown open, and hundreds who had been
suffering for political opinions came forth, pale and emaciated, to
thank him for their liberation. The royalists throughout the province
capitulated, and the triumph of the patriots was complete.
Bolivar was now constituted dictator, and entrusted with unlimited
power. This measure was prompted by the sentiments of enthusiasm and
gratitude during the first moments of exultation in the people; but,
as is the case in all infant republics, they soon began to give
manifestations of a jealousy for that liberty which had cost them such
sacrifices. The power of the dictator, who delegated his authority to
his inferior officers, by whom it was frequently abused, redoubled
their apprehensions. Suspicions arose, that the primary object of
Bolivar was his own aggrandisement. In consequence of this, on the 2d
of January 1814, he made a formal tender of his resignation. This
lulled the suspicions of the people, and the royalists having begun to
rally and arm their negro slaves, he was solicited to retain the
dictatorship. The war was now renewed, and many battles were fought.
On the 14th of June, 1814, Bolivar was defeated at La Puerta, with the
loss of fifteen hundred men; and again, on the 17th of August, near
his own estate of San Mateo, where the negro leader Boves, with a
squadron of cavalry named the ‘infernal division,’ with black crape on
their lances, rushing with hideous shouts from an ambush, scattered
his remaining forces, and would have made him a prisoner but for the
fleetness of his horse. His cousin, Ribas, was taken and shot, and his
head set upon the wall of Caraccas. Bolivar’s beautiful family mansion
was burned to the ground, and he was compelled, in September, to leave
the royalists again in complete possession of all Venezuela, while
thousands of the patriot army deserted to their ranks.
In spite of these reverses, we find him, in December of the same year,
at the head of two thousand men, marching upon the city of Bogota,
which he stormed and captured. But other circumstances having caused
him to despair of any permanent success against the Spaniards at that
time, he left the country in May 1815, and retired to Jamaica. The war
in Europe being brought to a close, the Spanish government were
enabled to send an army of twelve thousand men, under General Morillo,
to Venezuela and New Granada. This commander overran both provinces,
and executed two thousand of the inhabitants. While Bolivar resided at
Kingston, in Jamaica, he employed himself in writing a defense of his
conduct in the civil war of New Granada, and issued several spirited
exhortations to the patriots, for which his assassination was
attempted by the royalist party. A Spaniard, stimulated by a bribe of
fifty thousand dollars and a promise of perfect absolution by the
church, ventured upon this undertaking. He obtained admission into
Bolivar’s apartment, and stabbed to the heart his secretary, who, by
chance, was lying in the general’s hammock.
From Jamaica, Bolivar proceeded to Hayti, where he raised a force of
blacks and patriot emigrants, with which he landed in Cumana, in July,
1816. But, at Ocumare, he was surrounded by the royalists, defeated
with great slaughter, and again expelled from the country. A few
months afterwards, he landed once more upon the continent, and, after
a battle of three days, completely routed the army of Morillo. This
success reinstated him in the office of captain-general, and supreme
head, and he followed up this advantage by other victories over the
royalists. On the 15th of February, 1819, the congress of the
Venezuelan republic was installed at Angostura, when Bolivar submitted
the plan of a republican constitution, and formally laid down his
authority. A strong representation of the exigencies of the times was
again pressed upon him and became his inducement to resume it. In the
following summer he undertook an expedition across the Cordilleras.
Fatigue and privations of every kind were endured with exemplary
fortitude in the advance of the army through this wild, precipitous
and barren region, where they lost their artillery and most of their
equipments. On the heights of Tunja, they found a Spanish army of
three thousand five hundred men, whom they instantly attacked and
defeated. This, and a subsequent victory at Boyaca, compelled the
Spanish commander-in-chief, Barreyro, to surrender the remnant of his
army. Samano, the Spanish viceroy, fled from Bogota, leaving in the
treasury a million of dollars behind him; and the deliverance of New
Granada was complete.
