On 31 December 1816 Simón Bolívar returned to the Barcelona province in Venezuela and inaugurated the third period of the republic. In January 1817 General-in-Chief Manuel Píar refused to help Bolívar, who faced a royalist army of nearly 4,000 marching into Barcelona. Bolívar held out in the fortified monastery of St. Francis while the Spaniards entered the city in February. However, Santiago Mariño was coming with 1,200 men, and the Spanish army departed. This allowed Bolívar to move out to the Orinoco River. Viceroy Francisco Montalvo had reestablished the Royal Audiencia in New Granada in March 1817. General Pablo Morillo sent about 1,500 royalists led by General Miguel de la Torre to relieve the siege of Angostura. On April 11 at San Félix Píar‘s army of about 1,800 revolutionaries defeated them, killing 593 royalists and capturing 497 while only 31 revolutionaries died. On the 17th the Spaniards left Angostura. In the Guayana province the Capucin monks were governing 7,000 natives, and Píar subjugated these missions and imprisoned the Spanish monks. Bolívar reached the northern shore of the Orinoco and ordered the monks to be sent deeper into the interior, but instead 22 friars were shot. Morillo’s cruel tactics of suppression made reconciliation difficult and revolution more likely.
In Cariaco in May 1817 a few men organized a government with Mariño as commander-in-chief. However, several officers including Rafael Urdaneta and Col. Antonio José de Sucre left to serve Bolívar. Mariño was defeated and lost Cumana and Barcelona while General Píar was defeating royalists in Guayana. With help from Brion’s fleet, Bolívar had helped Píar besiege Angostura in April, and they occupied it on July 18. That month revolutionaries led by Admiral Bríon defeated 4,000 royalists at sea, capturing 1,731. By August the Spaniards had evacuated the province of Guayana. On September 3 Bolívar decreed that the republic would confiscate the property of royalists, and on October 10 he decreed that it could be given to republican soldiers. Píar resented Bolívar’s coming so far east and asked to be relieved of his post and joined Mariño’s separatist movement. Bolívar summoned Píar, and he was eventually captured and tried for desertion, insurrection, and treason. A war council sentenced him to demotion and death. Bolívar overturned the demotion but allowed Píar to be shot on October 16.
Mariño responded to a summons from Bolívar, and the government was reunified. Angostura (later called the City of Bolívar) was made the capital of the republic, and in October 1817 courts and municipal governments were established, protecting trade and river navigation. Bolívar addressed the new State Council on 1 November as the Liberator and Supreme Chief. The executions planned in Santa Fe for November 14 provoked a response by the revolutionaries. On December 31 Bolívar left Angostura with 3,000 men and led them over the Andes to the Apure plains. Bolívar and José Antonio Páez met for the first time on 30 January 1818. Páez had won over many llaneros, who before had been fighting for Boves, by allowing them to plunder. Páez combined his army with Bolívar’s giving them 1,000 llanero cavalry. Bolívar forbade mistreatment of the natives, and confiscated property was distributed to the officers and men. Viceroy Montalvo resigned in February 1818, and Morillo appointed Juan Samano to replace him.
Bolívar moved north that month; but Morillo with an army half the size of Bolívar’s kept the patriots from taking Calabozo, and the Spanish general refused to negotiate. Bolívar forbade the killing of prisoners, and he marched toward San Pablo without help from Páez. Morillo led fresh troops into battle at El Semen on March 16, killing 400 republicans while capturing 400 men and Bolívar’s papers; but Spanish losses were also heavy, and Morillo was severely wounded by a spear in the abdomen. In April the Spanish Captain Renovales led 40 men who were mistakenly let into the patriots’ camp and tried to assassinate Bolívar, but he escaped. On May 2 Páez was defeated at Cojedes and lost Cumana also, forcing the republicans south of the Orinoco.
Bolívar encouraged the recruiting of volunteers from Britain and Europe. The European wars had ended in 1815, and many soldiers and much equipment were unemployed. Luis López Méndez acted as London agent for the Venezuelan Republic promising money for men and arms. He offered them a higher rank and reimbursement for their transportation, but he gave out so many promissory notes that he was put in debtors’ prison. The British who joined Páez had to get their pay by plundering. Col. Wilson led an effort to make Páez commander of the army, and he was later found to be an agent provocateur sent by the Spanish government. Bolívar improved the training of his army by mixing the experienced Europeans with the Americans. About 150 volunteers arrived in the spring of 1818, and all together about four thousand Europeans would fight for American independence. The British formed an army of 1,500 men. Bolívar used a printing press they brought to publish the weekly Orinoco Post, which began on 27 June 1818. Bolívar took refuge in San Fernando, and he spent the second half of 1818 in Angostura. He wanted to block supplies coming to the royalists from New Granada, and in August he appointed Col. Santander commander of Casanare province. General Renovales was a Spaniard who volunteered, and he commanded English volunteers; but he went over to the royalists. General José Francisco Bermúdez was defeated in Rio Caribe in October, and Mariño lost 300 men in Cariaco in November.
In October 1818 the rules for a general election were announced. Only free men owning property or having a profession or an adequate salary could vote, and the elections were conducted by the military commanders. On 15 February 1819 at Angostura 26 elected delegates from Caracas, Barcelona, Cumana, Barinas, Guayana, and Margarita met as a Congress. Bolívar felt honored to call together a democratic assembly and said he was glad to hand over his power to a representational government. He believed in frequent elections and said, “Nothing is more perilous than to permit one citizen to retain power for an extended period.”1 He also warned, “It is harder to maintain the balance of liberty than to endure the weight of tyranny.”2 He recommended democracy even though history had few successful examples. He criticized the federal constitution of 1811 that was based on the United States Constitution, and he noted that Montesquieu had argued that “laws should be suited to the people.” He wanted a strong presidency and a more centralized government. The three values he believed that government should maximize are happiness, social security, and political stability. Their South American revolution was a struggle for popular sovereignty, distribution of power, civil liberties, abolition of slavery, and the ending of monarchy and privileges. The journalist Francisco Antonio Zea was provisionally elected president, and Bolívar handed over his power to him; but on February 16 the Congress of Angostura elected Bolívar president and Zea vice president. Bolívar’s secretary Briceño Mendez was made minister of war, and Manuel Palacio Fajardo was appointed minister of state and treasury.
Bolívar approved of the House of Representatives established by the constitution of 1811, but after the Senate was elected by the House he wanted it to be hereditary so that their sons could be educated for public service. Bolívar suggested that the soul of a republic is permeated by “love of country, love of law, and respect for magistrates.” He wanted the president to supervise the administration and the judges in order to prevent abuses of the law. He said that popular education, morality, and enlightenment are the foundation of a republic. Bolívar asked for a fourth branch of government to regulate morals, like the ancient Roman censors. He felt personally obligated to abolish slavery and compensate the patriots for their losses. He promised that Venezuela would reject any foreign interference, and he proposed uniting Venezuela with New Granada as Colombia.
General Morillo had 7,000 men in his royal army at Calabozo. In the plains Bolívar’s men set fire to the pampas grass and crops to starve the Spanish cavalry. On 2 April 1819 Páez lured Spanish cavalry to pursue his forces, which then turned and destroyed them, killing four hundred while losing only six men. These tactics reduced Morillo’s army by half. On 27 November 1820 Bolívar and Morillo agreed to an armistice for six months with Morillo accepting Bolívar’s presidency of the Republic. Morillo went to Spain and left La Torre in command of the Spanish royalists. On 24 June 1821 Bolívar’s army defeated them at Carabobo, and they entered Caracas in triumph five days later to establish Venezuela’s independence. Royalist forces held out at Puerto Cabello. On 24 July 1823 Bolívar led Colombia’s navy that defeated the Spanish fleet on Maracaibo Lake in Venezuela, and Páez led the Venezuelan independence forces that finally captured Puerto Cabello on 8 November.
In 1817 the Almeyda brothers led guerilla attacks in the Valle de Tenza near Bogotá. They gathered a force of 250 men, but after the defeat on November 21 the peasants went home. In 1818 the Spanish General Morillo had to withdraw forces from New Granada to fight Simón Bolívar in Venezuela. Bolívar sent Francisco de Paula Santander to organize resistance fighters in Casanare, and he urged the Granadinos to fight for their liberty. On 15 May 1819 he learned that Santander had defeated the royalists in Casanare, and he held a council of war to plan the liberation of New Granada. Bolívar proposed leading his army of 3,000 across the Andes Mountains, but the destination was kept secret. They left the Upper Apure on May 27 and crossed ten large rivers during the rainy season and joined Santander’s army at Tame. On June 27 Santander led the advance guard that drove the Spaniards led by Col. José Barreiro from their fortified position. Bolívar’s army lost hundreds of men and most of their horses climbing the mountains 5,000 meters high, but the difficult path they took was undefended. The oppressed people of New Granada welcomed them. Bolívar declared martial law and drafted all men able to fight. At Vargas Creek on July 25 Barreiro lost 500 men, Bolívar only 104. As Barreiro retreated, they entered Tunja on August 5. Two days later in a major battle at Boyaca the Americans captured 1,600 men including Barreiro and his staff from his army of 3,000 while only 13 republicans were killed. Most of those who surrendered enlisted in the republican army. Viceroy Samano fled from Bogotá to Cartagena. Bolívar treated the prisoners well except he had Francisco Vinoni shot for his treason at Puerto Cabello in 1812. Bolívar entered Bogotá in triumph on August 10 and found 500,000 pesos in cash and 100,000 in gold in the state treasury.
