PART 1
➢
Article: The Ideology of Creole Revolution: Imperialism and Independence in American and
Latin American Political Thought by Joshua Simon (pages 3-11)
According to Simon, Creoles like Simón Bolívar led the American independence movements, but
were caught between two worlds and conflicting interests that torn them. As evidence, Joshsua Simon
analyzes Simón Bolívar’s speeches, writings, war campaigns, etc. Answer the following.
Answer the following questions by writing on the line T (True) or F (False).
1. Simón Bolívar’s father was a Basque noble who emigrated to America in 1589 and
received a grant of encomienda, or forced indigenous labor, from the king of Portugal.
_____
2. Bolívar wanted to limit popular influence on government internally in order to consolidate Creole _____
rule after independence was won.
3. Creoles rejected the 1795 policy that gave pardos with 500 reales entitlement to privileges and _____
immunities previously enjoyed by Creoles and peninsular Spaniards exclusively.
4. Venezuelan Creoles came to think that continued subordination to imperial Spain had begun to _____
imperil the “ internal power structure ” of the colony.
5. Bolívar owned slaves, whose life of labor supported his personal consumption and travel, as well _____
as his intellectual and political pursuits.
6. Bolívar ’ s anti-imperialism and attacks on Spanish rule in America were because it gave Creoles _____
all autonomy in the management of colonial affairs.
7. Bolívar believed that he was entitled to a “sort of feudal” lordship in the Americas and over their _____
colonies’ Indigenous and African inhabitants.
8. Bolívar did not seek to connect the struggle for independence to a pre-Hispanic past, or to defend _____
his rebellion as an effort to rectify the injustice of the conquest.
9. Bolívar believed Creoles were Americans by birth and Europeans by right. Creoles wanted to rule _____
themselves while giving up all their colonial privileges.
10. Slaves fought on both sides of the independence battle since both sides promised freedom in _____
exchange for domestic service.
11. Bolívar was willing to give pardos absolute equality in both public and private.
1
_____
PART 2
Article: Liberation Theology and Social Movements by Robert Mackin.
Answer all the following. (full sentence/paragraph as directed)
➢
➢
12. In what decades were liberationists key players throughout Latin America? They were key players in
specific movements. What was the focus of these movements throughout Latin America?
13. MacKin notes that turning point of Liberation Theology in Latin America occurred at the Catholic Latin
America Episcopal Conference (CELAM) at Medellin in 1968. Three conclusions set the agenda for the
movement for the next several years. Explain these three conclusions. The explanation should consist of
one paragraph at least (1.5 points).
14. Liberation theology was strongest in Chile and Brazil. What did Liberation Theology do after the military
came to power in both these countries?
15. What do the church hierarchies have in common in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela and El
Salvador?
16. What do elite dependence theorists argue regarding changes in Latin America?
17. What do mass movement theory say regarding change in Latin America?
18. Indigenous groups across Latin America had different responses toward the approach called “pastoral
indígena”. Some accepted it; others turned to Protestantism; and others sought to revitalize traditional
indigenous beliefs. Why did the Catholic Church sponsor this new approach? When did this happen?
19. In which four countries are indigenous peoples the best-organized sectors?
20. Mackin notes that liberationists were slow to address gender equality and gives two reasons.
---Explain these two reasons.
The explanation should consist of one short paragraph at least
Part 3
Paragraph Question:
Summarize the article: Women’s Movement as analyzed by Horton. This summary should take no more
than two paragraphs. You need to be concise. You may choose to explain three or all the themes in her
analysis. These themes are:
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
Non-Gender Based Mobilization
Barriers to Movement Participation
Gendered Movement Resources
Post-Transition Marginalization
Movement Autonomy and States
Movement Outcomes an Future Challenges
2
3
The Ideology of Creole Revolution
Imperialism and Independence
in American and Latin American
Political Thought
Joshua Simon
Columbia University
1
www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781316610961
DOI: 10.1017/9781316665633 © Joshua Simon 2017 This publication is in copyright.
Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing
agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2017 Printed in the United
States of America by Sheridan Books, Inc A catalog record for this publication is
available from the British Library .
2
The Ideology of Creole Revolution
The Ideology of Creole Revolution Today, Simón Bolívar is widely regarded as the
greatest hero of Spanish America ’ s struggle for independence, but his road to
eternal fame and glory was rocky. The summer of 1815 found Bolívar struggling to
overcome a serious reversal. Only two years after its founding, the Second Republic
of Venezuela had followed the First into ruin, succumbing to simultaneous assaults
by the insurgency spearheaded by pardo – or mixed-race – cattlemen from the
colony ’ s eastern plains. Bolívar retreated with what remained of his army from
Caracas to the Caribbean port city of Cartagena before sailing into exile on the island
of Jamaica. There, he published an account and defense of his efforts in pursuit of
independence to date, emphasizing an important problem that he and his fellow
patriots had encountered:
We are neither Indians nor Europeans, but a species midway between the
legitimate owners of the land and the Spanish usurpers. Being Americans by
birth and Europeans by right, we must both dispute the claims of natives and
resist external invasion. Thus, we find ourselves in the most extraordinary
and complicated situation. 1
Bolívar did not face this extraordinary and complicated situation alone. Here, he
describes a dilemma that arose in each of the revolutions that freed the Americas,
North and South, British and Spanish, from imperial rule. The Creoles – descendants
of European settlers, born in the Americas – who led the American independence
movements were, as Bolívar relates, caught between two worlds and torn by
conflicting interests. They were deeply attached to the rights and privileges they
enjoyed as Europeans, but resentful of the political, economic, and social
subordination that their American birth sometimes entailed. As a result, they were
enthralled by the idea of exercising greater autonomy in the Americas, but also wary
of the turmoil that severing ties with Europe might unleash. They knew that their
colonial societies rested in delicate balance, always in danger of tipping over into
tyranny or anarchy – toward, that is to say more, more complete domination from
across the Atlantic, or toward chaotic conflict with the African Americans, Native
Americans, and mixed-race Americans that they lived amongst.
Ultimately, the task of defining and defending Creoles ’ distinctive interests
fell to the political theorists of their revolutions, intellectuals and statesmen like
Bolívar, who justified the Americas ’ independence movements before the court of
global opinion, designed the Americas’ first constitutions, and conducted the
Americas ’ early foreign policies with an eye to sheltering Creoles ’ cherished rights
from both foreign and domestic threats. As they grappled with the two-sided
dilemma they faced in common, Creole revolutionaries across two continents
developed a common ideology, marked by its contradictory embrace of both antiimperialist and imperialist commitments
3
4
Simón Bolívar and the Contradictions of Creole Revolution
The American independence movements produced many heroes: stirring writers
and rhetoricians whose words raised peoples in rebellion; adepts of military
strategy and international diplomacy who overcame opponents at home and
abroad; and great legislators and statesmen who placed new nations on firm
foundations. In retrospect, it is easy to romanticize these individuals, to treat their
ideas and accomplishments as strokes of transcendent genius rather than as efforts,
more or less successful, to address problems arising in their particular place and
time. No figure has proven more susceptible to such retrospective romanticization
than Simón Bolívar, by far the best-known and most widely revered leader of the
Spanish American independence movements, whose graven image, often on
horseback, can be found in cities throughout the world.
Bolívar ’ s first equestrian statue was erected in Caracas in 1874 by
Venezuelan President Antonio Guzmán Blanco, as part of an effort to add nationalist
appeal to his program of economic modernization and authoritarian politics. Since
then, Bolívar has been invoked by Venezuelan politicians from every conceivable
point on the ideological spectrum, from the petro-capitalist Juan Vicente Gómez to
the international socialist Hugo Chávez Frías.1 A frequent subject in Latin American
literature, Bolívar was elegized by José Martí, versified by Pablo Neruda, and
novelized by Gabriel García Márquez.2 Opinions from outside Latin America have
been more varied: Bolívar was widely celebrated as the “ George Washington of the
South ” in the United States, 3 and exchanged expressions of mutual admiration with
Jeremy Bentham, 4 amongst other European luminaries. But Benjamin Constant
thought that Bolívar ’ s ambitions were more reminiscent of Napoleon than
Washington, 5 and Karl Marx found even this less flattering comparison too
generous. 6
Similarly stark divisions characterize the vast scholarly literature on Bolívar ’
s political thought. Appearing alternately as a committed democrat and a cynical
dictator, 7 a pragmatic leader and a utopian dreamer, 8 a post-racial scourge of
empire and defender of the colonies ’ racial order, 9 it is difficult to discern the
central theoretical tendencies of a thinker who, after almost two hundred years of
analysis, has come to represent all things to all people. It is also difficult to argue
that some of these accounts are simply wrong, since Bolívar ’ s voluminous
intellectual production provides ample evidence for each. Still, nearly every
portrayal of Bolívar ’ s political thought errs by omission, emphasizing the particular
texts and periods of activity that support a given reading, while ignoring others that
might suggest an alternative or even antithetical interpretation. 10 Thus, the
approach taken in this chapter is different, seeking to explain the very
contradictions in Bolívar ’ s ideas by showing how they reflect the contradictory
institutional position of a Creole revolutionary. In particular, I argue that Bolívar ’ s
political thought exhibits the simultaneous commitment to both anti-imperialism
and imperialism that was characteristic of his colleagues throughout the
hemisphere.
4
Biographically, Simón Bolívar was perhaps the finest flesh-and-blood
instance of the Creole ideal type. Born in 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela, his was the
seventh generation of American Bolívars, continuing a line led by his namesake,
Simón de Bolívar, a minor Basque noble who emigrated to America in 1589 and
received a grant of encomienda , or forced indigenous labor, from the king of Castile.