The immediate consequence of this success was the union of the two
provinces of Venezuela and New Granada, under the title of the
Republic of Columbia, and Bolivar was appointed president, in 1819. It
would much exceed our limits to relate all the military events which
followed till the final expulsion of the Spanish armies from the
country. Peru had now revolted, and solicited the aid of the
Columbians. Bolivar marched an army into that country in 1822, drove
the royalists from Lima, and was appointed dictator by the Peruvian
congress. On the 6th of August, 1824, he gained the important victory
of Junin, and the Peruvian congress shortly after tendered him a
present of a million of dollars, which he refused. The royalists being
again defeated at Ayacucho, by General Sucre, on the 9th of December,
1824, the war of Spanish American independence was finally closed,
after one hundred thousand lives had been sacrificed. Bolivar resigned
the dictatorship of Peru in the following February, and in his tour
through the country, witnessed one uninterrupted scene of triumph and
extravagant exultation,――of dinners, balls, bull-fights,
illuminations, triumphal arches and processions. A sumptuous banquet
was given on the summit of the famous mountain of Potosi, and the
Liberator, in the enthusiasm excited by the excessive adulation which
he received, exclaimed on that occasion, ‘The value of all the riches
that are buried in the Andes beneath my feet is nothing compared to
the glory of having borne the standard of independence from the sultry
banks of the Oronoco, to fix it on the frozen peak of this mountain,
whose wealth has excited the envy and astonishment of the world.’
A new republic, formed out of the conquered provinces, was now
constituted, and named, from the Liberator, _Bolivia_. From this
republic he received a gift of a million of dollars, on condition that
the money should be appropriated to the liberation of negro slaves in
that territory. At the request of the congress, he framed a scheme of
government, known as the ‘Bolivian code.’ This was adopted both in
Bolivia and by the congress of Lima, where Bolivar was made president.
On the 22d of June, 1826, a scheme projected by him for a grand
congress of the Spanish American republics, was carried into effect,
and this meeting, consisting of deputies from Columbia, Mexico,
Guatimala, Peru and Bolivia, was convened at Panama. The main object
of this congress was to establish an annual convention of state
representatives, to discuss diplomatic affairs, decide international
disputes, promote liberal principles, and insure a union of strength
in repelling any foreign attack. This was a noble idea, but too vast
an undertaking for the means of performance which actually existed
within the control of the Liberator, and it led to no great practical
results.
On the return of Bolivar to Columbia, he found two thirds of the
republic in a state of insurrection. Great dissatisfaction existed in
Venezuela with the central government, and the inhabitants, headed by
Paez, a mulatto general, rose and declared themselves in favor of a
federal system. Bolivar, having reached Bogota, the capital, assumed
extraordinary powers, being authorized to take that step by the
constitution, in its provisions for cases of rebellion. He then
proceeded to Venezuela; but, instead of punishing the insurgents, he
announced a general amnesty, and confirmed Paez in the general command
which he had assumed. This led to strong suspicions that the
insurrection had been instigated by Bolivar, in order to afford a
pretext for assuming the dictatorship, and that he and Paez had acted
with a collusive understanding. The truth, on this subject, has never
yet been clearly revealed. The presence of Bolivar quieted the
commotion, as, in spite of the suspicions which rested upon him, his
popularity was still very great. He addressed a letter to the senate
of Columbia, disclaiming all ambitious designs, and offering his
resignation. This proposal caused violent debates in the congress, and
many members voted to accept it; but a majority were in favor of
continuing him in office.
At a congress held at Ocana, in March, 1828, Bolivar assumed more of
an anti-republican tone, and recommended strengthening the executive
power. Many of his adherents, in which the soldiery were included,
seconded his views, and declared that the people were not prepared to
appreciate the excellence of institutions purely republican; a fact of
which there can be little doubt. They carried this doctrine, however,
to an unwarrantable extreme, by insisting that the president should be
intrusted with absolute discretionary power. This proposition was
indignantly rejected by a majority of the congress, and the partisans
of Bolivar vacated their seats; in consequence of which, that body was
left without a quorum, and dissolved. The city of Bogota then took the
matter into its own hands, and conferred upon Bolivar the title of
Supreme Chief of Columbia, with absolute power to regulate all the
affairs of government. His immediate concurrence in this illegal and
revolutionary measure has been deemed a sufficient proof that it was
brought about by his instigation. On the 20th of June, 1829, he
entered that city in magnificent state, and assumed his authority.
These proceedings could not but lead to violent measures. An attempt
was soon made to assassinate the dictator. Several persons broke into
his chamber at midnight, and shot two officers of the staff, who were
with him; Bolivar himself only escaped by leaping out of the window
and lying concealed under a bridge. Santander, the vice-president, and
several officers of the army, were tried and convicted of being
implicated in this conspiracy. The former was sentenced to death, but
Bolivar was satisfied with banishing him from Columbia.
The whole country became rent with factions, commotions and rebellion.
