THE REVOLUTIONS IN NEW GRANADA AND QUITO.
1809--1813.
The events in Spain in the year 1808 produced great excitement in New
Granada, which was increased in the following year by receipt of advices
of the revolution in Quito, mentioned in the last chapter. On the 9th
September, 1809, Amar, the Viceroy, summoned an assembly of the
Corporations and of leading citizens of the capital, and sought counsel
from them. Men of American birth, who were members of this assembly, not
only spoke in favour of the Junta of Quito, but asked for the
establishment of a similar government at Santa Fé de Bogotá. Spaniards
advised the immediate dissolution of the revolutionary government. Amar
followed the counsel of the latter, and sent a column of 300 men to
dissolve the Junta; at the same time the Viceroy of Peru sent 800 men on
the same errand.
The Junta of Quito had already raised three battalions of infantry, and
sent two companies with three guns against the detachment from New
Granada, but these troops, while on the march, were completely routed by
the inhabitants of the Province of Pasto on the 16th October. The
revolutionists, dismayed at this disaster, on receiving promise of an
amnesty, replaced Castillo, the late captain-general, in command.
When the two expeditions reached Quito the amnesty was set aside. The
leaders of the revolution were arrested, some were sentenced to death,
others to penal servitude. The indignant populace attacked and captured
one of the barracks, but were promptly driven out again by the soldiery
and dispersed. The soldiers then proceeded to the public gaol, where the
prisoners were confined, and killed twenty-five of them; after which
they spread about the streets, and killed eighty citizens, among the
victims being three women and three children. The butchery was only
stopped by the intercession of the Bishop.
Castillo, horrified at these excesses, hastily convened an assembly of
the civil and ecclesiastical authorities and of leading citizens. With
their concurrence he proclaimed a general pardon, and sent the Peruvian
troops, who had taken the lead in the massacres, back to Lima.
Word of these atrocities reached New Granada at the same time that news
arrived of the revolution in Venezuela, and produced an immediate
effervescence throughout the country.
In New Granada, according to one of their own writers, “all the races of
the world had come together to mingle their blood, their traditions,
their strength, and their character, and united in the work of
civilization.”
Two-thirds of the population were white, residing mostly in the towns
and cities, hence the revolution took here a civic form, and was greatly
hampered by local jealousies and by divergencies of opinion among the
leaders.
The first revolutionary movement occurred at Cartagena, where the
people, headed by their Cabildo, demanded a Junta. With the intervention
of an agent of the Regency of Cadiz, then in the city, a Junta of three
was appointed, of whom the actual governor was one; but as he openly
showed his dissatisfaction with this arrangement, he was banished to
Havana on the 11th June, 1810.
To the east of the most easterly range of the Cordillera lie the wide
plains of Casanare; here two youths raised the standard of insurrection.
They were joined by some small groups of the country people, which were
dispersed by troops sent against them by the Viceroy. The leaders were
put to death, and their heads were sent to the capital.
On the 4th July a Junta was set up by the Cabildo of Pamplona.
At Socorro two companies of the line and some militia were quartered. In
a moment of false alarm they fired upon an assemblage of the people.
Eight thousand citizens arose in arms and besieged them in their
barracks. A Junta was formed of eight deputies elected by the people,
and the government was placed in their hands.
At Bogotá everything was ripe for a revolution. Several attempts had
been made without result, but the news from Venezuela and from the
provinces, and above all the expectation of the speedy arrival of
commissioners from the Regency of Cadiz, decided the Patriots to make
another attempt, which was precipitated by an incident. On the 20th July
a Spaniard spoke contemptuously of Americans; the people rushed
tumultuously to the great square, demanding an open Cabildo and a Junta.
They were supported by the municipal authorities. The Viceroy declined
to accede to their wish. The bells of the churches were rung, and six or
seven thousand armed men assembled in front of the public offices. The
Viceroy had a thousand troops. A conflict seemed imminent, when at last
he gave way, and sanctioned the summoning of a special Cabildo.
At six o’clock the same evening the Cabildo met. The debate was stormy,
Dr. Camilo Torres taking the lead. The Patriots demanded a Junta, the
Spaniards sought to gain time by resisting the proposition. One of the
popular orators declared that any man who left his place before a Junta
was appointed, was a traitor to his country. The speech was applauded by
the people outside. A Junta was named, with the Viceroy, who was very
popular, as President, and was installed in office at three in the
morning of the 21st July.
The Junta drew up a constitution, on the basis of a federal union of the
various provinces. The sovereignty of King Ferdinand was recognised, and
also the authority of the Regency of Cadiz, so long as it should exist.