President Bolívar allowed much of the government to remain in place; but he confiscated property of Spaniards who had supported the royal cause, and he demanded that the Church tithe to the state treasury. General Francisco de Paula Santander was a jurist from New Granada, and on 11 September 1819 Bolívar made him vice president of New Granada in Bogotá to handle the administration. Santander warned him that the people were more outraged by the Spanish taxes than by their execution of 500 patriots. Santander allowed the opposition press to function, but in October he executed Col. Barreiro and 38 officers imprisoned after the battle of Boyaca. Bolívar promised slaves freedom after they served two years in the army, arguing to others that their fighting for their freedom could diminish their dangerous numbers. The Bishop of Popayan called Bolívar a traitor and excommunicated everyone who supported his cause, but his army soon captured Popayan. Nine provinces in New Granada were liberated by October, and Bolívar appointed military governors in each one. Local mayors and judges remained, but Bolívar established an appellate court in Bogotá. He provided education and assistance to orphans. Bolívar offered Samano an exchange of prisoners but received no reply. He assigned Urdaneta’s army of the north to defend New Granada on the border.
Meanwhile in Venezuela when Lt. Matthew Perry arrived in a warship in July, the acting President Zea paid the United States an indemnity for two warships that Bríon had sunk. General Urdaneta appropriated scarce resources on Margarita Island and came into conflict with the Venezuelan Juan Bautista Arismendi, who disobeyed Zea’s orders and was imprisoned. Zea was from New Granada, and also relieved Mariño of his command. After heated debates in the Congress while Bolívar’s fate was unknown, Arismendi was elected vice president to replace Zea. Arismendi made Mariño commander-in-chief and arrested Urdaneta.
Bolívar went back to Bogotá, and Santander called a meeting that unanimously accepted the unified government. Bolívar wanted the crimes of all parties punished so that justice and freedom could triumph. In the previous fall Santander had executed Barreiro and 38 Spanish officers for smuggling out subversive letters; an observer who protested that Bolívar had granted them reprieves was also shot. Bolívar reproached Santander for this because he now believed it hurt their cause.
Zea tried to get more loans in London and promised to pay all the debts, some of which were questionable. Bolívar asked Sucre to purchase weapons, and he bought about 5,000 guns in the Antilles. In Europe the Spanish army rebelled on 1 January 1820 and demanded the Constitution of 1812, which Fernando VII accepted in May. Expeditionary forces planned for America were disbanded, and General Morillo was ordered to publish the Constitution and work for reconciliation. Bolívar used the opportunity to negotiate an armistice while royalists led by Col. Calzada marched toward Bogotá and took Popayan on January 24.
However, in July patriotic forces led by Manuel Valdes regained Popayan. Bolívar sent Mariano Montilla with Irish troops to liberate Santa Marta and Maracaibo. Montilla knew that the previous year after English soldiers had sacked Rio Hacha, the citizens had butchered all but 46 of the 300 English. The Irish were demanding better food and clothing; when Montilla did not allow them to plunder Rio Hacha in lieu of salaries, they mutinied and took ships to Jamaica. The royalist armies had mass desertions, and Bolívar offered Spanish officers promotions and even money to change sides. He occupied the border provinces of Mérida and Trujillo in early October, and Montilla took Santa Marta. Guayaquil in Ecuador declared its independence on 9 October 1820. A few Colombians led by three Venezuelan officers marched on Quito, but they were defeated at Huachi on November 22. The Peruvians had the leaders imprisoned.
Bolívar sent the young General Antonio José de Sucre to meet with three royalist commissioners. On 27 November 1820 Bolívar met with Morillo in the village of Santa Ana, and they declared an armistice for six months. Sick and wounded prisoners were to be released, and others were exchanged by rank. Because the war was over opinions, those who changed sides were not to be executed. Morillo gave up his command of the army of 15,000 to La Torre and left America in December. Bolívar returned to the Angostura parliament on December 14 and announced that New Granada wanted to join with Venezuela to form Colombia. Arismendi resigned. Plans were made to unify the republics of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. On December 17 the Congress of Angostura passed the Fundamental Law that created the Republic of Colombia as a permanent union of Venezuela, New Granada, and Quito even though the latter was not yet liberated. Bolívar was unanimously elected president with Zea as his representative. Antonio Nariño was freed from a dungeon during the Spanish Revolution of 1820 and was made interim vice president to preside over a new congress scheduled to meet in Cucuta on the border of New Granada and Venezuela in 1821.
On the first day of 1821 a constituent congress met at Cucuta and used the Constitution of Angostura as a model. Republicans persuaded Maracaibo to revolt against Spain on January 28. Bolívar sent General Sucre to Guayaquil to work for its annexation to Colombia, and he hoped that Valdes would take Quito. Urdaneta had been born in Maracaibo, and using money and a forged order from La Torre he got the garrison to leave the city during the armistice. Bolívar proposed a court of arbitration, but La Torre wanted Maracaibo back. The armistice ended early on April 28. Urdaneta liberated Coro on May 11; but after he left, the Coreans reverted to Spanish loyalty. Bermúdez entered Caracas on May 14, but he lost it ten days later to Morales. Bolívar combined the armies of Mariño and Páez with his and met La Torre’s equal army of 6,000 on the plains of Carabobo on June 24. La Torre lost more than half his army and fled with Morales to Valencia as 2,000 men surrendered. The remnant of the Spanish army retreated from Valencia to Puerto Cabello and Cumana. Bolívar entered Caracas on the 29th and wrote to La Torre in July to open negotiations so that they could relate as men and not as wild beasts in the detestable arena of mutual extermination. On April 30 Bolívar had learned that Morales was making headway in Maracaibo, Venezuela, but he capitulated in August.
Bolívar was President of Colombia and appointed General Carlos Soublette to govern Venezuela with Páez as chief general, and on August 1 he left for Bogotá. Nariño led the effort in Cucuta that united the nineteen independent provinces of Colombia. The Constitution of Cucuta was signed on 12 July 1821 and was approved by the new Congress of 57 deputies on August 30. The franchise was limited to those with property worth 100 pesos, and a house of representatives was to be elected for four years and senators with eight-year terms. The president was elected for four years and could only be re-elected once. The president had extraordinary powers only during the emergencies of war or internal rebellion. They anticipated that Quito (Ecuador) would join the union and so placed the capital centrally at Bogotá. Bolívar knew that freeing all slaves would antagonize landowners, but on 19 July 1821 the Congress declared free all Colombians born after that date. The head tax on natives was also abolished. Bolívar was concerned that the commander-in-chief should not also administer justice; but he was persuaded to accept his unanimous election as president on September 7 under the condition that he would be free to campaign for liberation in the south.
Bolívar left for Bogotá on August 1. Bermúdez besieged Cumana, which capitulated in September. Montilla besieged Cartagena in August 1820, and it accepted his generous terms in October 1821. Bolívar took the oath of office as President of Colombia on October 3, and the Congress ratified the Constitution three days later. They chose Santander instead of Nariño as vice president. Páez, Bermúdez, and Mariño were appointed commanders in Venezuela. Royalist resistance was overcome in Maracaibo, Coro, and Cumana. On November 10 the last Spanish garrison in Venezuela abandoned Puerto Cabello and went to Cuba, making all of Venezuela republican. Even Panama overthrew their Spanish rulers in a nonviolent revolution when Col. José de Fabrega defected to the separatists and convened a national assembly that chose him as head of state on 28 November.
In Ecuador the Spanish Governor Melchor Aymerich defended Quito and had destroyed the revolutionary army from Guayaquil in November 1820. General Sucre brought a force of a thousand men to Guayaquil, and in May 1821 he made a friendship pact with their council. Aymerich sent an army of 3,000 royalists. At first Sucre’s army defeated one division of them; but then they were routed, and Sucre escaped with only a hundred men. Guayaquil revolted against Spain in October, and Sucre agreed to an armistice on November 21. General Juan de la Cruz Murgeon was appointed Spanish governor of New Granada and equipped an army of 800 men in Panama that landed in Ecuador and reached Quito on December 24.
Bolívar sent Miguel Santamaria to Mexico and Joaquin Mosquera to Peru, Chile, and Buenos Aires. He ordered General Montilla to invade Panama, where patriots revolted and declared independence on 28 November 1821. Bolívar headed south on December 13 and set up his headquarters at Cali in the Cauca Valley. He wanted every young man drafted into the army or his property confiscated. In March 1822 he crossed the valley of Patia with 3,000 men as thirty a day became ill. With his generals Manuel Valdes and Pedro Leon Torres they fought the royalists under Basilio Garcia at Bombona on April 7. Bolívar lost a third of his men in this bloody conflict. That month Sucre’s army crossed the Cordilleras, and on May 24 they attacked Quito from Mt. Pichincha in the north. The patriots won, and Governor Aymerich surrendered. General Garcia heard this news and capitulated in Pasto on June 6 to Bolívar, who promised the royalists safety. Ten days later Bolívar reached Quito and declared Ecuador part of Colombia, and he appointed Sucre president.