Two hundred years later, upon the early death of his parents, the young Simón
Bolívar inherited a substantial estate, with diverse holdings in commercial
agriculture, cattle ranching, and mining, mostly operated by slave labor. From an
early age, Bolívar received an excellent private education, with tutors including the
noted radical intellectual Simón Rodríguez and the well-known poet and essayist
Andrés Bello. He continued his education and was first exposed to politics in
Europe, making two trips during his youth and young adulthood, and a third just
after Venezuela took its first halting steps toward autonomy.
There, he came to know a number of contemporary intellectuals and political
figures personally, including Alexander von Humboldt and the aforementioned
Bentham. He was in Paris on the day Napoleon I crowned himself in Notre Dame,
though accounts differ as to whether he actually witnessed the event. 11
During the fifteen years of warfare that preceded Andean South America ’ s
independence, Bolívar became the most prominent military and political leader in
the region, as well as its most influential intellectual. His armies eventually freed the
present-day countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia
from Spanish rule, earning him the title “ The Liberator ” ( El Libertador ) from his
civilian supporters, and the nickname “ Iron Ass ” ( Culo de Hierro ) from the soldiers
that followed him, on horseback, back and forth across the continent. With every
victory, and every setback, Bolívar published newspaper articles and discourses,
penned an incredible number of private and official letters, and made his opinions
known to a close circle of aides and admirers, leaving excellent evidence of his
opinions on the Spanish imperial system, the justice of the cause of independence,
and the proper forms of government for newly established American polities.
Bolívar ’ s writing was thoughtful and beautifully composed, displaying a classical
erudition and knowledge of contemporary European thinking as impressive as that
of any of the founders of the United States.
However, perhaps because Bolívar achieved an individual prominence
beyond that of any single North American revolutionary, his writings were rarely
directed at refuting specific arguments from identifiable opponents, as were
Alexander Hamilton ’ s or, as we will see, Lucas Alamán’s. Instead, his style tends
toward bold pronouncements on the promise the future held for an independent
America, distraught treatises on difficulties faced in the present, and detailed
discourses on constitutional designs intended to effect the transition from the
difficult present to a promising future.
Bolívar’s philosophical influences also differed from Hamilton’s and
Alamán’s, drawing deeply on the tradition of “classical republicanism” or “civic
humanism” that intellectual historians have traced from renaissance Italy, through
England’s Glorious Revolution to Enlightenment France and the North American
independence movement. 12 From this literature, Bolívar adopted a distinctive
language for discussing politics, often contrasting his ideals of virtue, liberty, and
5
freedom with their opposites: corruption, servitude, and slavery. Like other
American republicans, he was prone to applying the latter terms collectively,
speaking of entire colonial societies oppressed and debased by Spanish rule as
enslaved, while neglecting what might seem a more obvious, individual application
of the term to the Americas ’ many indentured servants, debt peons, and chattel
slaves.
Along with its distinctive language, Bolívar adopted the classical republican
tradition ’ s concern with the maintenance of collective liberty against internal and
external threats. Like his philosophical influences, Bolívar focused on the particular
threat posed by the effects of long-term servitude or dependence on subject
populations: the habits of servility or corruption thought to be typical of populations
accustomed to authoritarian rule. He was convinced that Spanish Americans,
because they had been denied an active role in imperial politics, lacked the civic
virtues that would induce them to risk their own lives and fortunes to maintain their
countries ’ freedom from foreign conquest and domestic anarchy. As we will see,
escaping the vicious cycle of corruption for the virtuous circle of liberty was the
central aim of Bolívar ’ s constitutional thought, driving his interest in ancient and
modern models of mixed government and his attraction to moral exemplars,
including both individually heroic founders and lawgivers, and institutional
guardians of public spiritedness and the rule of law.
Though well versed in the classics, Bolívar read less Aristotle and Machiavelli
than Montesquieu and Rousseau, whom he often referenced in his writings.13 From
these authors, he absorbed mixed messages about the appropriate size of republics,
about the probable effects of territorial expansion upon political stability and
individual liberties, and about the propriety of forcibly assimilating new citizens to
putatively republican regimes. 14 But the source of Bolívar ’ s own inconsistencies on
these issues was political rather than philosophical. Bolívar brought the framework
of classical republicanism to bear on the distinctive dilemmas arising in a Creole
Revolution, using the tradition ’ s concepts of freedom and citizenship, virtue and
corruption, monarchy and mixed government to justify a rebellion against European
rule that left Creoles ’ ascendance within America undisturbed, to design innovative
constitutions meant to contain the potentially explosive caste conflicts an inherited
imperial social hierarchy could produce after independence, and to assert and
pursue power and influence for his new state within hemispheric and global affairs.
Thus, while his language was distinctive, Bolivar’s core commitments closely
coincided with those of Alexander Hamilton and Lucas Alamán.
In the following text, in Bolívar ’ s early writings, I describe a familiar
ambiguity between universalist claims made in defense of American independence
and more particular claims made on behalf of a European-descended elite whose
rightful place atop the colony ’ s social hierarchy appeared to be under threat. In his
well-known constitutional discourses of the late 1810s and early 1820s, I show that
the Liberator, like other Creole constitutional designers before and after him,
proposed a presidentialist system of separated powers and sought to create a union
of former colonies that would fortify American independence against external
enemies and limit popular influence on government internally in order to
consolidate Creole rule after independence was won. And in Bolívar ’ s calls to
6
expand the theater of the war for independence and his famous projections of
supranational, even global, political entities, I discern an imperial aspiration,
premised like other Creoles ’ comparable ambitions on impressions of the worldhistorical importance of the revolutionary cause and the depraved condition of its
opponents. In short, I present Bolívar as an exemplary ideologist of Creole
Revolution and demonstrate that the theoretical tensions present in his defense of
Spanish American revolution, his constitutions, and his foreign policy were directly
related to the contradictory institutional position he occupied as an American
Creole.
4.1 Spanish America ’ s First Declaration of Independence
Beginning in 1776, a program of economic modernization and political
centralization implemented throughout the Spanish American Empire transformed
Caracas from a bustling, but distinctly peripheral port city into a central node of
imperial authority. Caracas became first the seat of an intendancy and a captaincygeneral, fiscal-economic and political-military administrations, respectively, and
then of an audiencia , or imperial appellate court, and a consulado , a merchant and
planter guild charged with organizing relations between metropolitan traders and
colonial producers. These changes solidified the city ’ s dominance of its immediate
surroundings, with the new institutions exercising jurisdiction over a region roughly
corresponding to the present-day country of Venezuela. But they also brought the
city itself, and its prosperous and growing cacao, coffee, and indigo exports, under
increased imperial scrutiny. As such, the reforms received mixed reviews from
Caraqueño elites, who generally saw financial returns from their landholdings rise
under a streamlined regulatory regime, but also resented the cadres of newly
arrived administrators, bearing freshly minted qualifications from metropolitan
universities, who presumed to regulate a colony accustomed to a degree of benign
neglect. 15
There was much less ambiguity in Creole responses to another policy
introduced in 1795, designed to recognize the increasing wealth and social
prominence of some Venezuelan pardos – free persons of mixed racial backgrounds
– while fattening royal revenues at the same time. Added to a long list of royal
dispensations offered for sale was a certificate attesting to the racial purity of its
bearer, which would permit pardos with 500 reales in disposable cash to purchase
entitlement to privileges and immunities previously enjoyed by Creoles and
peninsular Spaniards exclusively. The City Council of Caracas, Creole-dominated
institution, petitioned the king to withdraw the offer, citing the threat it posed to the
“ present subordination ” of the pardo plurality in the colony, and cautioning him
against accepting further advice from colonial officials ill-disposed to the interests of
“ españoles americanos. ”16 With new imperial administrators curtailing their
autonomy from above, then, and new imperial policies undermining their status
from below, at the end of the eighteenth century some Venezuelan Creoles came to
think that continued subordination to imperial Spain had begun to imperil the “
internal power structure ” of the colony.17
7
This was to remain a minority view for more than a decade, though, even as
Spain ’ s entanglements in European conflicts caused the Crown to impose evermore extractive trade and tariff policies on its American colonies. As late as 1806,
when Francisco de Miranda, whom we met in the last chapter, landed a small
number of ships and a rag-tag company of soldiers on the northern coast of South
America with plans to begin a revolution, the Creole and peninsular elite of Caracas
were unified in their fidelity to Spain. Indeed, the Creole-dominated City Council
denounced Miranda as a traitor and contributed funds to support his swift
expulsion.18
Matters shifted decisively only in 1808 when Napoleon ’ s invasion of Spain
plunged the entire empire into crisis. Caraqueños were amongst the first Americans
to learn of their monarch’s forced abdication and the resistance their peninsular
counterparts were making against French rule. In conformity with the program
followed in Spain, the city ’ s elite, peninsular as well as Creole, petitioned the
captain-general for permission to form a Junta, a temporary committee to bear
sovereign authority in king’s absence. Despite its moderation – the petitioners even
proposed to include the captain-general, the intendant, the archbishop, and the
regent of the Audiencia in their Junta – this request was rejected. When it was
resubmitted, its signers were arrested and the captain-general sent envoys into
pardo communities with warnings that Creole autonomy would bring worse
conditions for the colony ’ s non-whites, thus raising the specter that the city ’ s
Creole elites dreaded most: a race war like the one they had heard about in Haiti.
Cowed by the captain-general ’ s aggressive tactics, the juntista movement
retreated, reemerging once again in 1810, when news arrived that the Spanish
resistance had suffered a series of devastating defeats. On April 19, the city ’ s Creole
leaders peacefully deposed and deported the captain-general, declaring that
sovereign authority within the colony would rest, until the king returned to the
throne, in a Junta Conservadora de los Derechos de Fernando VII – a Committee for
the Preservation of the Rights of Fernando VII. As indicated by this name, the
formation of this committee did not represent a rejection of Spanish rule, or, even
less, a denunciation of monarchical government. Rather, like other parts of the
Americas, Caracas began down the road to revolution with a modest assertion of
autonomy driven mainly by an unwillingness to be simply swept along by events
unfolding across the Atlantic.