This was a compromise on all sides, and the Junta being overawed by the
popular leaders, had no real power. Later on the Viceroy was deposed,
and the Junta was instructed to govern in the name of the King in
complete independence of any other authority in Spain. Two days
afterwards Montufar and Villavicencio arrived as commissioners from
Spain, but were powerless to do more than accept what was already done.
Montufar, who was entrusted with a special mission to Quito, continued
his journey to that city, where we shall presently find him at the head
of the revolutionists.
Anarchy and reaction were not slow to follow on these hasty steps. Local
jealousies, which had been kept in check by the colonial system;
divergence of opinion between the leaders of the movement; the
antagonistic interests of Americans and Spaniards, and the instincts of
the masses who grouped themselves on geographical lines, all combined to
bring on complications in which the strength of the country was wasted
without any good result.
The Junta sent a circular to the provinces inviting them to send
deputies to a Congress. Nearly every province followed the example of
the capital by appointing a Junta, but some of them refused to send
deputies to a Congress, preferring to consider themselves independent
republics.
Cartagena refused to acknowledge in any way the authority of the Junta
of the capital, and invited the other provinces to send deputies to a
Congress in that city. One province only acceded to this proposition,
but it sufficed to prevent the assemblage of the Congress at Bogotá, and
postponed the formation of a central government, which was the urgent
necessity of the moment.
The revolutionary leaders in the capital then tried a new plan. They
formed the Province of Santa Fé, of which Bogotá was the chief city,
into a monarchical republic, which they called “The State of
Cundinamarca,” its ancient name, with a legislature of two chambers, and
Dr. Lozano was named President during the captivity of the King.
Lozano, after several fruitless attempts to bring about a general
understanding, succeeded at last in assembling a Congress, but the want
of a central government had produced such anarchy that the people,
inflamed by the writings of Don Antonio Nariño, who advocated a
centralized government, deposed Lozano, and on the 19th September, 1811,
appointed Nariño Dictator.
Congress continued the debate on the Constitution, and adopted the
federal system by a majority, but had no power to establish it, and
withdrew from the capital, where it was overawed by the popular leaders,
to the small town of Ibague, in the Province of Mariquita.
On the 11th November, 1811, the Province of Cartagena declared itself an
independent State, and the Eastern Provinces endeavoured to join the
Confederation of Venezuela.
Meantime the Royalists made no attempt to oppose the revolution in the
great centres of population, but secured all the country to the south of
the Province of Santa Fé, and established their base of operations at
Quito, with Guayaquil as their port on the Pacific. To the north they
held the Provinces of the Isthmus of Panama, with the fortress of
Portobello, and also the city and Province of Santa Marta on the western
bank of the Magdalena, and the Province of Rio Hacha, also on the
Magdalena, but further inland. The insurgent Province of Cartagena,
lying on the coast, was thus isolated from the other provinces which had
declared for the revolution.
The Royalists established a second base of operations at Santa Marta,
where they raised an army of 1,500 men, besides militia, and were
reinforced by a battalion of Spanish troops from Cuba, while three
Spanish ships-of-war guarded the coast, and either sunk or captured a
Patriot flotilla sent against them from Cartagena in March, 1812.
Dr. Torices, a young man, twenty-four years of age, being named Dictator
by the Constituent Convention of Cartagena, fitted out another flotilla,
which he placed under the command of a French adventurer named Labatut,
and sent it against the Royalists, who had crossed the Magdalena.
Labatut drove them from the lower part of the river, and then returned
and captured the city of Santa Marta in January, 1813.
At this time Don José Domingo Perez, who had been appointed Viceroy of
New Granada by the Regency of Cadiz, reached Portobello, but his
authority was not recognised by the insurgent provinces.
On the outbreak of the revolution Colonel Tacon was Governor of Popayán.
By his energy he prevented the installation of a Junta in that city, but
the Patriots set one up in the small town of Cali. The Governor sent
troops against them. Santa Fé sent 300 men, under Colonel Baraya, to
their assistance, on which basis they raised an army of 1100 men, mostly
Indians, armed with lances. Tacon led another army, 1500 strong, against
them, but was attacked and defeated by Baraya on the 28th March, 1811.
This was the first victory gained by the Patriots of New Granada, and
Tacon was forced to retire to the valley of Pasto, where he stood at bay
in the passes leading to Quito, while Popayán fell into the hands of the
revolutionists.
Meantime a fresh insurrection had taken place at Quito, and Tacon, after
raising the Royalist population of the valleys, marched upon that city
with 600 men. The new Government sent against him Don Pedro Montufar,
the envoy from the Regency of Cadiz, and Tacon, being deserted by the
greater part of his men, retreated to the coast, where he received help
from Guayaquil, but was again defeated and withdrew to Peru.