An Argentine division had fought at Pichincha, and they hoped also to liberate Guayaquil; but Bolívar held them at Quito and sent his Colombian army to Guayaquil. Bolívar entered Guayaquil on 12 July 1822, and the next day he decreed the incorporation of Guayaquil into Colombia. He met San Martín on July 26. San Martín wanted a plebiscite to see if Guayaquil wanted to join Peru or Colombia, and Bolívar agreed to send 1,800 men to help liberate Peru from the Spaniards. San Martín suggested that a European prince could govern America. Bolívar adamantly opposed that, though he wanted a president for life and a hereditary senate. They both wanted a federation of states in South America. After attending a celebration San Martín went back to his ship and departed. By the end of July the Guayaquil Council had voted to become part of the Colombian Republic. Bolívar believed that Colombia still needed his army to stay free. He traveled to Cuenca, Quito, and Pasto. Bolívar met his dearest mistress Manuela Saenz de Thorne at Quito. About this time he began to suffer from tuberculosis, which had killed his mother.
Pasto rebelled, and Sucre had to gather more forces to defeat them. All the fighting men who had supported the royalist cause were drafted into the army and had their property confiscated while the pro-Spanish clergy were marched to Quito prisons, many of them dying on the way. Bolívar approved these and other punishments that were brutally implemented at Pasto by General Bartolomé Salom. In July 1823 Bolívar defeated the Pastusos led by the native Agualongo, killing 800 men as no quarter was given. Metal was banned from the region, and Salom defeated Agualongo’s 1,500 Pastusos again in August; but they kept fighting back the rest of the year. During the wars the consumption of livestock reduced the number of cattle, horses, and mules from 4,500,000 head in 1812 to 256,000 in 1823.
In 1824 the Colombian Congress levied an army of 50,000 men to deter Spanish expeditions and borrowed 30 million pesos from English investors. The government was organized into departments, provinces, and cantons. They passed laws that made entailed estates illegal, authorized the republic patronato over Church administration but not doctrine, and protected private correspondence and residences from unwarranted government intrusion. Some talented literary men founded the newspaper La Miscelanea in September 1825, and later they edited La Bandera Tricolor, which opposed Páez.
In 1824 the African Col. Leonardo Infante, a brave warrior who was feared because of his violence, was convicted on circumstantial evidence of a murder. He claimed he was innocent, but based on a majority vote of the Supreme Court in Bogotá he was executed without receiving a commutation by Santander, who was his personal enemy. The mulatto judge Miguel Peña would not sign the sentence and was suspended. Santander charged Peña with shady dealings; Peña refused the summons and fled to Valencia in his native Venezuela. General Páez decreed a draft of all men between the ages of 16 and 50 into the militia in order to suppress the roving bands plundering the country around Caracas. Late in 1825 the Caracas commander warned Páez of a Negro uprising in the city.
In 1825 Santander cosponsored the Columbian Bible Society started by an English missionary, and he promoted liberal education that included the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham. The United States of America recognized Colombia in 1822, but England waited until 1825. Colombia made treaties with Chile, Peru, Mexico, the United Provinces of Central America, and Buenos Aires, and in December 1824 they invited those countries to send envoys to Panama to discuss mutual support. Delegates met in the second half of 1825, but the Congress did not begin until 22 June 1826.
In February 1819 Chile and Argentina formed an alliance promising to contribute funds to invade Peru. Buenos Aires pledged 500,000 pesos and sent 300,000 plus armaments. Bernardo O’Higgins’ attempt to raise 300,000 pesos was resisted in Chile. Their navy needed 700,000 pesos itself, and they made contracts with foreign merchants for loans based on customs revenues and for a share of prize money warships would “earn.” Contractors hired sixteen transports from a private company by August 1820. Supe was the first municipality to declare independence in April 1819, and it was followed the next year by the cabildos of Ica, Tarma, and Lambayeque.
The heroic San Martín was concerned that victory would cost the spilling of American blood, and he worked patiently for peaceful conquests by “irresistible necessity.” He raised an army of nearly 500,000 men, but Peru with reinforcements from Cuzco and Upper Peru and militia units had about 12,000 troops. After the Spanish army mutinied at Cadiz in 1820, Pezuela, the Marquess of Viluma, was instructed to implement Spain’s Constitution in Peru, restore elected cabildos, and allow liberal reforms. San Martín and his revolutionary army captured Valdivia on 4 February 1820, and on August 20 he led an expedition from Valparaiso with 31 ships from Chile’s navy carrying 4,700 soldiers and equipment for 15,000 more. They reached Paracas on September 7 and occupied Pisco that was abandoned by royalists. On the 25th San Martín sent commissioners to a peace conference at Miraflores, and they agreed on an armistice for eight days. The royalists would not accept San Martín’s insistence on independence even under a Spanish monarch. So he sent a force led by General Arenales north to cut Lima off from the interior, and they defeated the royalists at Cerro de Pasco on December 6. San Martín had led his army beyond Lima to Ancon on 1 November and then to Huacho seventy miles north of Callao, separating the capital from the agricultural region of northern Peru. His strategy was to blockade Lima, but the aggressive British Admiral Thomas Cochrane wanted the navy to attack Callao and Lima. San Martín controlled the land forces, but on November 4 Cochrane near Callao captured the 44-gun frigate Esmeralda, considered the best Spanish warship in the Pacific. San Martín also won people over without war as desertions increased. In December 1820 the Numan Cia battalion of about 650 men joined the liberators.
On 29 January 1821 the constitutionalist military mutinied against Viceroy Pezuela. General José de la Serna became viceroy and appointed General Canterac to command the royalist army in the north and General Valdes in the south. Because San Martín accepted monarchy the aristocratic Torre Tagle persuaded the Trujillo Cabildo to declare independence on December 29. Other towns followed, and by May 1821 all of northern Peru had become independent and supplied money and men to San Martín. That month the English officer William Miller led forces against the royalists in central Peru, and General Arenales defeated a detachment in the interior at Pasco.
Negotiations had begun on 4 May 1821, and San Martín met with Viceroy La Serna on June 2. The blockade was working, and on July 6 La Serna evacuated Lima and took his army to the interior. San Martín entered Lima with his troops on the 10th and promised to protect the people. Four days later the aristocratic cabildo abierto declared independence, vindicating his nonviolent strategy. On 28 July the independence of Peru was proclaimed, and on 3 August San Martín was named protector with supreme military and civil power. He appointed ministers and initiated a reform program. On August 12 he decreed an oath of allegiance to independence, and he declared that slaves born in Peru from 28 July 1821 on were free. He granted a pension to military personnel on the liberating expedition from Valparaiso. On 27 August Indian tribute and compulsory labor were abolished, and the aborigines were to be called Peruvians rather than Indians. However, the decrees still needed to be implemented by the creoles.
San Martín learned on September 4 that General de Canterac was marching his Spanish army of 12,000 hungry men from the interior to relieve Callao; but San Martín declined to attack them with his army of 7,000 because his forces held Lima and controlled the coast. Instead, he strengthened their defenses. Canterac’s army entered Callao on September 10; but they also suffered from shortages and surrendered the fortress a few days later. Admiral Cochrane had lost two warships and could not pay his men. He did not believe the war was over, and San Martín argued that Chile should pay for its own navy. As the squadron was disintegrating, Cochrane seized $285,000 worth of gold and silver from San Martín’s treasure ship, the Sacramento, at Ancon. He paid his crews, gave $40,000 to the army, and kept nothing for himself. This ended his collaboration with San Martín, and Cochrane took his warships to pursue Spanish ships in the Pacific Ocean.
Peru’s government forced merchants to provide loans, and on 28 September 1821 a provisional commercial law decreed free trade but with a 20% tariff on imports to protect local industries. The Banco Auxiliary was established to finance the war by circulating paper money. In October San Martín founded the Order of the Sun modeled after France’s Legion of Honor. In November he sent Garcia del Rio and the English entrepreneur James Parisian to Europe to secure approval of Peru’s independence, negotiate a loan, and to find a prince who would accept the crown of Peru. On December 19 property worth $500,000 was granted to twenty generals and officers in the liberating army. Unmarried Spaniards were ordered to leave Peru and forfeit half their property, and a few months later married Spaniards were included. Bernardo de Monteagudo and Torre Tagle saw to it that the Iberian peninsulars were expelled and that all their property was taken. Spaniards continued to fight against independence, and on 11 January 1822 Viceroy La Serna ordered the town of Sangallo burned to the ground. For three years creoles and mestizos led the guerrilla monomers who were joined by bandits and harassed retreating royalists and plundered central Peru.
Liberals in Peru did not want a monarch. The lawyer Manuel Perez de Tugela advocated a republic, and the priest Francisco Javier Luna Pizarro worked against plans for a monarchy. The liberal politician Sanchez Carrion wrote tracts for republicanism. San Martín had an army of 8,000 in the Lima area. He left the Marquis of Torre Tagle in charge and went to confer with Bolívar in Guayaquil, which had declared its independence in 1820. In July 1821 Viceroy La Serna announced that his army was abandoning Lima and moving to the fortress of Callao. After Bolívar’s victory that won Quito in May 1822, he entered Guayaquil. He sent letters in June to San Martín who replied in July. They met there on July 26 and 27, talking for several hours. Bolívar opposed any monarchy in America, and he declined to give San Martín military support. San Martín was frustrated, and he decided to withdraw and let Bolívar make Peru independent. Monteagudo was overthrown in Lima by Luna Pizarro. Torre Tagle and San Martín himself had lost the support of the ruling class. On September 20 at the first constituent congress in Peru he renounced his power and left Lima. The next day San Martín sailed for Chile and then went to Europe. His wife died in 1823, and in 1825 San Martín wrote the following rules for the indulgent grandmother who was raising his daughter:
1. Humanize her character, making it sensitive,
even toward insects which do not injure….