The popularity of the Liberator was gone, and his authority was
disclaimed in almost every quarter. The events which ensued do not
require to be specified here, as they are nothing more than a
repetition of what had been acted over many times before. At length,
Bolivar, finding his influence at an end, and his health and spirits
broken, determined to withdraw from public life, take leave of the
country, and retire to Europe. At a general convention at Bogota, in
January, 1830, he resigned his authority for the last time, and
rejected many entreaties to resume it. He withdrew to the neighborhood
of Carthagena, where he spent nearly two years in retirement, when,
finding his end approaching, he issued his farewell address to the
people of Columbia, in the following words:――
‘Columbians,――I have unceasingly and disinterestedly exerted my
energies for your welfare. I have abandoned my fortune and my personal
tranquillity in your cause. I am the victim of my persecutors, who
have now conducted me to my grave: but I pardon them. Columbians, I
leave you. My last prayers are offered up for the tranquillity of my
country; and if my death will contribute to this desirable end, by
extinguishing your factions, I shall descend with feelings of
contentment into the tomb that is soon to receive me.’ A week
afterwards, he breathed his last, at San Pedro, near Carthagena, on
the 17th of December, 1831, at the age of forty-eight.
His death appears to have afflicted his countrymen with the deepest
sorrow and remorse. In an instant they forgot the jealousies and
suspicions which had filled their breasts, with regard to their great
chief, and, by a sudden revulsion of feeling, they indulged in the
most bitter self-reproach at the reflection, that the man who had
devoted his fortune and his life to the liberation and welfare of his
country, had sunk under their ungenerous reproaches, and died of a
broken heart, the victim of national ingratitude. Almost every town in
Columbia paid honors to his memory by orations, funeral processions,
and other demonstrations of grief and respect.
The fortunes of this eminent man were most singular. During one period
his was regarded as one of the greatest characters of modern times. At
the present moment he is almost forgotten; and another generation may
witness the revival of his fame. In the early part of his career he
was believed to be a disinterested patriot; at the close he had
totally lost the confidence of his countrymen, and he died tainted
with the suspicion of intriguing with the French government to
subjugate the country by European arms and establish a monarchy. There
are some acts of his life which have an equivocal character; but,
judging of his whole conduct from such evidence as is within our
reach, we are compelled to pronounce his acquittal of the charge of
entertaining designs hostile to the liberties of his country. Bolivar
is not to be judged by the standard which we apply to the character
and merits of Washington. The cool-tempered, orderly, intelligent, and
well educated North Americans, who achieved their independence with a
moderation, sobriety and self-restraint, which drew forth the applause
and admiration of the world, were a very different race from the
heterogeneous population of Columbia, ignorant, insubordinate,
superstitious, fanatical, ferocious, little advanced in civilization,
and subject to all the sudden impulses of a rash and fiery southern
temper. It was impossible to govern such men, amid the turbulence of
jealous factions, by the weak instrument of a written constitution.
The proofs of Bolivar’s disinterestedness are very strong. He
sacrificed a large fortune in the cause of his country; and had many
opportunities of acquiring enormous wealth, all of which he neglected.
As a military commander, he is entitled to high praise. Though often
defeated, his perseverance and fortitude, in rising superior to every
obstacle, are everywhere conspicuous. The difficulties of marshalling,
disciplining, and leading an army to battle during the revolution of
Columbia, are hardly to be conceived. Bolivar’s troops often consisted
chiefly of desperate adventurers, eager only for pay and plunder;
ragged Creoles, Indians, naked negroes, and cavalry of half-savage
_Llaneros_ mounted on wild horses. Whole regiments often deserted from
one side to the other, and back again, according to the chance of
success.
The fatigues, cares and anxieties to which he was constantly exposed
during a most eventful career of nearly twenty years, were strongly
marked in his countenance, and at forty-five he had the appearance of
a man of sixty. He was capable of enduring the most severe labor; was
a remarkably bold horseman, and was fond of dancing in his spurs. He
was abstemious in personal matters, but hospitable and highly
munificent in giving entertainments. His manners were easy and
dignified, and he was gifted with an extraordinary faculty of prompt
repartee in conversation. In one instance, he was known to give
seventeen unpremeditated answers in succession, each of which, if
prepared by deliberate study, would have been admired for its happy
adaptation to the subject and the occasion. In proposing a toast, in
returning thanks, or in speaking impromptu on any casual subject, he
never was surpassed.