Montufar easily dispersed the Royalist levies in the valley of Pasto,
and returned to Quito, but the Royalists soon re-assembled, and, incited
by the priests, attacked the city of Popayán, but were beaten off, and
were totally dispersed on the night following by a sortie of the
garrison, which was headed by a young North American named Macaulay. A
portion of them, aided by fresh levies, captured the city of Pasto
before Macaulay could reach the place, but he prevailed upon them to
give up their prisoners, and then marched away by night to join a column
advancing from Quito. Being again attacked by these men of the valleys,
he arranged a truce with them, which they made use of to surprise his
camp, killing 200 men and making 400 prisoners, he himself being among
these latter, with Caicedo, the late commandant of Pasto.
These valleys of Pasto and Patia were the Vendée of the revolution of
New Granada, and the reaction was now there triumphant.
Don Pedro Montufar, in the capacity of commissioner from the Regency of
Cadiz, had reached Bogotá after the pacific triumph of the revolution in
that city. He had acceded to the new state of affairs, and had
afterwards gone on to Quito, where he was received with enthusiasm.
Under his auspices a Junta was there installed on the 19th September,
1810, under the presidency of Ruiz de Castillo, the late
captain-general, but the authority of this Junta was not recognised by
the Southern Provinces, where Peruvian influence was supreme. The Junta
then raised an army of 2,000 men, which it placed under the command of
Montufar, with orders to reduce these provinces to submission.
At the same time Molina, who had been appointed by the Viceroy of Peru
captain-general of Quito in place of Ruiz de Castillo, reached
Guayaquil, where he raised an army for the defence of these provinces.
Neither Molina nor Montufar had much confidence in their troops, and
confined their operations to desultory skirmishes, until, on the 11th
December, the citizens of Quito deposed Ruiz de Castillo from his post
as President of the Junta, summoned a Congress, and declared Quito to be
an independent State. Ruiz retired to a convent, from which he was
dragged by a mob and brutally murdered.
In the following year Marshal Montes arrived from Peru to take command
of the Royalist forces, and on the 2nd September, 1812, defeated the
Patriots at Mocha, giving no quarter. Montufar raised a new army, and
took up a position on some precipices which covered the road to the
capital, but Montes, marching for nine days by a circuitous route over
the rugged slopes of Chimborazo, gained his rear and obliged him to
retreat.
The Patriots then fortified the city of Quito, and declared they would
hold out to the last extremity, but it was taken by assault on the 3rd
November. Montufar retired northwards with the remnant of his force, but
was pursued by Colonel Sámano, who beat him twice and captured all his
guns. Sámano following out his instructions, shot all superior officers
who fell into his hands, and, going on to Pasto where the prisoners of
Popayán were confined, he shot one in every five of the officers and one
in every ten of the soldiers, the victims being chosen by lot. Caicedo
and Macaulay were among them. Thus was crushed the second revolution in
Quito.
While the reaction closed in upon New Granada, the interior of the
country was a prey to anarchy. Federalism struggled against
centralization, Cundinamarca against the provinces, Nariño against
Congress, till all was chaos.
Nariño pursued his policy of centralization by sending troops into the
districts around the capital and annexing them to what he called “the
legal province.” Congress protested from its retreat at Ibague. Baraya,
with the district of Tunja, pronounced in favour of Congress, and
defeated a force sent by Nariño to reduce the Province of Socorro.
Nariño was forced to come to terms, and resigned, but was reinstated by
the citizens of the capital, who, on the 11th September, again
proclaimed him Dictator, with absolute powers.
Congress, with eleven deputies who represented seven provinces, met soon
after at Leiva and named Dr. Torres President. Torres, who was an enemy
of Nariño’s, soon found a pretext for an open rupture with him. Civil
war broke out; Baraya, in command of the Federal troops, defeated Nariño
and laid siege to Bogotá, but was repulsed and totally defeated in an
ill-planned attack upon the city.
At this time Marshal Montalvo, a Cuban by birth, arrived as Viceroy in
place of Perez. Patriotism, enervated by civil strife, revived. On the
16th July, 1813, Cundinamarca declared itself an independent State, and
the Province of Antioquia followed the example. Nariño came to an
arrangement with Congress, and offered troops to reinforce the army
which was sent against the Royalists now advancing from the south.
General Sámano had occupied the city of Popayán with 2,000 men, and now
menaced the Province of Antioquia. Congress placed the Federal army
under the command of Nariño, giving him the rank of lieutenant-general.
Nariño then abdicated the dictatorship and marched against the enemy.
His first operations were successful; he defeated the main body under
Sámano, occupied Popayán on the 31st December, and on the 13th January,
1813, again defeated the Royalist army, which fled to Pasto, but he made
no attempt to follow up his victories. General Aymerich, who then
replaced Sámano in command, was allowed two months in which to
reorganize his scattered forces. Then Nariño again advanced with 1,400
men, and made his way through the guerillas, who swarmed in the valley
of Patia, to the Juanambu river, where he found that the fords were
defended by batteries. He forced a passage by one ford, but was driven
back by Aymerich, who afterwards retreated.