2. Instill in her love for truth and hate for lies.
3. Inspire in her confidence and friendship, but with respect.
4. Encourage in Mercedes charity towards the poor.
5. Respect for other people’s property.
6. Get her used to keeping secrets.
7. Inspire in her a feeling of respect toward all religions.
8. Gentleness with servants, the poor and the old.
9. Let her talk little and say only what is necessary.
10. Get her used to being quiet and serious at table.
11.Teach her to love cleanliness
and to have contempt for luxury.3
Colombian envoy Joaquin Mosquera had signed a treaty of perpetual union at Lima with San Martín’s foreign minister Bernardo Monteagudo on 6 July 1822. After San Martín resigned and left Peru, the Congress appointed three men who fought each other. None wanted the troops that Bolívar had sent, and they returned to Guayaquil. In January 1823 at Torata and Moquehuá the Spaniards led by generals José de Canterac and Jeronimo Valdes defeated the Peruvian army that San Martín had left under General Rudecindo Alvarado, who saved only 500 of his 4,000 men. In 1822 and 1824 Peru got two loans from London worth £1,816,000.
On 28 February 1823 army leaders forced the Congress to replace the junta with José de la Riva Aguero as the first President of the Peru. He appointed his friend Santa Cruz, who was from Bolivia, commander of Peru’s army. Aguero sent General Mariano Portocarrero to ask Bolívar for an expeditionary force to liberate Peru, and on March 18 they signed a treaty between Colombia and Peru. Bolívar promised the Peruvians 6,000 soldiers, but the Colombian Congress did not give him permission to go. So he sent General Sucre to command them in Lima; but he refused to accept command of the allies so that they would choose Bolívar. The Spanish general Canterac led 7,000 royalists into Lima in June as Aguero and the Congress fled to Callao. There the Congress deposed Riva Aguero and appointed Bolívar’s envoy General José Antonio de Sucre commander-in-chief. Aguero refused to resign and withdrew with some Congressmen to Trujillo where he raised an army and dissolved the Congress.
The Spanish held southern Peru while the north was divided by civil war. Peruvian creoles then asked Bolívar for help. Canterac extorted much money by threatening to burn Lima but abandoned it in July. The Congressmen went back to Lima, proclaimed Riva Aguero a traitor, and on 16 August elected as President of Peru the Marquis de Torre Tagle, who used public money to gain support.
Bolívar received permission from Bogotá to go, and on 1 September 1823 his ship landed in Peru, where seven independent armies representing Peru, its Government, its Congress, Buenos Aires, Chile, Guayaquil, and Colombia lacked unity. When Riva Aguero tried to convene the Congress, the army broke it up. They welcomed Bolívar, and on September 10 the Congress gave Bolívar supreme authority with a salary of 50,000 pesos, which he declined. Aguero called Bolívar a usurping tyrant and won over some officers and men. Bolívar gathered an army of 4,000 to confront Aguero’s 3,000. Bolívar persuaded Col. Antonio Gutierrez de la Fuente that Aguero was a traitor, and La Fuente captured him in November. Aguero was allowed to go to Europe.
On 1 October 1823 the French army released Spain’s King Fernando VII, and he ended liberal reform by abolishing the Constitution. Bolívar felt he could not rely on the Chileans and Argentineans, but he persuaded Admiral George Guise to end his blockade and to recognize the government in Lima. While Bolívar organized the revolution from Pativilca, he put Sucre in command at Lima. Torre Tagle sent home a Chilean contingent from Callao, and Congress returned slaves taken into the army to their former owners. Bolívar recovered from a serious illness in early January 1824. On February 7 the garrison at Callao mutinied for back pay and so that Argentineans and Chileans could go home; they released the Spanish prisoners and surrendered to the royalists. The Congressmen resigned and named Bolívar dictator of Peru before the royalists with help from Torre Tagle occupied Lima again on February 12.
On 17 February 1824 Peru’s Congress appointed Bolívar dictator and suspended the Constitution. Much silver had come out of the mines, and Bolívar confiscated church treasures to pay his soldiers; but the silver sold raised only 200,000 pesos. Bolívar had only one province while the royalists controlled the rest of Peru. He put the patriot José Sanchez Carrion in charge of civil affairs. Bolívar at Trujillo gathered all the tin and iron he could find to supply his army, and in April he moved to Huamachuco. By then he had about 8,000 men with capable cavalry, and they were paid regularly.
Viceroy José de La Serna had 1,000 men at Cuzco. General Pedro Antonio de Olañeta had rebelled against Viceroy La Serna’s constitutional administration to set up his own regime at the end of 1823, and he commanded an army of 4,000 in Upper Peru. Spanish General Valdes with an army of about 3,000 in Arequipa was sent to suppress the revolt, but on 9 March 1824 he signed the Treaty of Tarapay with Olañeta who broke the agreement and proclaimed himself commander of the La Plata provinces.
At Trujillo on April 8 Bolívar decreed that all state lands be offered for sale at one-third their values, and natives were declared proprietors of their lands. Bolívar led his army in a hard march over mountains in May, and he divided his army into three parts to cross the Andes in July. They reunited at Pasco, and he reviewed 6,000 Colombians and 3,000 Peruvians. He said they were saving the world from slavery, and he declared freedom in America the hope of the world. They met the army of Canterac on August 6 on the plateau of Junin, and in the cavalry battle no guns were fired. The royalists had about 250 men killed and fled in disorder while the patriots lost about 150 men.
Bolívar moved his army to the coast in October 1824 while organizing civil administration. On the 24th the Colombian Parliament rescinded Bolívar’s authority as commander of the Colombian army; but he was replaced by Sucre, who was loyal to the liberator. On December 7 Bolívar sent out invitations to the governments of La Plata, Brazil, Chili, Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico to send delegates to a congress in Panama to interpret treaties, reconcile disputes, and protect independent governments. The climactic battle for Peru came on December 9 at Ayacucho. Sucre had at least 5,780 men against no more than 9,310 of Viceroy La Serna; but before the battle a few relatives and friends from the opposing sides were allowed to talk, and the royalists believed that the patriots were more determined to fight. La Serna lost 2,100 killed while Sucre’s army suffered 979 casualties. La Serna was taken prisoner, and Canterac surrendered with 583 officers and 2,000 soldiers.
The commander at Callao refused to capitulate, and Bolívar besieged the garrison for more than a year. He resigned his presidency of Colombia on December 22. Sucre cleared out the Spanish in the sierra and entered Cuzco on December 24. In January 1825 he went after Olañeta’s army. His nephew Casimiro Olañeta changed sides and persuaded Sucre to declare Upper Peru an independent nation on February 9. The next day the Congress of Peru met in Lima and renewed Bolívar’s dictatorship for another year. They offered him a million pesos which he declined; later he suggested that it be contributed to the reconstruction of Caracas. Bolívar appointed José de la Mar, who was from Cuenca, president and the Peruvians Hipolito Unanue and José Sanchez Carrion as councilors to administer the government; but the Colombians Tomas de Here and José Gabriel Perez were resented. The liberators had become troops of occupation. On March 10 the Congress of Peru dissolved itself before Bolívar left for the south.
General Sucre entered La Paz on 20 February 1825, and in March he captured all the Spanish generals except Olañeta, who was mortally wounded on April 1 at Tumusla before Sucre reached Potosi. Bolívar was taken aback at first by Sucre’s political initiatives in Upper Peru; but after the young general offered to resign, the liberator confirmed his accomplishments. Bolívar arrived at Arequipa in May and called together the deputies of Upper Peru’s legislature. Next he went to Cuzco. He let Sucre summon an assembly at Chuquisaca on July 10, and most of the deputies were graduates of the University of Chuquisaca. They refused to join either Argentina or Peru, and on August 6 they declared their independence and named their new nation Bolívar (which later became Bolivia). The capital Chuquisaca was renamed Sucre. Native Americans were about 80% of the population of Bolivia.
When clergy in the La Paz cathedral offered the liberator a crown, he passed it to Sucre, who also declined. Bolívar abolished personal service and declared all citizens equal in August. He visited Potosi, and in October he met with a delegation from Argentina which in May had accepted Bolívar’s authority to settle the boundary dispute between Argentina and the province that became Bolivia. Bolívar established local and appellate courts and promised new laws. The state abolished Indian tribute and the consumer taxes of the Spanish regime and confiscated abandoned mines. They converted clerical revenues for education and established orphanages, hospitals, and schools. Bolívar put his old tutor Simon Rodriguez in charge of education. In the fall of 1825 Páez wrote to Bolívar about making him an emperor; but the liberator wrote back that he considered this plan inappropriate, and he reminded his general that the Constitution of Colombia could not be amended until 1831. On 22 December 1825 Bolívar abolished the Indian tribute. From 1819 to 1825 the cost of war materials and imports was paid for by shipping $26,900,000 in British ships from Lima, and the economy was depressed. From 1810 to 1825 the mint in Potosi minted annually less than $500,000, but during the first five months after liberation it minted about $1,000,000. However, speculation in London caused the money market to crash in December 1825, stopping mining operations. In 1826 Bolivia’s imports were £637,407 while exports were worth £722,750 mostly in silver and gold, though the value of the coca trade in La Paz was £143,600.