However, by this time more radical sentiments had begun to emerge,
particularly amongst the younger generation of Caraqueño Creoles, who started to
speak amongst themselves of independence and republican government. Two
brothers from a wealthy and well-established family, Simón and Juan Vicente
Bolívar, soon established themselves as prominent spokesmen of this faction. In
response, more moderate elders had both Bolívars conveniently absented from the
scene, sending them as representatives from the Junta to the governments of
England and the United States, respectively. In London, Simón Bolívar and his fellow
delegates promptly sought the counsel of Francisco de Miranda, recently returned
from his ill-fated expedition. Miranda not only provided introductions to leading
figures in the British foreign-policy establishment, but also supported and deepened
his countryman ’ s convictions regarding Venezuelan independence. Though his
8
negotiations in London proved fruitless, Bolívar returned to Venezuela with a
clearer sense of purpose. Along with Miranda, who joined him shortly afterward, he
became a forceful advocate for a complete and final break with Spain.
In order to assure the support of the provinces subject to its authority, the
Caracas Junta called for representatives to meet in a National Congress, which
opened in March 1811. Meanwhile, under Bolívar and Miranda ’ s influence, the
Sociedad Patriótica de Agricultores y Economía, an organization originally created by
the Junta to stimulate economic modernization in the colony, became the central
forum for the radical separatist faction of Venezuela ’ s Creoles, who steadily won
over a greater and greater proportion of congressmen to their cause. It was in front
of the Sociedad Patriótica, in the early morning hours of July 4, 1811, that Simón
Bolívar made his first extensive public argument on behalf of an immediate
declaration of independence:
In the National Congress they discuss what should already be decided. And
what do they say? That we should begin by forming a federation; as if we
were not already federated against foreign tyranny! That we That we should
prepare great projects with patience; as if three centuries of patience weren’t
enough! These doubts are the sad effects of ancient bondage. The Patriotic
Society respects, as it should, the Congress of the nation, but the Congress
should also attend to the Patriotic Society, center of enlightenment and of all
revolutionary interests. Together, we will lay the foundation stone of South
American liberty: to hesitate is to perish. 19
In these early remarks, we can see the outlines of the arguments that would
comprise Bolívar ’ s case for Spanish American independence. Here, already, he
identifies imperial rule with slavery and attributes the hesitation of his more
moderate fellows to the corruption of their civic virtues caused by long-term
subjugation. Here, already, Bolívar identifies the patriotic cause with progress and
enlightenment, and presents the liberation of Caracas as a mere first step in an
ultimately continental undertaking. The day after Bolívar ’ s address to the Sociedad
Patriótica, the National Congress voted to publish a short statement that – though
more moderate than Bolívar might have hoped – made Venezuela the first Spanish
American colony to declare its independence.20
Over the next decade, in personal letters, newspaper editorials, and official
proclamations, Bolívar would elaborate his case, beginning with first principles:
“States are enslaved either by virtue of their constitution or through the abuse of it, ”
he asserted. Similarly, “a people is enslaved when the government, by its essence or
through its vices, tramples and usurps the rights of the citizens or subjects. ” Spanish
Americans were enslaved when the government by its essence or through its vices,
tramples and usurps the rights of the citizens or subjects.” Spanish Americans were
enslaved by their exclusion from any role in the administration of the colonies they
inhabited. “For centuries, ” Bolívar insisted, “the position of those who dwell in this
hemisphere has been purely passive; their political existence has been null. ” Never
“ Viceroys, or Governors, except in extraordinary circumstances, rarely Archbishops
or Bishops, never diplomats, and always military subordinates, ” Americans “ do not
9
occupy any position in society except as laborers and simple consumers. ” Thus,
they “ face the greatest difficulties in rising to enjoy the goods of freedom. ”21 Here,
Bolívar ’ s classical republican intellectual influences are clear. As noted in the
preceding text, he conceives of freedom and slavery collectively – as qualities not of
individuals but of “ states ” and “ peoples ” – and positively – as the opportunity to
participate in self-government by occupying the highest ranks in the institutions of
colonial rule. By denying Americans access to these offices, Spain essentially denied
them the opportunity to fully realize themselves as humans. This, for Bolívar, was
the central wrong in imperial rule that American independence would make right.
The fact that Bolívar himself owned other humans, whose life of labor
supported his personal consumption and travel, as well as his intellectual and
political pursuits, lends his use of terms like “ slavery ” and “ servitude ” a certain
ironic quality. He was not, of course, the only patriotic American slave owner to
characterize his position thus, but Bolívar made the tensions present in this
grievance clearer than most of his contemporaries. He argued that under Spanish
rule, Creoles “ were not only deprived of their freedom, but also of an active tyranny“
– an opportunity to perform a subordinate role in the colonial administration. Even
under the Ottomans, Persians and Mongolians, he notes, “subordinates participated
according to the authority they were allotted. They were charged with civil, political,
and military administration, with [the collection of] rents, and [regulation of]
religion.” By contrast, Spanish Americans were denied even the oversight of “
domestic matters and internal administration, ” with the result being that they “
were left in a kind of permanent infancy with respect to public affairs, ” deprived of
both “ familiarity with the process and workings of ” government and “ the personal
esteem in the eyes of the people that derives from a certain habitual respect. ”22
Here, the limitations of Bolívar ’ s anti-imperialism come into view. He
attacked Spanish rule in America not because it was alien or absolutist, but because
it denied Creoles any autonomy in the management of colonial affairs. He
emphasized not only the personal developmental defects this position imposed, but
also the ways in which it undermined would-be leaders ’ ability to attract the
deference of colonial populations. Making free use of Montesquieu ’ s well-known
accounts of “ oriental despotism ”23 as a foil against which he highlighted Spanish
Americans ’ plight, Bolívar suggests, in effect, that Venezuelan Creoles would have to
declare independence in order to attain the “ active tyranny ” that was their due.
Like other ideologues of Creole Revolution, Bolívar was prone to rhetorical
flourishes and fond of framing his complaints about Spanish rule in universal terms,
describing imperial policies as violations of rights borne by Spanish Americans
simply as humans, or the empire itself as a departure from the ideal political order
decreed by nature or by eternal philosophical truths. These passages have become
favorites of Bolívar’s progressive followers, and, in practical terms, have made the
Liberator ’ s works a potent archive of arguments on behalf of freedom and equality.
But, like his counterparts elsewhere, whenever Bolívar sought to define the
basis for his patriotism precisely, and especially legally, the close connection
between his own institutional position atop a colonial hierarchy and his political
thought was made clear. In the early sixteenth century, he alleged, “ The Emperor
Charles V formed a pact with the discoverers, conquistadors, and settlers of
10
America, ” providing that “ since they carried out these acts at their own cost and
risk, and without drawing support from the royal treasury, they would be conceded
the right to rule the land [les concedía que fuesen señores de la tierra ] … as a sort of
feudal property for themselves and their descendants. ” In addition, Charles V
promised to “ favor almost exclusively the Spaniards born in this country [los
naturales del país originarios de España], ” that is, Bolívar and his fellow Creoles, “
for civil and ecclesiastical posts and rents. ” The contemporary practice of
appointing peninsular Spaniards to new and vacant posts was, then, “a manifest
violation of subsisting laws and pacts, depriving these Creoles [ naturales ] of the
constitutional authority they were given by their code. ”24 In the end, then, Bolívar’ s
case for American independence rested on a Spanish breach, not of universal and
inalienable human rights, and not of an ideal institutional order, but of a specific
agreement concluded between the Holy Roman emperor, his well-armed emissaries,
and their descendants, which entitled the latter to a “ sort of feudal ” lordship in the
Americas and over their colonies ’ Indigenous and African inhabitants.
Combining classical republican concepts with an account of the legal rights
Creoles bore as the descendants of the New World ’ s conquerors, Bolívar built a
case for American independence. Though his philosophical and legal references
were often ancient, he was clearly conscious of the novelty of his political
undertaking. In a telling passage, Bolívar compared “the present state of America ”
to the final days of the Roman Empire, “when each dismembered part formed a
nation according to its unique situation and interests, or by following the particular
ambitions of their chiefs, leading families, or corporations.” One fact critically
distinguished the Americas from the former Roman periphery, though: “[W]hile
those provinces reestablished their ancient nations,” resurrecting polities that predated Roman rule, Americans“ have retained only the barest vestiges of what [they]
were in other times. ” Bolívar did not seek to connect the struggle for independence
to a pre-Hispanic past, or to defend his rebellion as an effort to rectify the injustice
of the conquest. He did not oppose empire in the name of any nationalism, incipient
or otherwise. Americans, in his account, simply had no ancient nations to
reestablish.
This problem presented itself with particular force for the Creole leaders of
the independence movements. Bolívar and his fellows were “neither Indians nor
Europeans,” but a caste apart, situated by the institutions of Spanish rule “in
between the legitimate owners of the country and the Spanish usurpers.” As
“Americans by birth and Europeans by right, ” the Creoles ’ fight to rule themselves
while preserving their colonial privileges forced them to confront “ both Native
Americans [los del país] and external invaders. ”25 Here, Bolívar offers an
extraordinarily clear understanding of the contradictions inherent in Creole’s
institutional position. His writings just as clearly betray the entwined imperial and
anti-imperial strands that characterized Creoles ’ revolutionary ideology.