This river Juanambu is an impetuous torrent, rushing westward between
precipitous cliffs from the slopes of the eastern Cordillera. The few
fords are only occasionally passable, and the river is generally crossed
by means of baskets or troughs of raw hide slung upon cables stretched
from bank to bank, which are called “taravitas.” The Patriot army was
delayed twenty days in crossing by means of taravitas established by
themselves, and then advancing again encountered the enemy strongly
posted on the hills of Chacabamba.
The position was carried, with heavy loss, after four hours of desperate
fighting. Again the Royalist army retreated, but the country people rose
_en masse_ in defence of their homes and drove back the Patriot
vanguard, which was led by Nariño in person. Fugitives from this
skirmish reported that he was taken prisoner; the main body was seized
with panic, spiked their guns, and fled precipitately; only 900 reached
Popayán. Nariño, returning with thirteen men to his encampment, found
himself without an army. Deserted by his men he wandered alone for some
days on the mountains, living on such wild fruits as he could find, then
giving himself up he was sent in irons to Spain.
Bolívar, after leaving Caracas, resided for some time at Curaçoa, and
then offered his services to the independent Government of Cartagena. He
was appointed military commandant of the district of Barrancas, on the
Upper Magdalena, and resolved to make a campaign of his own against the
Royalists of Santa Marta, who obstructed the navigation of the river.
Here the future Liberator first showed his genius for enterprise.
At the head of a small party of militia, he attacked the fortified town
of Teneriffe, drove out the garrison, capturing their guns and boats,
and then took the town of Mompox. Labatut, who commanded the Patriot
flotilla acting against Santa Marta, complained of this to the Dictator
as an intrusion upon his sphere of operations; but Torices reinforced
Bolívar with some regular troops and fifteen armed boats, with which he
ascended the river, and after sundry successful skirmishes entered the
city of Ocaña in triumph in January, 1813.
In March, Labatut was driven from Santa Marta, and the coast line was
occupied by the Royalists. Torices himself then led an expedition
against them by sea, but was defeated with the loss of his artillery on
the 13th May, Colonel Chatillon, who commanded the infantry, being
killed.
The Royalists, being reinforced from Venezuela, then collected an army
of 2,600 men in the Province of Barinas, under command of a naval
officer named Tiscar, sent Colonel Correa with 1,000 men against
Pamplona, and 700 men by another route to co-operate with him.
Colonel Castillo Rada, an officer of New Granada, who was raising troops
in the Province of Pamplona, applied to Bolívar for help. Bolívar then
conceived the daring plan of attempting the reconquest of Venezuela, and
wrote to Torices and to Dr. Torres, showing them the advisability of
carrying the war into the enemy’s territory. Without waiting for an
answer from either of them, he marched with 400 men by a stony pass
across the mountain range in front of Ocaña, drove in the outposts of
the enemy, and, spreading the report that he was followed by a large
army, crossed the river Zulia in one canoe, and on the 28th February
fell upon Correa. After four hours’ sharp firing, the fight was decided
by a furious charge with the bayonet; the Royalists were totally
defeated, with the loss of all their artillery, and Bolívar was soon
after joined by Castillo Rada with the troops he had raised in Pamplona.
Bolívar’s idea of reconquering Venezuela was looked upon as folly, just
as San Martin’s idea of reconquering Chile was when he first broached
it. Happily, Bolívar also found a Pueyrredon to believe in him. He had
published a memorial which produced a profound sensation in New Granada.
In it he disclosed for the first time his peculiar ideas on the
organization of a Republican Government, and on the proper mode of
conducting the war. Explaining the causes of the fall of the Republic of
Venezuela, he said:--
“Our rulers did not consult codes which would teach them the practical
science of government, but those drawn up by dreamers who built
republics in the air on the basis of the perfectability of human nature.
We had philosophers as leaders, philanthropy for legislation, arguments
instead of tactics, and sophists for soldiers.”
He also denounced the federal form of government as contrary to the
interests of young societies in face of a foreign war, and the folly of
placing trust in raw levies in place of devoting all their energy to the
organization of regular troops, and wound up by insisting that the
safety of New Granada lay in the reconquest of Venezuela.
President Torres read this memorial with great attention, and though it
clashed with his ideas as a federal, he saw that it was the work of a
deep thinker who was also a man of action, and the language used
appealed both to his reason and to his heart. The successes achieved by
Bolívar in his first daring attempt decided him. He resolved upon the
reconquest of Venezuela.