The last Spanish garrison in South America surrendered El Callao in January 1826. Bolívar delegated his authority in Bolivia to Sucre. Bolívar was back in Lima by February, and a conspiracy against him was discovered and crushed. As Dictator he settled a conflict between the deputies and the Supreme Court of Peru in favor of the latter who took his side. When his military power was resented, Bolívar threatened to resign. Fear that this would throw Peru back into anarchy caused 42 deputies to petition for an adjournment of Parliament. In May the National Assembly of Bolivia asked Bolívar for a constitution. He proposed a government with four branches that added the elective to the legislative, executive, and judicial. One out of every ten citizens would be chosen as electors, who would vote for the other offices. The three-part legislature was made up of tribunes with four-year terms, senators elected for eight years, and censors serving for life. The president was elected for life and was to choose his vice president who would succeed him. Slavery and the entailment of property were abolished in order to break up the large estates. This Bolivian Constitution was adopted in July, and Sucre was elected president for life. Also in July a conspiracy to assassinate Bolívar and expel the Colombians was discovered in Peru. Several officers were imprisoned and exiled, and one man was executed. The government of Peru expelled all the Chileans and Argentineans, making Bolívar more unpopular.
In December 1824 Bolívar, as head of the government of Peru, had sent official invitations to the governments of Colombia, Mexico, Buenos Aires, Chile, and Guatemala to meet in Panama. The deputies from Peru arrived in June 1825, and the Colombians came six months later; but those from Guatemala did not get there until March 1826, and the conference began in June after the delegates from Mexico arrived. By 15 July the conference was over. The delegate sent by the United States had died on the way, and his replacement arrived too late. Colombia, Peru, Central Americans, and Argentinians signed a treaty of confederation with a convention for common defense, and they promised to meet in alternate years in time of peace and annually during war. The next meeting was to be in the Mexican city of Tacubaya. Bolívar did not like the military agreement nor the shift to Mexico, and he opposed ratification by Peru and Colombia.
Bolívar began to push for a Federation of the Andes which would include three states from Colombia and three states from Peru and Bolivia. Bolívar wanted Peru to adopt a Bolivian constitution, and they did so by a plebiscite in August 1826. He was also elected president for life, and after declining he was persuaded by the ladies of Lima to accept. Now he hoped that a Bolivian constitution would be accepted in Colombia, Argentina, and Chile.
The Republic of Colombia had adopted free trade, and French and English products caused many local bankruptcies. In 1826 credit collapsed in the region that later scholars called “Gran Colombia.” Roads and transportation were so bad that coastal regions could buy North American flour cheaper than Colombian flour. General taxes on population replaced the customs duties and caused financial stagnation. People generally thought of Venezuela and Caracas as a barracks for soldiers, Colombia and Bogotá as a university for lawyers, and Ecuador and Quito as a monastery for priests. A major conflict developed between General Páez of Venezuela and Vice President Santander in Colombia.
In January 1826 Páez ordered troops to round up men in the streets, and General Juan Escalona sent a report to Bogotá accusing Páez of brutality. The Colombian Congress suspended Páez and replaced him with Escalona. Agitators persuaded Páez to disobey these orders from Santander, and he wrote to Bolívar to come quickly to prevent a civil war. Valencia and the provinces of Caracas, Carabobo, and Apure supported Páez. Santander also wrote to Bolívar that he was desperately needed.
At first Bolívar sent his aide Daniel Florencio O’Leary to Bogotá and Caracas. In September 1826 Bolívar left most of his Colombian army in Bolivia and Peru, where they were increasingly unpopular, and went north. On August 11 the tax on native Americans was revived in Peru. In Quito he heard complaints about taxation and from those in the army. He reached Bogotá in November, and he took over unlimited executive power under the constitutional provision during internal rebellion. Bolívar explained his Federation of the Andes and used his diplomatic skill with both Santander and Páez, who called an assembly to write a constitution for Venezuela. However, Puerto Cabello under Bolívar’s relative Briceño Mendez remained loyal to Colombia even when besieged by Páez. Bolívar proclaimed an amnesty for the Venezuelan rebels on 1 January 1827 and told Páez he could remain supreme leader of Venezuela if he recognized Bolívar’s authority as President and Liberator and promised to obey his orders. Páez accepted and abandoned the national assembly. They entered Caracas in triumph.
Bolívar criticized Santander for greed and dishonesty, and the Vice President reluctantly promised to institute reforms. Liberal newspapers supported Santander and condemned the Federation of the Andes with its lifetime presidency. Santander advocated New Granada becoming independent of Venezuela. Col. José Bustamente ordered Venezuelan officers in Lima arrested, and the division returned to Colombia. Bolívar’s mistress Manuela Saenz in a colonel’s uniform had tried to rouse the Bolívarian troops, but she was arrested and put in a convent. She and the Venezuelan officers were shipped to Guayaquil. Peru abrogated its Bolivian constitution but elected the Bolivian Andres Santa Cruz president. The Peruvians even moved toward annexing Guayaquil and Ecuador. Santander celebrated Bustamente’s mutiny by having bells rung. Bolívar offered to resign the presidency of Colombia in February 1827, and Santander and his party demanded that he do so; the next month Bolívar renounced his friendship with Santander. The treasury was empty; credit was exhausted; and soldiers and officials were suffering starvation. Bustamente invaded Guayaquil, and the Peruvian general La Mar was put in charge. General Juan José Flores persuaded officers that Bustamente was a traitor and had him arrested. Santa Cruz urged elections, and on June 4 a Constitutional Congress convened with 83 deputies. On August 22 they elected José de la Mar over Santa Cruz 58-27, and the constitution was completed in 1828. In late September 1827 General Flores marched into Guayaquil with a Colombian army and declared it under Colombian law. De la Mar had headed the government of Guayaquil, but he had gone south to be Peru’s President.
Bolívar left Caracas for Bogotá. The Bogotá garrison petitioned for maintaining the Colombian Constitution, but Bolívar got the garrisons of Maracaibo and Cartagena to demand a Bolivian constitution. Bolívar told the Parliament in Bogotá that if they reduced the army, he would not accept the presidency. Bolívar took the oath of office, and in his speech he called for a National Assembly to consider a new constitution. The Congress of Peru voted for the Colombian army that had liberated their country at Ayacucho one million pesos from the five million that Sucre borrowed from England, and according to Tomás de Heres the soldiers received one and a half million.
Captain Valentin Matos attempted to assassinate Sucre in Bolivia, but Sucre commuted his death sentence to exile and even gave him 200 pesos of his own money. Simón Rodriguez caused so much resentment that Sucre dismissed him. The Peruvian mestizo Agustín Gamarra, who was Cuzco’s Prefect, hated Bolívar for having had an affair with his wife, and he instigated a rebellion in December 1827. A battalion at La Paz mutinied and got 40,000 pesos from the Prefect, but they were exterminated by a larger force on their way to Lima. Sucre suppressed the insurgents; but on 18 April 1828 two Peruvian sergeants led the Chuquisaca garrison in Bolivia cheering Gamarra in a mutiny that with muskets wounded Sucre in the arm as he rode by their barracks. On May 17 the Peruvian Congress declared war, and their forces crossed the border and compelled the state of Bolivia to expel all Colombians.
Bolívar authorized Montilla to take command of Cartagena in an emergency, and on 5 March 1828 he did so. Admiral José Padilla, who was a zambo (African-Indian) and supported Santander, went to Mompox. O’Leary advised Padilla to write to Bolívar, who wanted to appoint him commandant at Pasto; but Padilla retuned to Cartagena, where Montilla had him arrested and sent to Bogotá for trial. The district of Cartagena included the city of Ocaña, where a convention would begin in April to revise Colombia’s constitution. After his aide William Fergusson disrupted the satirical paper El Zurriago, the next day the paper published the headline “El incombustible.” Bolívar took power in the region except in Ocaña. In the Colombian election for the convention Bolívar prohibited officers and himself from campaigning. Santander did participate and won nearly a majority of the delegates. Meanwhile gangs armed by Spaniards from Puerto Rico were ravaging the plains around Caracas. Commander Páez responded by having insurgent leaders shot while pardoning their followers, but the uprisings spread to the Orinoco, Barinas, Coro, Guayana, and Cumana. Again Bolívar invoked his emergency powers under Article 128 of the Constitution, and he decreed that special courts could try traitors. He appointed Soublette and Urdaneta to support him.
Bolívar sent a written message that was read at the opening of the National Assembly at Ocaña in which he asked for a strong and efficient government that could protect freedom. Santander got Dr. Peña expelled because of his unresolved embezzlement charge. A motion to invite Bolívar to the Convention was defeated. Bolívar sent his aide O’Leary to represent him and advised him to seek a Bolivian constitution without any compromises. Bolívar’s supporters withdrew from the Convention in early June, and three days later they published the Manifesto to the Colombian People. The rump Convention no longer had a quorum, but they elected Santander their leader and made secret plans. On June 13 the Governor of Cundinamarca and its Council met with people in the plaza of Bogotá to disavow the Convention and give power to Bolívar. Eleven days later Bolívar was welcomed back to Bogotá with cheers and assumed his office in the presence of the Governor, his officials, and the Supreme Court. His dictatorial power was supported by the loyal generals Urdaneta, Mariño, Páez, Soublette, Arismendi, Flores, Cordoba, Montilla, Bermúdez, and Barolomé Salom. Bolívar increased the army to 40,000. His “Organic Decree” of August 27 proclaimed him President-Liberator; the vice presidency was abolished, and a state council was to preserve civil rights. Bolívar was to have power until another National Assembly met in 1830.