4.2 Machiavellian Moments and the Moral Power
Taken, perhaps, by the profundity of his own insight, Bolívar repeated the passage
comparing the incipiently independent Americas with post-Roman Europe almost
11
word-for-word in his 1819 “Discourse at Angostura,” regarded by most scholars as
the single most complete statement of Bolívar ’ s mature political thought. Once
again, Bolívar emphasizes the peculiarities of Creole Revolution: the absence of a
usable, pre-colonial past; the two-sided nature of the struggle to preserve imperial
privileges while escaping imperial rule. In its later appearance, however, the
passage’s function shifts. After eight years of intense fighting, Bolívar is no longer
concerned to defend a rebellion whose success is almost assured on the ground, but
rather to characterize the difficulties he worried would arise after his armies had
defeated Spain. The question now was not how to wrest freedom away from the
Americas ’ oppressors but how to maintain American independence against its
internal and external enemies. In this sense, Bolívar found himself face-to-face with
the dilemma J. G. A. Pocock has described as the “ Machiavellian moment ”:
The moment in conceptualized time in which the republic was seen
as confronting its own temporal finitude, as attempting to remain
morally and politically stable in a stream of irrational events conceived
as essentially destructive of all systems of secular stability. 26
Like many of his predecessors in the republican tradition, Bolívar sought a solution
to this dilemma in constitutional design, drawing inspiration from the ancient and
modern models of “ mixed government ” that Pocock traces from Aristotle to the
North American independence movement. Like his counterparts in the northern half
of the hemisphere, Bolívar modified these models in order to apply them to the
novel problems posed by the Americas’ postcolonial position in global affairs and
internal socio-racial hierarchy. Thus, despite his distinctive philosophical starting
point, as we’ll see, Bolívar’s ideas ultimately converged in important respects with
those of Creole constitutional designers throughout the hemisphere.
In Venezuela, persistent legacies of imperial rule, the political inexperience of
the Creole elite, and the volatility of a racially heterogeneous populace all combined
to make the problem of maintaining freedom particularly pressing. Independence
did not come easily, and it twice proved fragile indeed. The National Congress that
declared independence in July 1811 produced a constitution in December, but its
provisions had little time to go into operation before counter-revolution enveloped
the First Republic from all sides. The Spanish, though mired in European conflicts,
proved capable of launching effective attacks from bases in Puerto Rico and Santo
Domingo, and they found willing collaborators amongst the mainly pardo
population concentrated along the Caribbean coastline northwest of Caracas, whose
loyalty the Creole revolutionaries did little to court.27 After establishing a base of
support in the city of Coro, the Spanish Commander Domingo Monteverde armed
pardo rebellions against the republic throughout the interior, which proved difficult
to suppress. Slaves fought on both sides of the battle, but skewed royalist as well,
especially because Monteverde was quicker to promise manumission in exchange
for military service than were his patriotic opponents, many of whom were slave
owners with economic, as well as strategic, interests at stake in the matter.28
Already under siege, the republic ’ s capacity to respond to external attacks
and internal rebellions was devastated by two earthquakes, which struck Caracas in
12
late March and early April 1812, killing an estimated twenty thousand people.
Royalist clergy seized the propaganda opportunity presented by this tragedy,
portraying the earthquake as divine retribution for Caraqueños’ lack of fidelity to
their monarch. The Congress appointed Francisco de Miranda Generalissimo,
granting him dictatorial powers in the prosecution of the war, but by July, he
concluded that the cause was hopeless and surrendered to the royalist forces.
Bolívar, who had overseen the unsuccessful defense of an important arms cache and
prison on the Caribbean coastline, considered this an act of cowardice and
personally led a plot to have his mentor arrested and turned over to the Spanish
authorities. This betrayal secured Bolívar’s safe passage out of the colony to fight
another day, but it has supplied grounds for sharp criticism of his character ever
since. Miranda spent the last four years of his life imprisoned in Cádiz, Spain,
eventually succumbing to exposure and malnourishment.
Bolívar made his way to Cartagena, a patriotic redoubt in the neighboring
province of New Granada, where revolution had initially been spurred by a broader
coalition of Creoles and pardos, and where independence proved somewhat more
stable. 29 There, he offered his services as a soldier, distinguished himself in a
number of battles, and finally prevailed upon the provisional government to provide
him with a small force with which to undertake the liberation of Venezuela.
Convinced that Miranda ’ s excessive mercy lay at the root of the First Republic’s
failure, Bolívar adopted on this campaign a policy of “war to the death,” under which
American prisoners of war were spared, but Spaniards who did not join his army
were immediately executed. His forces were also particularly brutal, however, with
pardo regiments fighting for the royalist cause, despite their American birth.
Monteverde adopted similar tactics, executing thousands of patriot prisoners, but
ultimately failed to stop Bolívar’s advance. The patriot army entered Caracas on
August 6, 1813, where it was greeted by the welcome news that exiled patriots had
routed royalists throughout the eastern plains. Bolívar was granted the title “
Liberator of Venezuela, ” and, after hastily convening a National Assembly, gained
supreme command of the patriot forces and temporary dictatorial authority over a
resurrected Republic of Venezuela.
The Second Republic enjoyed an even shorter life than the First. This time,
counter-revolution came from the eastern llanos, or plains, and was led by José
Tomás Boves, a naval pilot from northern Spain who had fled smuggling charges to
become a cattle dealer in Venezuela, joining a diverse company of poor Creoles and
Canary Islanders, Indians, pardos, and fugitive slaves, who lived by rounding up and
selling unbranded cattle, which they grazed on lands traditionally regarded as
commons. The llaneros were ill-disposed toward independence from the start,
associating the movement with its urban leadership. They moved decisively into the
opposition when the congress of the First Republic introduced legislation meant to
establish uniform private property in land and cattle, and to limit labor mobility by
forcing workers to register with landowners and carry identification at all times.
Boves organized this disaffected population into an effective lance cavalry, offering
his forces the opportunity to loot wealthy republicans and the prospect of
reestablishing the customary entitlements that made their livelihood possible.30
13
Boves quickly became the most feared man in the country, and in battle after
battle, republican forces broke before his attacks. In July, Bolívar led a frantic
evacuation of Caraqueño Creoles north and west to the coast, and gradually ceded
ever more territory to royalist control. Boves fell fighting in December, but by the
beginning of 1815, his forces had finished dismantling the Second Republic, leaving
only disparate bands fighting for independence when the restored Fernando VII
dispatched a giant expedition to firmly reestablish Spanish rule in northern South
America. Bolívar decamped first to Jamaica and then to Haiti, where he was taken in
by President-for-Life Alexandre Pétion, a veteran of the Saint-Domingue Revolution,
who provided Bolívar with provisions, arms, soldiers, and ships for a third and
finally successful campaign.31
These serial revolutionary triumphs and disappointments, the rapid
construction and destruction of two republics, each incapable in its own way of
containing the social and racial divisions of Venezuela, and neither effective in
directing individual energies into collective external defense, furnish the essential
context for Bolívar ’ s reflections on the maintenance of liberty. In 1819, addressing
an assembly gathered in the city of Angostura to draft “organic laws” for yet another
new republic, he asked, “How, having broken the chains of our ancient oppression,
can we perform the miracle of preventing their iron remnants from being re-forged
as freedom-killing weapons [armas liberticidas]? ”32 As this formulation vividly
conveys, Bolívar considered the legacies of Spanish imperial rule – its “ iron
remnants ” – a primary impediment to the consolidation of American independence:
Under the triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice, we have been
unable to acquire or even to know virtue. Disciples of pernicious masters,
we have studied the most destructive examples and learned the most awful
lessons. … An ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction;
… adopting illusions for reality, mistaking license for liberty, treason for
patriotism, and vengeance for justice … A corrupted people, if it wins its
liberty, can quickly lose it.33
Here, as in his defense of revolution, Bolivar’s intellectual debts to the classical
republican tradition are clear, but as I noted in the preceding text, he now deploys
the same concepts to a new end. Because of the deprivations they suffered under
Spanish rule, especially the absence of any opportunity to participate in
government, upon gaining their independence, Americans lacked the “virtues”
necessary to sustain their freedom. Under the influence of “illusions” – mistaken
understandings about individual and collective freedom – they were unwilling to
put aside their many petty squabbles and work for the public good. Deeply
“corrupted” by their imperial experiences, Bolívar argued, Spanish Americans’
“Moral Constitution did not yet have the consistency necessary to receive the
benefits of a completely representative government.” He thus recommends that the
legislators before him think of their task as essentially educative, concerning
themselves with “laying a foundation” upon which future freedoms could rest. 34
One of Bolívar’s most famous institutional innovations was designed for
precisely this purpose. At Angostura, he suggested that Venezuela’s constitution
should create, alongside the by-then traditional legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of government, a new “fourth branch” he called the “Poder Moral” or
14
“moral power. ” This branch was charged with the specific task of “regenerating the
character and the customs that tyranny and the war” had suppressed in Spanish
America. Citing ancient models – the Athenian Areopagus, the Spartan Ephors, and
the Roman Censors – Bolívar described an authority with “dominion over childhood
and men’s hearts, the public spirit, good customs, and republican morality.”