However, many of Bolívar’s leading officers were Europeans and were resented by the people. His living openly with his eccentric mistress Manuela in the presidential palace was also unpopular. A committee of seven plotted to assassinate Bolívar so that Vice President Santander could take over the government. Bolívar wanted Santander out of the country, and on September 5 he appointed him ambassador to the United States. Santander knew of the conspiracy and asked them to wait until he left Colombia, but on September 25 Captain Triana got drunk and exposed the plot. Col. Guerra had his aide Major Carujo call a meeting at the house of Vargas Tejada, and that night three groups formed. One group went to the palace of San Carlos at midnight. Manuela helped Bolívar escape out the window and delayed the assassins. Fergusson approached despite her warning, and Carujo killed him. Bolívar hid under a bridge with a servant until his forces had taken control. Once again Bolívar wanted to resign, but he was persuaded to assert his power. Padilla and fourteen of the conspirators were executed, but Santander had his sentence commuted to exile. Then Bolívar granted a general amnesty. Masonic lodges were closed, and liberal aspects of education were curtailed.
The Bolivian Congress had convened on 3 August 1828, and Sucre resigned and went into retirement at Quito. The Peruvian government sent José de Villa as ambassador to Bogotá, and he repudiated Peru’s treaties and debt to Colombia for aiding their liberation. Colombia then broke diplomatic relations with Lima. President La Mar began mobilizing the army of Peru, but his cabinet persuaded him not to resort to war. La Mar had 4,000 troops on the border of Ecuador, and the Peruvian fleet blockaded Colombia’s Pacific ports in October; but Peru suffered a major blow when Admiral Guise was killed during an attack on Guayaquil in November. The Peruvian navy bombarded and blockaded Guayaquil and occupied it early in 1829. Col. José Maria Obando and Lt. Col. José Hilario López plundered the Cauca Valley, and at Pasto they recruited 300 Indians. Obando wrote to La Mar, offering him an alliance against Bolívar. Prefect Luis José de Orbegoso governed northern Peru and raised an army that President La Mar used to invade southern Colombia.
Bolívar put Sucre in charge of the southern war and sent General José Maria Cordoba ahead to drive the rebels out of Popayan. The Peruvian army of 8,400 men held Guayaquil and occupied Cuenca. Bolívar promoted Mosquera over the more experienced Cordoba. Disregarding the advice of Sucre and Cordoba not to march to Guayaquil during the rainy season, Bolívar lost many men on this expedition. Sucre had only 6,000 men, but on 27 February 1829 O’Leary led a cavalry charge with 1,500 Colombians against 5,000 Peruvians and prevailed. In this battle of Tarqui 1,500 soldiers were killed, and more than a thousand were wounded, captured, or missing. The next day La Mar signed the Treaty of Giron that guaranteed Colombia’s territorial integrity and awarded them modest reparations. Bolívar, not knowing the results of this battle, negotiated with Obando, promoting him to general and exempting Pastusos from military service for a year. La Mar gave orders not to evacuate Guayaquil; but he was deposed on June 7 by a revolution in Lima led by General Antonio Gutierrez de la Fuente on behalf of Gamarra, who sent La Mar to exile in Costa Rica, ratified the Giron Treaty, signed an armistice, and let the Colombian army occupy Guayaquil. Sucre opposed the war with Peru, and Bolívar criticized him for the generous terms he gave them in the treaty. Peru’s Congress made Gamarra president and Fuente vice president.
In June 1829 a meeting of officials, officers, and clergy in Bogotá agreed to let Bolívar remain president for life and then replace him with a French prince. Venezuelans led by Páez, Soublette, and Peña used this as a reason to revolt against the Colombian union. General Cordoba resigned and joined the liberals, and with 300 volunteers he tried to overthrow Bolívar in his province of Antioquia; but General Urdaneta sent O’Leary with a force that defeated and killed Cordoba on October 17. Bolívar wrote and published his anonymous “View of Spanish America” in Quito and concluded pessimistically,
There is no good faith in America,
nor among the nations of America.
Treaties are scraps of paper; constitutions printed matter;
elections, battles; freedom, anarchy; and life, a torment.
Such, Fellow-Americans, is our deplorable situation.
Unless we change it, death is to be preferred.4
Bolívar blamed the ministers for their monarchist scheme, and his Colombian cabinet resigned. In 1830 Bolívar returned to Bogotá and selected a new cabinet. On January 20 Colombia’s third constitutional convention elected Sucre president and the Bishop of Santa Marta vice president, pleasing Bolívar who wanted the support of the Church and Sucre to succeed him. That day Bolívar spoke to the Congress about the challenge they faced.
Arduous and great is the task of creating a nation
out of a people emerging from oppression
through the path of anarchy and civil war,
a people lacking the necessary preparation
with which to profit from the salutary reforms
to which they aspire….
You will learn much from the study of our history,
and much from an investigation of our needs,
but more convincing still will be the cries of the people
against the woes that they suffer
because of the lack of established order and freedom.5
He concluded that they needed a thorough reorganization because “Justice demands codes capable of protecting the rights and the honor of free men.”6
Bolívar withdrew from power in March 1830 by naming Domingo Caicedo provisional president. Caicedo lifted the press restrictions that Bolívar had imposed in 1828, and liberal newspapers began attacking Bolívar. Regiments on the coast deserted, and the commanding officer put himself under Páez. Bolívar proposed a war on the Venezuelan secessionists, but most believed that the war would be unpopular and that Venezuelan independence should be accepted. Nevertheless he organized two divisions under O’Leary and the Swede Friedrich de Adlercreutz. Some in the latter’s division mutinied and went over to Páez, who called for a Venezuelan constitutional convention in April.
Bolívar made his farewell speech in Bogotá on April 27. A week later a new constitution was accepted for Colombia, and the Congress elected Joaquin Mosquera president. Bolívar was exiled and voted an annual pension of 30,000 pesos, but the treasury was empty; he sold jewelry and horses to raise 17,000 pesos. On May 13 General Flores declared Ecuador independent. Three days after the liberal newspaper El Democrata reported that Obando may do to Sucre what they had failed to do to Bolívar, Sucre was murdered on June 4 while returning from Bogotá to Quito. Manuela Saenz in Bogotá tried to organize a movement to return Bolívar to power with Urdaneta and other veterans. The Venezuelan Congress sent a message to the Congress of Colombia that they would enter into relations with them only if Bolívar left the country. In mid-August Col. Jimenez led rebel forces into Bogotá and demanded that Urdaneta be made minister of war. President Mosquera tried to negotiate, and the force he sent against the rebels was defeated. Mosquera capitulated and agreed to banish fourteen Santanderists from the September 1828 assassination attempt. Mosquera and Vice President Caicedo resigned on September 4, and the next day the municipal council of Bogotá had Urdaneta sworn in as head of the government. Some cities proclaimed Bolívar president. He was pleased, but he realized that humans are unfortunate in never being satisfied. A commission was sent to Bolívar in Cartagena. He considered this anarchy and refused to return unless he was popularly elected. Now he condemned insurrections and even deplored their own insurrection against the Spaniards.
Bolívar’s tuberculosis became worse. In his last written address to the Colombians he hoped that his death would contribute to the ending of factions so that the union of Colombia would be consolidated. On December 11 Bolívar wrote to General Justo Briceño urging him to be reconciled with Urdaneta and to support the present government of Colombia. He advised that only by suppressing their personal feelings could their friends “save Colombia from anarchy.” Bolívar died on 17 December 1830 one hour after noon, exactly eleven years to the hour after he had signed the covenant for a united Colombia. In 1829 he had made the following prophecy:
I have achieved no other good than independence.
That was my mission.
The nations I have founded will,
after prolonged and bitter agonies,
go into eclipse, but will later emerge
as states of the one great republic, AMERICA.7
In 1828 the Guia de Forasteros published that the population of Peru was 1,248,723 people. On 31 August 1829 Peru’s Congress chose Agustín Gamarra a provisional President with La Fuente as Vice President. Military spending was 48% of Peru’s budget in 1827 and rose to 59% in 1831. That August Chilean diplomacy prevented a border war between Peru and Bolivia. José María de Pando had been a minister for Bolivar, and in 1832 and 1833 he promoted his ideas in the bi-weekly La Verdad. In Pando’s salon in Arequipa he and the orator Andrés Martinez persuaded Manuel Ignacio Vivanco and the officer Felipe Santiago Salaverry to use force to implement their conservative philosophy. Gamarra served until December 1833. He wanted Pedro Pablo Bermúdez to succeed him, but Luna Pizarro returned from exile and persuaded the Congress to elect Luis José de Orbegoso president. Gamarra and Bermúdez started a civil war, and the latter was the provisional supreme ruler from 4 January 1834; but on April 5 constitutionalist forces led by Domingo Nieto defeated the rebels led by San Ramón at Cangallo. José Rufino Echenique changed sides to support Orbegoso on the 23rd, and the next day Orbegoso became President again.
The Constitution of 1834 increased civilian control to reduce the power of the military. Congress determined the size of the armed forces and elected a council of war. In January 1835 the Callao garrison mutinied and supported La Fuente to replace Orbegoso, and Salaverry led the force that defeated them. Then on February 23 Salaverry challenged the government, and Orbegoso fled north from Lima. Salaverry took over the capital and proclaimed himself “Supreme Chief.” Orbegoso made a deal with Bolivia’s leader Santa Cruz, offering him a third of Peru. The Bolivian army invaded Peru, and Salaverry retreated back to Arequipa. His forces won a battle at Uchumayo on 4 February 1836 but were defeated three days later. General Miller betrayed Salaverry by turning him over to Santa Cruz who ordered him executed, but Salaverry survived. Santa Cruz then allied with Orbegoso against Salaverry and Gamarra. Santa Cruz wanted to head a confederation of three states with Bolivia and Peru divided into north and south. Gamarra met in Cuzco with Felipe Pardo, and they agreed to recognize Salaverry as President of Peru. The army of Santa Cruz conquered southern Peru by mid-year while Gamarra went to Lima to join Salaverry who banished him. Salaverry was defeated by Santa Cruz and was finally executed on 19 February 1836. Santa Cruz ruled Peru as interim President for two years from August 1836.
Orbegoso and Bolivia’s President Andrés Santa Cruz formed a confederation of Bolivia and Peru, and Orbegoso was President of North Peru from August 1837 to July 1838. He established the Sociedad de Beneficencia Pública de Lima with a board of forty prominent citizens to endow hospitals and other welfare, and by 1839 they owned more than a tenth of the private houses in the city. The head tax called a contribución was selectively enforced against native Americans and Mestizos, and many who were unable to pay mortgages lost their land, reducing some of these two oppressed ethnic groups nearly to slavery. Also communal lands of indigenous communities were broken up. Peruvian exiles appealed to Chile, and their General Manuel Bulnes led an army that included the Peruvian leaders Gamarra, Gutierrez de la Fuente, and Ramón Castilla. The historian José de la Riva Agüero was President of North Peru from August 1838 to January 1839. South Peru also had two independent presidents from September 1837 to February 1839.
In August 1838 Gamarra and La Fuente occupied Lima, and Gamarra became President again. They defeated the Confederate army led by Santa Cruz in the Yungay province on 20 January 1839. Gamarra influenced the constitution of 1839 that gave the President a six-year term and more power, and it was in effect until 1854 except 1842-45. In early 1841 Manuel Ignacio Vivanco opposed Gamarra; but San Ramón supported Gamarra, and with Castilla they defeated Vivanco’s armies. After Bolivia recalled the exiled Santa Cruz from Ecuador, Peru’s Council of State approved war against Bolivia. Gamarra tried to form a confederation by invading Bolivia, but on 18 November the Bolivians were victorious at Ingavi and killed Gamarra.
Between 1826 and 1856 Peru would have 25 chief executives. Only two were elected by Congress or the electoral college, and about four-fifths would be military officers. The production from Peru’s silver mines had decreased since the colonial era to 95,261 marks in 1830 and then went up to 307,214 in 1840; but this was in silver coins, and exports reduced the money supply. Also in 1840 steamships began appearing in the Pacific Ocean, and British capitalists helped Ramón Castilla organize the mining of guano (bird-dung deposits) for export that became a very lucrative business. However, the ammonia fumes harmed the skin and blinded some workers who were mostly native Americans.
In early 1843 the military leader Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco seized power and proclaimed himself president, and José Rufino Echenique supported him. Castilla and Domingo Nieto organized constitutionalist forces in the south, and they fought Vivanco’s army on August 29 at Pachia in Taona and again in Moquegua in October. Nieto died in February 1844, but Castilla led their army and defeated Vivanco’s forces at Carmen Alto on 22 July 1844. Castilla acted as President of Peru for six months from February 1844 to August when he reinstated Manuel Menéndez as the constitutional president. From 1839 to 1845 the tax on native Americans averaged 1,757,296 pesos per year.
Venezuela was founded as a republic with a constitution in 1830 when it had an estimated 800,000 people. On January 13 General José Antonio Páez set up a provisional government with a cabinet and summoned a Constituent Congress to meet in Valencia, the new capital. They met on May 6, and Páez declared, “My sword, my lance, and all my military triumphs are submitted with the most respectful obedience to the decisions of the law.”8 The new constitution they passed was proclaimed on October 23. That month the Congress had extended the period before manumission of slaves was required. Voting was still restricted to primary elections by men of means. The legislature included a Senate with two from each province and a House of Representatives with one representative for every 20,000 people. The President was elected for a four-year term but could not run for re-election until later. The Electoral College chose the President and the Vice President whose term provided a transition from the last two years of one President to the first two years of the next.
The Congress met in Valencia in March 1831 and proclaimed the elected President Páez and Vice President Diego Bautista Urbaneja. The debt from the war of independence was apportioned in December 1834 with Colombia responsible for 50%, Venezuela for 28.5%, and Ecuador with 21.5%. Venezuela’s exports of 3 million pesos in the early 1930s doubled by the early 1840s. Venezuela made commercial and navigation treaties, notably with Hanseatic cities in 1837. In this era political crimes could get the death penalty, and the churches lost their tax exemptions and their control over education. The Conservatives even gave this stable state autonomy over the military, and new roads aided commerce.
Five candidates ran for president in 1835, and Páez shifted from supporting Carlos Soublette to helping the Electoral College choose José María Vargas. After his resignation, which Congress refused to accept, in June 1835 the military revolted in Maracaibo and a few days later in Caracas. They arrested Vargas and banished him to St. Thomas on 10 June. General Santiago Mariño took power in the name of reform, and a Popular Assembly made Páez provisional president with Mariño as commander-in-chief. In the east José Tadeo Monagas proclaimed a federation as he had in 1831. Páez disarmed enough rebels in July so that Vargas could return in August as President. Páez proclaimed an amnesty that allowed Monagas and other officers to keep their ranks; but Congress punished rebels in Puerto Cabello. Vargas did not like the conflict and resigned again in April 1836. Two other men were President until Soublette served from March 1837 to February 1839 when Páez was re-elected with 212-10 vote by the electors for another four years.
In 1840 Antonio Leocadio Guzmán founded the Liberal party, and Fermín Toro became a leader of the Conservative party. Most newspapers supported one of these two parties. Guzmán’s El Venezolano newspaper called for abolition of slavery, extending voting rights, and protection for debtors. Federalists and the Monagas family brought the Liberal party to power. In the 1842 elections the Conservative candidate Soublette won, and he served 1843-47. In the 1844 elections the Liberals used aggressive tactics, and the Government called out the militia.
What was later called “Gran Colombia” had been formed in 1819-20 when Bolívar led the liberation of New Granada from Spain. With the spread of independence the federation was dissolved in 1830-31 and became New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador. New Granada’s government under President Joaquin Mosquera in Bogotá continued to use the name Colombia for a while according to the Constitution of 1830. In August the military deposed Mosquera and replaced him with the Venezuelan General Rafael Urdaneta who served for eight months. Generals José María Obando and José Hilario Lopez led the military that persuaded him to resign. Obando was Vice President and governed until Congress under the new Constitution of 1832 elected José Ignacio de Márquez in March. Voting was still limited to men with property or sufficient income, but they delayed the implementation of the literary requirement from 1840 to 1850. Local assemblies gained the authority to make ordinances for schools, roads, etc. The military lost their exemption from jurisdiction that was retained for the clergy. The military in Panama supported the liberals and restored that region to New Granada.
General Francisco de Paula Santander had been Bolívar’s Vice President of Colombia 1821-27, and he became President of New Granada in October 1832 and began a four-year term in 1833. A conspiracy led by Catalan General José Sardá was discovered. Most were easily caught, and 17 were executed in Bogotá’s main square. Sardá escaped, but loyal officers pretended to join his organization and shot him dead in 1834. New Granada spent about half its budget on the military with an army of 3,300 men. In 1835 a census counted 1,686,000 people in New Granada with 40,000 in Bogotá, the only large city. Congress abolished the regressive alcabala sales tax over the President’s veto. Government monopolies of tobacco and salt with other taxes provided most of the revenue. Santander increased the number of children going to primary schools from 17,000 to over 20,000, and he had new secondary schools opened. The Catholic religion was predominant, and New Granada formed diplomatic relations with the papacy, though the state kept a role in ecclesiastical appointments. Santander wanted to be succeeded by Obando, but he was suspected of being behind the assassination of the heroic General Sucre.
Instead the civilian Dr. José Ignacio de Márquez was supported by the Bolivarians and was elected President in 1837. He got the agreement dividing up Gran Colombia’s debt ratified, and he formed diplomatic relations with Spain. When Congress tried to suppress the smaller monasteries in Pasto, a revolt broke out in 1839 that was called the “War of the Supremes” because local leaders called themselves jefe supremo. The Pastusos were put down, but in 1840 Obando revived the effort, and he was supported by Santanderistas who called themselves “Progresistas.” Santander had been elected to the Chamber of Representatives; he opposed violent revolt but died in May. Supreme Director Obando favored a federal system, and the uprising spread. The Bolivarian generals Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera and Pedro Alcántara Herrán suppressed the rebellion by early 1842, and Congress elected Herrán president in 1841.
These Conservatives issued another constitution in 1843 that strengthened the executive, and Herrán invited the Jesuits to come back in order to improve education. His Secretary of the Interior Mariano Ospina Rodríguez removed Bentham and other modern thinkers from the curriculum, and they tried to focus on natural sciences and useful studies. They extended the work requirement for the children of slaves from up to the age of 18 to 25. In 1843 they allowed slave owners to export slaves to other countries.