Specifically, the distinguished members of the moral power would have the
authority to reward heroic actions in service of the republic, or to accuse citizens of
“ingratitude, egoism, frigidity toward the fatherland, idleness, and negligence.” They
would also oversee the education system, and provide public support for the arts
and sciences. In all, Bolívar hoped, the moral power would cultivate a citizenry
capable of sustaining republican liberty in Venezuela, and “restore to the world the
idea of a people who is not content to be being free and strong, but also wants to be
virtuous.”35
Bolívar’s proposal immediately acquired great esteem amongst his
contemporaries in Spanish America and has remained ever since a point of special
interest amongst his interpreters.36 It captures the essential character of Bolívar’s
constitutionalism, being overtly authoritarian in its design – resembling a sort of
“laicized Inquisition,” in one scholar’s memorable phrase 37 – but intended at the
same time to eventually bring about its own obsolescence, after Spanish Americans
had acquired the requisite virtues to rule themselves. This temporary educative
despotism was Bolívar ’ s best plan for escaping the vicious circle of tyranny and
corruption his classical republican philosophical influences suggested a newly
liberated people must inevitably confront.38
Though Bolívar framed the problem of maintaining liberty in classical
republican terms and offered a solution with ancient precedents, distinctively
Creole concerns appeared in his thinking as well. He tended to elide a distinction
between two related difficulties: the shortage of civic virtues in Spanish America
that was, on his account, a consequence of centuries of imperial rule, and the
challenges involved in governing a racially stratified society renegotiating its terms
of existence after the shock of independence. Americans who failed to dedicate
themselves to the struggle for liberty were corrupted by their experience under
absolutist government, their servility evidenced by their prioritizing personal
interests rather than the common good. Bolívar applied the same terms, though, to
indigenous and African Americans who refused to defer to Creole leadership in the
struggle for independence, faulting their leaders for pursuing “factional” interests
rather than the common good, and suggesting that racial conflict presented, if
anything, an even greater threat to stable freedom than Americans ’ habituation to
tyrannical government. 39
At Angostura, Bolívar insisted that the formal exclusions of pardos, mestizos,
and other castas , the separate “repúblicas de indios” with their communal lands and
tribute systems, and, most of all, the chattel slavery that had characterized Spanish
rule in the Americas, should be abolished, arguing that “the fundamental principle of
our system requires immediately and inescapably that equality be established and
practiced in Venezuela.” But he was deeply concerned that equality be established
and practiced properly, stressing that “although all men are born with equal rights
to the goods of society, … not all are born equally able to occupy the highest
15
posts.” 40 He feared, most of all, that Venezuela’s pardo plurality would fail to grasp
this subtlety, that the “legal equality” he was willing to offer would “not satisfy the
spirit of the people who want absolute equality now in both public and private, and
will later seek pardocracia , and the extermination of the privileged classes.” 41
Suppressing such radical demands, and, in general, “managing this heterogeneous
society, whose complicated balance can be dislocated, divided, and dissolved by the
slightest disruption,” Bolívar argued, “will require an infinitely firm hand.”42
Thus, racial diversity and the potential for race-based factional politics
served as another premise in an argument against immediate adoption of “fully
representative” government. Venezuela ’ s political system needed to be designed in
such a way that it would discriminate informally, concentrating the power of an
enlightened Creole elite and limiting the influence of an unlettered, mostly
propertyless pardo plurality, without recurring to the overt discrimination of the
empire and thereby inciting racial conflict. Like other Creole constitutional theorists,
Bolívar thought that two institutions would help achieve this balance: political
union and a presidentialist system of separated powers.
4.3 Federalism and the North American Model
The most consistent tenet of Bolívar’s constitutionalism was opposition to
decentralized, federal systems of government. As early as 1812, in the course of
explaining the demise of the First Republic to an audience in Cartagena, Bolívar
argued that “what most weakened the government of Venezuela was the federalist
form it adopted.” Though he conceded that “the federal system may be the most
perfect, and the most capable of achieving human happiness in society,” it was also
“the one most inimical to the interests of our emerging states, … [whose] citizens
haven’t the aptitude to exercise for themselves a wide range of rights, because they
lack the virtues of the true republican. ”43 Ironically, the main example Venezuelan
advocates of federalism cited as evidence of the system ’ s advantages was another
emerging state: the States of America, where, they argued, a federal system had
permitted a colonial backwater to transform itself into a rising commercial power
over the course of less than half a century. 44 In his efforts to address this argument
by example, Bolívar made an analysis of the contrasting character of British and
Spanish rule in the Americas the cornerstone of his argument on behalf of a more
centralized union of Andean South America ’ s former colonies:
The more I admire the excellence of the Federal Constitution of [the First
Republic] of Venezuela, the more I am persuaded of the impossibility of
applying it to our State. Indeed, to my mind, it is a miracle that its model in
North America has subsisted so prosperously, and not broken down at the
first sign of trouble. Although the people [of the United States] are a singular
model of political virtue and moral enlightenment; although liberty has been
their cradle, they were born into liberty, and fed on pure liberty; and
although in many respects they are unique in the history of the human race,
it is, I repeat, a miracle that a system so weak and so complicated as
federalism has managed to govern them the difficulty and delicate
circumstances as they have experienced. 45
16
Here, Bolívar takes a large measure of rhetorical license, reproducing the blackest
possible legend of Spanish imperialism as the premise of his argument on behalf of a
centralized political union. He also fails to acknowledge that the United States’ first
experiment with federalism did actually “break down at the first sign of trouble,”
giving way to a new constitution that assigned substantially greater authority to the
central government than its predecessor. Apparently unaware of these parallels, 46
which might have supported his position, Bolívar cited Montesquieu ’ s dictum that
laws “must be adapted to the physical geography, climate, soil quality, situation,
extension, and style of life of a people, to its religion, inclinations, riches, numbers,
commerce, customs, and habits,” arguing that “these are the Codes we must consult,
not those of Washington!”47 It is hard not to read these lines as another reference to
Venezuela’s racial heterogeneity, and to see centralism as an element of the
“infinitely firm hand” Bolívar thought managing his countrymen would require.
When Bolívar ’ s unionist ideal was eventually put into practice, it was
applied to an area much larger than Venezuela, where concomitant increases in
racial and regional diversity brought new complications and challenges. Bolívar
began his third campaign in the far eastern plains of Venezuela, near the mouth of
the Orinoco River, in late December 1816. This decision made both strategic and
economic sense, allowing him to establish a base of operations away from the main
concentrations of Spanish forces along the Caribbean coastline, and to exploit a
ready source of steady income: the semi-wild cattle of the llanos . Through contacts
he had made while in Jamaica, Bolívar began trading livestock and hides for arms,
ammunition, and uniforms with English smugglers.
Though it provided a source of income and the security of distance from any
concentration of Spanish forces, Bolívar’s base of operations in the llanos carried a
singular difficulty as well: dealing with the fiercely independent cattlemen that
inhabited the plains. After the fall of the First and Second Republics of Venezuela, a
number of patriots fighters in exile had established themselves in as regional
strongmen, organizing bands of llanero cavalry men that carried out guerrilla
attacks on Spanish forces, motivated as much by profits as by politics. Though
sympathetic to the cause of independence, many of these caudillos were reluctant to
surrender their authority, and refused to submit their forces to Bolívar ’ s overall
command.
Again, social and racial issues had a role to play. One of the most recalcitrant
caudillos was Manuel Piar, who led a mainly pardo force that had won major
victories against royalist forces, acquiring a wide area of influence in the eastern
plains. Morillo, the Spanish general holding Caracas, expressed concerns in official
dispatches that Piar might be establishing relations with Alexandre Pétion, and
preparing the way for a Haitian-supported rebellion of pardos and slaves in
Venezuela, revealing the deep anxieties Haiti inspired in royalists as well as Creole
patriots. For his part, Bolívar treated Piar cautiously until he had assembled
superior forces of his own, and then demanded that Piar pledge allegiance to the
republican project under his direction. When Piar returned an ambiguous reply,
Bolívar had him arrested, imprisoned, and executed, on charges of inciting a “race
war.”48 Though Bolívar also took less punitive steps to quiet racial resentments,
17
offering manumission to slaves who volunteered to serve in his armies, and
promoting pardo officers whose loyalties were clear, racial factionalism within the
revolution and the prospect of pardocracia continued to haunt him,49 strengthening
his already strong opposition to federalism as time went on.
By the middle of 1818, through tenuous arrangements built on flattery,
bribery, and brute force, Bolívar controlled the patriot caudillos of the Venezuelan
south from the Atlantic to the border with New Granada. To impose military
discipline, he filled the officer ranks of his armies with experienced English and Irish
soldiers, unemployed since the end of hostilities in Europe, and willing to face the
unfamiliar climate and brutal warfare of Spanish America for adventure and the
prospect of a paycheck.50 These troops proved indispensable to the success of
Bolívar ’ s next maneuver: an attack on the Andean highlands of New Granada,
where Spanish forces were less entrenched than on the Caribbean coast, and the
population was more susceptible to republican arguments. He entrusted the
oversight of early operations to Francisco de Paula Santander, a law student turned
patriot who had been forced to flee his native New Granada for the Venezuelan
plains after Spanish forces overran republican forces. In May 1819, Santander
reported that conditions were ripe for revolution, and over the course of a few
months, Bolívar marched his troops through high passes and low valleys, winning a
decisive victory in August that sent the Spanish back into retreat.
Ties between the independence movements of Venezuela and New Granada,
forged in the heat of Bolívar’s successive cross-border campaigns, were formalized
after patriotic forces occupied Santa Fe de Bogotá, the seat of a Spanish viceroyalty
with supreme authority over all of northern South America. In December 1819, the
Venezuelan National Congress assembled in Angostura passed a Fundamental Law
[Ley Orgánica] giving the name “Colombia” to a unified state comprised by all of the
former viceroyalty’s territories: the captaincy-general of Caracas (present-day
Venezuela), the kingdom of New Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama), and
the presidency of Quito (present-day Ecuador). By convention, historians refer to
this entity as “Gran Colombia” to distinguish it from the present-day country of the
same name. The National Congress also established election procedures for a
constituent assembly, permitting all heads of households in the liberated territories
with modest property holdings or a scientific, liberal, or mechanical profession, as
well as all soldiers in the patriot armies, native or foreign, literate or not, to vote for
deputies. As David Bushnell notes, these were “in some respects the most
democratic elections ever held in Gran Colombia,” distinguished not only by their
broad franchise but also, given the circumstances, a surprising absence of
irregularities.51 Deputies began arriving in the city of Cúcuta, on the border between
Venezuela and New Granada, in January 1821.