When Bolivia became independent in 1825, there were about 800,000 native Americans, 200,000 Europeans, 100,000 Mestizos, 4,700 African slaves, and 2,300 free Africans. The main languages were Quechua and Aymara, and about one-fifth of the people spoke Spanish. General Andrés Santa Cruz returned to Bolivia in May 1829 and ruled the nation for ten years. In 1829 he eliminated the colonial mining tax, and other taxes were reduced to 5%. In 1830 the 3% gold tax was also ended. Military expenses were about 45% of the budget. The Bolivian Constitution adopted on 31 August 1831 prohibited slavery. Bolivia was fairly peaceful until June 1835 when their army invaded Peru during their civil war that led to the defeat of Gamarra and Salaverry. Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz was the chief organizer of the Confederation of Bolivia with North Peru and South Peru that proclaimed the Republic of South Peru on 17 March 1836 and of North Peru on August 11. A Chilean army invaded Peru in 1838. Santa Cruz and his Confederate army were defeated in Yungay on 20 January 1839, and he resigned as Supreme Protector on 20 February. The Confederation dissolved.
José Miguel de Velasco Franco had been Vice President of Bolivia from May 1829 to July 1835, and he became President on 22 February 1839. He turned against Santa Cruz and had his personal possessions confiscated. Velasco presided over the writing of a new constitution and implemented some reforms. General José Ballivián led a revolt by those favoring Santa Cruz, and they removed Velasco in June 1841. A Peruvian army invaded Bolivia and without a battle took over La Paz in October. Argentina supported Velasco’s army in the south while Ballivián supported Gamarra’s attempt to take over part of Bolivia for a while. Then Ballivián turned against Gamarra and took control of Bolivia’s government to oppose the Peruvians. On November 18 at Ingavi his army defeated the invaders and killed Gamarra. This ended Bolivia’s economic obligations to Peru from the Confederation. Ballivián was President of Bolivia from 27 September 1841 to December 1847 during a period of peace.
After Venezuela withdrew from Gran Colombia, in May 1830 a constitutional congress met in Quito to prevent that happening there; but on the 31st General Juan José Flores called a constituent assembly to meet in Riobamba. From August 10 to September 22 they devised a constitution for a new nation named Ecuador after the equator with a federal government for three equal states of Quito, Guayaquil, and Azuay. The Roman Catholic Church was established, but the government controlled patronage and collected tithes. Congress was elected indirectly and chose the president and vice president, an executive that appointed many officials and judges as well as bishops. Thirty deputies had one-year terms and elected Flores the President for four years. He had been born in Venezuela and rose in the military, married an influential heiress, and was supported by the councils of Quito and Pasto. Bolivarians led by General Urdaneta fought to maintain Gran Colombia there starting in Guayaquil on November 28, but after Bolívar’s death on December 17 Urdaneta and 25 officers left the country. Flores had an army of 2,000 men with many foreigners, and the military budget of 200,000 pesos was most of the government’s 387,973 pesos of revenues. Colombians prevented Flores from annexing Cauca and Popayan, and the Río Tulcán became the northern border with Peru. In 1832 Ecuador did annex the Archipiélago de Colón (Galápagos Islands).
President Flores was criticized for appointing a Colombian as Minister of the Treasury, and in 1833 the English liberal Col. Francisco Hall founded El Quiteño Libre to oppose the conservative government; but their periodical lasted only four months until September 14 when Congress approved the suppression of that society. Six days later the El Quiteño Libre Society began a revolt in Guayaquil that was supported by the liberal Vicente Rocafuerte. Soldiers killed Col. Hall and three society members on October 10. Rocafuerte had a large estate in Chihuahua, Mexico, and the revolt was called the “War of the Chihuahuas.” The army defeated the rebels at Sabaneta and Mapasingue. In 1834 President Flores came to an agreement with Rocafuerte, and fighting ended after the battle of Miñarca on 18 January 1835.
Vicente Rocafuerte governed the Guayas state from September 1834 to June 1835. Then a constitutional convention met in June with Vice President José Joaquín de Olmedo presiding. On 8 August 1835 the Ambato Convention elected Vicente Rocafuerte Ecuador’s second President, and his term lasted until January 1839. He had been born in Guayaquil and was well educated in Europe learning six languages. Rocafuerte was influenced by the French Revolution and the government of the United States. From July 1821 to November 1823 he lived in New York and Philadelphia. In 1821 he published Ideas necesarias a todo pueblo Americano independiente, que quiera ser libre (Necessary Ideas for Every Independent American Nation which Wishes to Be Free). Then he wrote another book to support Mexican revolutionaries who drove Emperor Agustín de Iturbide into exile in May 1823. Also that year he wrote a book with his political ideas for a popular, elective, representative Colombian system that fit independent America. He urged a federalist republic after the example of the United States. From 1824 to 1829 Rocafuerte worked as a diplomat for Mexico in London.
The liberal 1835 constitution strengthened Ecuador’s independence from Gran Colombia. It required the President to have been born in Ecuador and made the House of Deputies more representational. Rocafuerte reduced the power of militaristic officers by forming the National Guard and by founding military academies for the army and navy. An attempt to start a girls school with a Quaker teacher aroused the opposition of the Bishop of Quito. Criminal cases were given trials by jury; public funding became regular; foreign debt payments were arranged; and a commission was appointed to codify the laws. In 1838 Congress reduced religious holidays and made the age to join a religious order 25. When Rocafuerte left office in 1839, he returned to govern Guayaquil with more reforms.
General Flores was re-elected President of Ecuador again on 15 January 1839. On 15 February 1840 Spain recognized Ecuador’s independence. Flores tried to annex Pasto and caused a failed war against Colombia. He had so many troubles that he dissolved the Congress in 1841, and they did not meet until 1843 to choose his successor. Instead a third constitutional convention met in Quito on 15 January 1843. Flores did not want to alternate the presidency with Rocafuerte, and this convention obediently passed what critics called “The Charter of Slavery” that gave the President a term of eight years followed by a possible a second term. The 27 senators were to be elected to 12-year terms, nine every four years. Thirty deputies were to be elected for eight years also, half every four years. Congress would meet only once every four years, and a permanent commission of five senators would advise in between. Only the Catholic Church was allowed public worship, but others could meet in private. On April 1 the Convention elected Flores president again with only two votes against him.
In March 1817 the Demerara-Essequibo colony in British Guiana passed an ordinance to register slaves, and by 1820 all the British colonies in the West Indies had passed such acts. In 1823 several missionary societies worked together with Quakers to form the Anti-Slavery Society, and Thomas Fowell Buxton introduced resolutions in the House of Commons in May to improve the conditions of slaves by allowing them to marry and purchase their freedom. The Government’s George Canning proposed alternative resolutions to abolish flogging of women, allow slave evidence in court, encourage manumission, and protect slave property; this resulted in flogging being abolished in August. On the 17th slaves gathered on Plantation Success to plan an uprising. The African Quamina was a deacon in Rev. John Smith’s chapel at Le Resouvenir, and he urged a nonviolent strike instead. The house-slave Joseph Packard betrayed the plot to his master who informed the Governor. He ordered them to lay down their arms. They refused, and the next night they put managers and overseers in the stocks. These Africans had become Christians and used less violence. Smith was arrested on August 21 and was charged with rebellion. The government declared martial law and suppressed the rebellion on the East Coast as troops led by Col. Leahy dispersed 2,000 Africans at Bachelor’s Adventure. Natives killed Quamina as a runaway, and the African leader Jack Gladstone was hanged. After a trial 27 were executed. Yet soldiers had killed even more, though very few Europeans died. Smith died in prison in February 1824.
In 1825 Britain passed slavery reforms that limited working hours, permitted marriage and the rights to hold property and buy freedom. The colonies of Demerara-Essequibo and Berbice united to become the colony of British Guiana in 1831. That year Demerara-Essequibo passed the Consolidated Slave Ordinance that mandated manumission which was to become law in August 1833 and end slavery on 1 August 1834. Planters were to be compensated with $21.5 million for 84,915 slaves. However, there was to be a transition to freedom by requiring six years of apprenticeship with field-slaves working 45 hours a week in exchange for food, clothing, and allowances. Africans led by Damon in the Trinity parish refused to work and took refuge in the Holy Trinity Church. The Governor had the leaders arrested. Four were transported; 31 others were imprisoned and flogged, and Damon was hanged.
Voting qualifications enabled planters and merchants to control the government. Following the example of West Indian colonies, the planters agreed to free the apprentices on 1 August 1838. They began importing immigrants with 430 Portuguese arriving in 1835, but most soon died. About 5,000 laborers came from the West Indies 1835-38. Immigration from India began with 396 in May 1838. In 1841 they used public money to bring in 4,297 Portuguese, 2,745 from the West Indies, and 1,102 Africans.
1. Selected Writings of Bolívar tr. Lewis Bertrand, Volume 1, p. 175.
2. Ibid., p. 178.
3. Quoted in San Martin: Knight of the Andes by Ricardo Rojas tr. Herschel Brickell and Carlos Videla, p. 251-252.
4. Selected Writings of Bolívar tr. Lewis Bertrand, Volume 2, p. 747.
5. Ibid., Volume 2, p. 749.
6. Ibid., Volume 2, p. 755.
7. Quoted in Simón Bolívar by Gerhard Masur, p. 698.
8. Simón Bolívar: A Life by John Lynch, p. 269.