Once a quorum had assembled and deliberations got underway, federalism
and centralism were primary subjects of discussion. Deputies elected from the
interior provinces of New Granada, many of whom were active in their province’s
first movement for independence, were wary of Bolívar, his army, and of the
consequences a Venezuelan-led liberation might have for New Granada. They
argued that Gran Colombia’s component colonies should retain sovereignty within
an independent federation whose central government was limited to the conduct of
18
external relations and the war. Well-educated lawyers, doctors, and clerics, these
Colombian federalists fluently cited fashionable philosophers, suggesting that overly
large states tended to become monarchies, while citizens of small states could be
free.
Having departed by this point to lead a campaign against remaining royalist
strongholds in Venezuela, Bolívar was forced to reply from the sidelines: “One hears
little here of the Assembly or of Cúcuta, but it is said that many in Cundinamarca
want a federation,” he wrote to Santander. “We may have to banish these letrados,”
or professionals,“ from the Republic of Colombia, as Plato banished the poets from
his Republic.” Their mistakes, he argued, derived from a limited understanding of
the country and its inhabitants:
These Gentlemen think that Colombia is full of the simple men they’ve seen
gathered around fireplaces in Bogotá, Tunja, and Pamplona. They’ve never
laid eyes on the Caribs of the Orinoco, the plainsmen of the Apure, the
fishermen of Maracaibo, the boatmen of the Magdalena, the bandits of Patia,
the ungovernable Pastusos, the Guajibos of Casanare and all the other savage
hordes of Africans and Americans that roam like deer throughout the
wilderness of Colombia. 52
Bolívar did not believe federalism could establish and maintain freedom amongst
such people. Colombia’s complex, racially diverse population, accustomed to
despotic Spanish rule and lacking the virtues of true republicans, required a firm,
unified government. Union would allow the educated, Creole elite to exert direct
control during the critical period of transition from colony to republic.
The federalist deputies, “more out of ignorance than malice, … speak of
Lycurgus, Numa, and Franklin,” but they were wrong to think that they could
establish “republics like Greece, Rome, or the United States” in Colombia. In their
naivety, they would succeed only in “accumulating rubble from fantastical
creations,” the ruins of “Greek buildings, built on Gothic foundations, standing at the
edge of an abyss. ”53 Here, Bolívar provides us with clear insight into the concrete
social context that furnished the central problems for his political thought. His
federalist opponents sought to build “repúblicas aéreas” – republics in the sky,
drawing their principles from philosophical abstractions or worse, imitating
irrelevant foreign models. By contrast, Bolívar’s Creole unionism – simultaneously
pragmatic and prone to learned flourishes – sought to reconcile opposing
aims, establishing independence and republican liberty, while limiting popular
sovereignty and social instability.
Ultimately, whether on the strength of their arguments or the implicit threat
presented by Bolívar’s armies, unionists won the day at Cúcuta. The constitution
adopted by the Congress in October 1821 abolished Gran Colombia’s colonial
component states, replacing them with smaller departments, designed de novo with
an eye to easing administration and diminishing the force of regional political
identities that undermined unity. The departments were, in turn, subdivided into
provinces, cantons, and parishes, which formed the basis of a multilevel system of
indirect election for national officeholders. The internal administration of the
19
republic was entrusted to a governor in each province and overseen by an intendant
in each department, both of whom served at the will of the president.54
It is important to emphasize the novelty of this arrangement. To be sure,
Gran Colombia arose within the boundaries of a former viceroyalty and could claim
a legal precedent for its borders,55 but the unification of its component colonies
under a centralized government was not, as in Mexico, a continuation of colonial-era
practices. Under its own captaincy-general, Caracas had been legally independent of
the viceregal administration based in Bogotá, and even Quito and Panama, though
formally subordinate, were accustomed to relative autonomy. Unlike Mexico ’ s
unionists, whom I will discuss in the next chapter , Bolívar was uninterested – to a
fault – in basing his new state ’ s legitimacy on colonial legacies. Gran Colombia was
established, undiluted by federal devolution, as a republican solution to the
dilemmas inherent in Creole Revolution.
4.4 Presidentialism and the British Model
Bolívar had reason to be pleased with the results of the Congress at Cúcuta, but the
deputies did not carry out all of his designs. When it came to distributing authority
amongst the branches of the national government, they followed the example of the
United States, dividing authority between three branches: a legislature comprised of
two houses, one apportioned according to population and serving four-year terms,
and the other apportioned by department, serving eight-year terms; an executive
comprised of a president and vice president, serving four-year terms with one
opportunity for reelection; and a judiciary headed by a supreme court of at least five
ministers serving life terms.
Interbranch relations were slightly different than in the United States,
though, ultimately tilting the balance of powers in favor of the legislature. No
provisions were made for a presidential veto or judicial review of legislation in
times of normal politics, but “in cases of armed interior commotions that threaten
the security of the republic or sudden external invasions, ” the president was
authorized to “dictate such measures as are indispensable that are not
comprehended by the normal sphere of his attributes.”56 Bolívar’s rather ample
interpretation of this article during his own administration would eventually
become a point of contention, but at the time of its promulgation, he deplored the
fact that it made the executive
“either a gentle stream or a devastating torrent, ”57 rather than the consistent,
stabilizing force he thought the republic required.
In his address to the deputies at Angostura, Bolívar had considered
alternative models of separated powers at some length. Athens, he argued,
“provides the first, and most brilliant example of absolute democracy, but at the
same time, the most melancholy demonstration of the extreme weakness of this sort
of government.” Even the constitution of Sparta, despite the “chimera” of its double
monarchy, “produced better results than the ingenious masterpiece of Solon.” Rome,
meanwhile, “achieved the greatest power and fortune of any people in the world,”
even though its constitution “did not strictly distinguish between the powers,”
allowing “the consuls, the senate, and the people to be legislators, magistrates, and
20
judges.” However, its “only inclination was conquest,” which “did not assure the
happiness of the nation.”
More recently, the French Revolution, “like a radiant meteor, has showered
the world with such a profusion of political enlightenment, that every thinking man
has learned the rights and duties of man, and virtues and vices of government.”
Perhaps most remarkable of all, “this star, in its luminous passage, has sparked fires
even in the hearts of the apathetic Spanish,” inspiring the temporary adoption in
1812 of a constitution with strict limitations on executive authority.58 But Bolívar
was skeptical of French revolutionary constitutionalism and viewed the Spanish
imitation as an apt illustration of its deficits: “the Spanish Constitution is a monster
of indefinable form, similar in effect to the regime of Grand Turk but entirely
opposite in appearance. What the Great Sultan does in Constantinople an assembly
with infinite members does in Madrid. Its will is as absolute as that of the greatest
despot in the world. ”59 This opposition to legislative supremacy à la française was
characteristic of Creole constitutional theorists, whose fear of a tyranny of the
majority was only heightened by the racial divisions in their American societies.
Thus, after offering a familiar injunction to “never forget that the excellence
of a government consists not in its theory, its form, or its mechanism, but in it
appropriateness for the nature and character of the nation for which it is instituted,”
Bolívar recommended that the assembly adopt the British Constitution as a model,
deeming it the “most apt … for those who aspire to enjoy the rights of man and as
much political freedom as is compatible with our fragile state of affairs.” He seems
to have been aware that this might seem an incongruously counter-revolutionary
choice, hastening to declare that “in speaking of the British Government, I refer only
to its republican elements.” However, the first institution he proposed to imitate
was the House of Lords:
It would not require a fundamental alteration for us to adopt a legislative
power like the British Parliament. We have already divided our national
representatives into two houses. … If the Senate, instead of being elected,
were hereditary, it would be come the base, the fastener, and the soul of our
Republic. During political tempests, this body would deflect lightening bolts
from the government and repulse waves of popular dissent.60
Colombia ’ s long period of subordination to Spain had left the country full of “men
who do not know their own true interests”; who pursued selfish, sectional, or racial
interests rather than dedicating themselves to the collective good; and whose
frequent rebellions presented a constant threat to the stability of elected
governments. The destructiveness of these mass movements could be minimized by
a “neutral body” of hereditary senators whose authority was independent of both
the current government and the people, in a position suited to mediating the
conflicts that might arise between “these two founts of authority.”61 Future senators
could be trained from birth in special schools designed to inculcate political virtues
along with the “arts, sciences, and letters that adorn the spirit of a public man.”
Again, Bolívar insisted that a hereditary senate would “in no way be a violation of
political equality,” and that he “did not wish to establish a nobility.” Rather, given
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Colombia’s difficult circumstances, “ not everything should be left to the chance and
fortune of elections.”62 The echoes of Alexander Hamilton’s “high-toned” proposals
in the Constitutional Convention here are clear. Like Hamilton, Bolívar struggled to
reconcile the oligarchic measures he thought Colombia’s situation required with the
republican ideals he still hoped to achieve. This remarkable convergence was not a
result of direct intellectual influence – none is apparent in the record – but rather a
shared apprehension of a similar political situation. As in Hamilton’s, the marked
tensions in Bolívar ’ s political thought, the contradicting imperial and anti-imperial
impulses that underlie his hereditary senate and other institutional innovations
reflect an attempt to safeguard the authority of a colonial upper class in the unstable
circumstances of the Americas ’ early independence.
Turning next to the presidency, Bolívar argued that “however exorbitant the
authority of the Executive Power appears in England, it would not be so in the
Republic of Venezuela.” Indeed, contrary to common misperceptions, dispensing
with the trappings of royal authority called for an increase in the power of the
executive: “In a republic, [the Executive] must be all the stronger, because
everything conspires against him.” Unable to rely upon the “superstitious
veneration people instinctively accord their Royalty, … the splendor of the throne,
the crown, and the purple; … the immense riches accumulated in generations of
dynastic rule; [or] the reciprocal fraternal protection that all kings give and receive
from one another,” a republican executive required even more plenary powers than
a king.
In Venezuela, the president would need “sufficient authority to overcome the
inconveniences attendant on our present situation, the state of war from which we
suffer, and the sorts of enemies, foreign and domestic, against which we have long
struggled.” Here, Bolívar explicitly ties the expansion of executive authority he
sought to the double conflict inherent in Creole Revolution. Colombia ’ s president
would have to complete and consolidate a struggle for independence, while also
suppressing the caste conflicts that independence had unleashed.
As numerous scholars of the classical republican tradition have shown, the
model of mixed government developed first by Aristotle, and elaborated by the
statesman-philosophers of republican Rome and Renaissance Italy, the British
commonwealthmen, and British North American patriots was ideally suited to this
purpose. These constitutions offered separate forms of representation to distinct
classes of citizens and subjects, balancing their powers in an effort assure that no
faction could dominate the others.63 Bolívar faithfully echoed this conception, noting
that a system of separated powers, generally, had to “maintain the balance, not only
amongst the branches that comprise our government, but also the different
fractions that comprise our society.”64 Venezuelans could do no better than to adapt
Montesquieu’s exemplar of modern mixed government, the British constitution, to
their own special circumstances.
We get a much fuller picture of the way Bolívar hoped to structure such a
system in the constitution he wrote seven years later for the newly established
nation of Bolivia. There, he proposed a government divided into four branches: an
“electoral power” comprised by representatives directly chosen by each of the ten
active citizens of the republic, and responsible for choosing legislators; a tricameral
22
legislature, including a chamber of censors, resembling the poder moral Bolívar had
described at Angostura; a supreme court; and, most notoriously of all, a presidente
vitalicio , or life-term president.
In the Bolivian Constitution, the balance of powers swung decisively in favor
of the executive branch, which conducted war and determined foreign policy,
convened or extended congressional sessions, initiated and vetoed legislation
appointed ambassadors, cabinet members, finance ministers, regional
administrators, and the Church hierarchy, and could even “suspend … pontifical
bulls, briefs, and rescripts” if necessary. Upon his death or incapacitation, the
president was to be automatically succeeded by a handpicked vice president, whom
he chose with the advice and consent of the legislature.65 In his presentation of the
constitution to the Congress of Bolivia, Bolívar summarized the institution of the
presidente vitalicio thus:
Under our Constitution, the President of the Republic will be like the sun: an
unmovable core, radiating life throughout the universe. This supreme
authority should be perpetual, because societies without hierarchies need
even more than others a fixed point around which magistrates and people,
men and things, can rotate. Give me a fixed point , said an ancient, and I will
move the world. For Bolivia, this point is the life-term President.66
What was the immense undertaking for which Bolívar thought such a stout fulcrum
was required? He viewed Spanish America’s situation as analogous to that of
Rousseau’s “young people” – a populace too inexperienced in self-rule to recognize a
good regime when they saw one. For a new, self-governing sovereign to become
stable, Rousseau argued, “the effect would have to become the cause; the social
spirit, which should be created by institutions, would have to preside over their very
foundation, and men would have to be before law what they should become by
means of law.” He suggested that this problem could only be overcome by the
intervention of “the Legislator,” a founding father possessed of superior knowledge
and virtue, whose charismatic qualities attract the adherence of a still-unformed
citizenry.67 Bolívar’s president vitalicio is a permanent institutionalization of
Rousseau’s Legislator, a means by which the young peoples of Spanish America
could sustain their independence, and the Creole elite could retain its privileges and
power.
The presidente vitalicio never received the same level of acclaim as the poder
moral. Many of Bolívar ’ s contemporaries, upon learning of the life-term president,
denounced him as a would-be Bonaparte, and later observers have continued to
make the same association. 68 To be sure, there were commonalities between the
constitution for Bolivia and the constitutions of Napoleonic France, but Bolívar
named an inspiration closer to home: Haiti, the “most democratic Republic in the
world,” where Alexandre Pétion had taken permanent power in 1816. Upon
declaring its independence, Bolívar explained, “the island of Haiti found itself in
permanent insurrection.” After experimenting with “all the known forms of
government and a few unknown ones, they were forced to apply to the illustrious
Pétion for salvation.” The consistency of a president-for-life calmed Haiti ’ s
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persistent instability, allowing politics to proceed “ with the calm of a legitimate
kingdom. ” This proved decisively that “ a presidente vitalicio … is the most sublime
innovation for the republican system.”69 Bolívar could hardly have chosen a more
resonant illustration of the possible evils attendant upon independence in the
Americas than Haiti, which embodied the caste warfare many Spanish Americans
worried might destroy their own societies.
For the principle of succession, Bolívar chose another interesting model,
appealing now to the legislators’ aspirations rather than their fears: “The United
States has, in recent years, observed a practice of naming the First Minister [the
secretary of state] to succeed the President.” Indeed, when Bolívar wrote the then
president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, had been secretary of state
under his predecessor James Monroe, who was secretary of state to his predecessor
James Madison, who was secretary of state to his predecessor Thomas Jefferson,
who was secretary of state to his predecessor, once removed, George Washington.
For Bolívar, no other method of selection “could be as convenient in a Republic.”
Having the president succeeded by someone already serving in an important office
not only assured that the new occupant would be “experienced in the management
of the State,” but also “avoided elections, which produce the great scourge of
republics: anarchy.”70 Connecting this institutional innovation to an implicit practice
in the United States, Bolívar came full circle from his earlier arguments against
federalism. Though Spanish Americans seeking to imitate the latter were sadly
misinformed, they would do well to observe how a streamlined system of
presidential selection could smooth a country ’ s transition to independence.
4.5 Imperialism against Empire
In September 1821, the Congress of Colombia, having completed its constitution but
still seated as a constituent assembly in Cúcuta, named Bolívar the first president of
the republic. In what would become a ritual exercise, he initially declined the post,
explaining that he wished to concentrate on overseeing the war effort in the
country’s still-royalist south. Once Congress offered assurances that he would not be
detained by his domestic duties, he was installed in office and then promptly
departed for the front.
His aim now was to liberate Quito, capital of Gran Colombia ’ s third
component colony, where the Spanish forces occupied a defensible position and had
managed to hold off republican forces from the surrounding regions. While a trusted
lieutenant, Antonio José de Sucre, began a campaign from the south, Bolívar led his
Army of Liberation down the spine of the Andes from the north. This path took him
across the province of Popayán and through the city of Pasto, a persistent thorn in
revolutionary sides since Quito ’ s short-lived autonomous Junta movement in
1809–1810. As in the Venezuelan llanos and the Caribbean coast, the royalist
resistance in Popayán had a strong popular element, drawing widespread support
from the region ’ s numerous Indigenous communities and from slaves employed in
mining operations. Many members of both groups, quickly grasping that the colonial
government ’ s desperate position presented an unprecedented opportunity to
renegotiate the terms of their relationship to the Spanish regime, served in loyalist
24
militias, which again and again repulsed republican attacks, harassed supply lines,
and threatened to spread popular royalist rebellion throughout Colombia as a
whole.71
Bolívar’s forces encountered fierce opposition as they made their way
southward, taking heavy losses, both to death and desertion, over the entire first
half of 1822. When, finally, in June, Bolívar occupied Pasto and obtained the
Pastusos’ reluctant capitulation to Colombian rule, he addressed them as follows:
Colombians of the South: the blood of your brothers has delivered you from
the horrors of war. It has opened for you the way to the enjoyment of sacred
rights, liberty, and equality. Colombian laws establish a balance between
social prerogatives and natural rights. The Constitution of Colombia is a
model of representative government, both republican and strong. You will
not find a better one in all the political institutions of the world, until [the
Colombian Constitution] itself achieves its own perfection. Rejoice in the fact
that you belong to a great family, which can rest now in the shade of a forest
of laurels, and can desire nothing more than to look on as the march of time
brings to fruition the eternal principles of right that underlie our laws.72
In his recent book, Diego von Vacano suggests that Bolívar broke, decisively, with
the expansionist version of classical republicanism most famously expounded by
Machiavelli in insisting that a republic could not be imperial. “Bolívar ’ s chief
intellectual concern,” von Vacano argues, “is freedom.” For a republic to engage in
imperial conquest “would mean to take away the freedom of others, which is selfcontradictory.” Understanding this contradiction, Bolívar developed, in von
Vacano’s account, a consistently anti-imperialist republicanism, which, while
celebrating “martial” virtues, did not embrace territorial expansion and forcible
assimilation of new populations as means of assuring the internal stability and
external safety of the states he liberated from Spanish rule.73
While von Vacano rightly notes the deep tension – indeed, contradiction –
between promoting freedom and imperial conquest, Bolívar’s treatment of Pasto ’ s
popular royalists, and the arguments he made to justify his actions, clearly evidence
his willingness to pursue republican ends by imperial means. Bolívar describes the
brutal conquest and forced pacification of a predominantly indigenous community
as “opening the way” to their freedom and equality. He describes the expansion of
Gran Colombia’s sovereign territory as the spreading of enlightened political ideals
and institutions. In a very clear sense, then, he thought of imperialism as a weapon
against empire.
As with his arguments on behalf of independence and his various innovations
in constitutional design, the classical republican tradition provided the basic
philosophical framework of Bolívar ’ s attempts to unify ever more expansive
portions of the former Spanish Americas under a single independent state. The same
concepts of collective freedom, virtue, and corruption reappear here to justify the
forced liberation of an ever larger and more diverse population.
An early formulation appears in the “Cartagena Manifesto” of 1812, where, in
explaining the demise of the First Republic of Venezuela, Bolívar tells his audience
that “[t]he most consequential error Venezuela committed … was undoubtedly the
25
fatal adoption of a policy of toleration” toward a royalist rebellion in the city of Coro,
which I’ve already described in the preceding text. “Rather than subjugating that
defenseless city,” when they had a chance, Venezuela’s leaders assumed a defensive
stance, hoping the rebels would eventually come round to the cause of
independence. Instead, this “allowed [the rebellion] to fortify itself” and receive
Spanish assistance, “so that it was later able to subjugate the entire confederation.”
The Junta ’ s error derived, Bolívar asserts, from certain “poorly understood
principles of humanitarianism, which prevented them from liberating by force a
people too stupefied to recognize the value of its own rights.”74 Machiavelli could
not have put it better himself.
Even at this early stage, Bolívar realized that the basic doctrine underlying
his attitude toward Coro would eventually carry of his revolution across the
continent. He submitted a telling “syllogism” to the consideration of the New
Granadan legislators assembled before him: “Coro is to Caracas as Caracas is to the
whole of America.” So long as Venezuela remained under Spanish military
occupation, it posed threat to other independent portions of South America similar
to the one Coro posed to independent Venezuela. Thus, he recommended “as an
indispensable measure for the security of New Granada, the immediate re-conquest
of Caracas.”75 This sort of offensive, border-crossing, expansionist republicanism
was to become Bolívar ’ s trademark and would eventually lead, as we saw
previously, to the permanent unification of Venezuela, New Granada, and Quito
under the aegis of a new state “named Colombia in fair and grateful tribute to the
creator of our hemisphere.”76 Bolívar’s hearty embrace of the Americas ’ original
conquistador was shared by his fellow Creole revolutionaries throughout the
hemisphere, a tendency reflected to this day in the numerous political and
geographic landmarks named for Columbus across both continents.77
Like other Creole revolutionaries before him, Bolívar invested American
independence with world-historical importance and saw the unification of former
colonies after independence as an essential step toward assuring Spanish America’s
ascendance into the global vanguard. From his military encampment in Angostura,
in 1819, “upon contemplating the reunion of the immense region” that would make
up Gran Colombia, he found his “ imagination fixed on future centuries, ” observing
from there a country
Extended between two far-flung coastlines, which nature has separated and
which we will connect with the center, the emporium of the human family,
sending out to the four corners of the earth not only the silver and gold
treasures of its mountains, the healthful bounty of its agriculture, … but also
precious secrets unknown to those supposedly wise men ignorant of how
much more valuable enlightenment is than the wealth of natural resources. I
can see her now, seated on the throne of liberty, grasping the scepter of
justice, demonstrating to the Old World the majesty of the New. 78
Thus, for Bolívar, as for Alexander Hamilton, the independence and unification of
Europe’s former American colonies would hasten and consolidate a transition, from
26
an epoch of brutal, extractive imperialism to a more enlightened era of prosperous
global commerce. Before Colombia could conquer the world, it had to
consolidate authority in the territories it already claimed. Bolívar’s conquest of
Pasto’s popular royalists and Sucre’s victory over the Spanish at Quito cleared the
country of internal threats to its independence, but not all of the new nation’s
residents were eager to recognize the sovereignty of the government in Bogotá. The
city of Guayaquil, in the south of present-day Ecuador, had declared and won its
own independence in October 1820, and had been ruled since that time by an
autonomous Junta. Many of its members saw no reason why a colonial arrangement
that had subjected them to the audiencia in Quito, and by extension to the
viceroyalty in Bogotá, should be allowed to dictate the terms of their independent
existence. Still another substantial faction within Guayaquil ’ s patriotic leadership
aimed for eventual annexation to an independent Peru, which was at the moment in
the process of being liberated by José de San Martín, an Argentine general who
hoped to establish new kingdoms with European monarchs in the Americas. Some of
Guayaquil ’ s Creoles thought this system would provide surer security for their
property and privileges than Colombia ’ s often-fractious republicanism.
Bolívar saw things differently. Guayaquil was an indispensable entrepôt for
Quito and the rest of southern Colombia. Even more importantly, allowing Peru to
annex the city would open the question of allegiance to other discontented regions,
generating instability within the Gran Colombian union. He addressed a terse letter
to the president of Guayaquil’s Junta , expressing his disappointment at the latter’s
hesitation to recognize Colombia’s claim, and informing him that under no
circumstances would Guayaquil be permitted to retain autonomy or attach itself to
an independent Peru. “Even on the broadest understanding,” he wrote, “a people
comprehended under an association has only a right to free and equal
representation in the National Assembly. Any other pretension is against social
justice.”79 He then proceeded to back up this interpretation by personally marching
his army into Guayaquil, and decreeing the city ’ s formal recognition of Colombian
sovereignty, allowing Guayaquileños to vote afterward for ratification. Like his
forced liberation of the popular royalists of Pasto, then, Bolívar ’ s suppression of
Guayaquil ’ s separatists demonstrates a clear willingness to employ imperial means
for putatively anti-imperial ends.
This bold military maneuver in Guayaquil placed Bolívar in an advantageous
position when San Martín arrived from Lima for a meeting of the minds. By this
time, San Martín had been weakened by serial setbacks in Peru, where Spanish
forces drawing substantial support from local indigenous communities had forced
him into a draining and dangerous stalemate. He came to Guayaquil resigned to the
latter ’ s incorporation into Colombia, and hoping to secure reinforcements from
Bolívar ’ s armies for his own continuing operations in Peru. He also planned to
sound his counterpart out on the idea of establishing European princes on American
thrones. He found Bolívar emphatically opposed to a monarchical solution to
Spanish America ’ s endemic instability, and unwilling to make any significant
commitment of troops to San Martín ’ s command. What alternatives, if any, he
proposed on the spot are a matter of some controversy80 – no transcript of this
famous meeting of South America ’ s liberators exists. What we know is that after
27
leaving Guayaquil, San Martín resigned his command of the mixed Argentine and
Peruvian patriot army in Lima and retired to Europe, leaving Bolívar to complete his
campaign against the last Spanish holdouts in South America.
Leading his troops across the former colonial administrative boundaries
between Quito and Peru, and eventually climbing the high plateau known as Upper
Peru (present-day Bolivia) raised novel philosophical and political issues for
Bolívar. Lima had been the capital of a viceroyalty with jurisdiction over presentday Peru and Chile, and Upper Peru had been subject to the viceroyalty of the Río de
la Plata, seated in Buenos Aires, since 1776. The assumption made by most of the
period ’ s legal scholars was that the borders of the Spanish viceroyalties would
become the borders of sovereign American states, if and when independence was
established.81 A large Colombian military presence in Peru and Upper Peru, then,
constituted a challenge to these assumptions, and raised objections from many
Peruvians.
Bolívar himself was aware of this distinction, later lamenting that “The war in
Peru presents difficulties that appear insuperable … the difference is that this is not
Colombia and I am not Peruvian.”82 However, he understood the push into Peru as a
continuation of his general campaign, and when the Colombian Congress demanded
an explanation for the absence of their army and elected president from the national
territory, he justified it by reference to a familiar doctrine of anti-imperial
imperialism:
I should be permitted to advance on territories occupied by the Spanish in
Peru, because the enemy will come here if I do not contain him there, and
because enemy territory should not be considered foreign territory, but
conquerable territory, … just as New Granada was for Venezuela. Anyone
who denies this is a fool, and a fool is no authority. 83
In August 1823, Congress assented to this terse logic and granted Bolívar
permission to proceed into Peru. He met a warm welcome in Lima, but had trouble
advancing against well-fortified Spanish positions, and struggled constantly to
maintain the loyalty of the soldiers under his command, most of whom were being
asked to fight far from their homes in Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. In February
1824, a betrayal by one of his Peruvian generals allowed the Spanish to retake Lima,
marking a low point. The Peruvian Congress in exile granted Bolívar dictatorial
authority to conduct the war. This set off further alarm bells back in Bogotá, but
Bolívar insisted on accepting the office “for the good of Colombia.”84 A lapsed colony
on the country ’ s southern border simply constituted too grave a threat to ignore; in
order to make independence safe at home, he would have to establish independence
abroad, by any means necessary.
Gradually, and with Sucre providing most of the military leadership, the
Army of Liberation struggled back, winning an important battle in December, and
receiving shortly thereafter the capitulation of the main royalist force in Peru. It
took almost another year of fierce fighting to overcome holdouts in Lima and in
Upper Peru, but in October 1825, Bolívar climbed to the summit of the famous
“silver mountain” of Potosí to declare a final end to the wars of independence:
28
“After fifteen years of colossal battles we have destroyed a tyrannical edifice formed
over three centuries of usurpation and violence.” The fantastic riches he stood over,
the source of a huge portion of the mineral wealth Spain had extracted from the
Americas, were “worth nothing, when compared to the glory of having brought the
flag of liberty all the way from the steaming Orinoco to plant it here, in the peak of
this mountain.”85 The tension between anti-imperial aims and imperial means is
palpable here; in planting a “flag of liberty” in Potosí, Bolívar laid claim to a
profound symbol and valuable asset of Spain’s American empire for himself and his
Creole Revolution. With the edifice of the old regime in ruins, it still remained to
establish a new one capable of calming the endemic instability Spanish America ’ s
internal social hierarchy produced, which external enemies would surely seek to
exploit. Indeed, cracks had already begun to appear in Colombian unity, and the
threat of caste warfare continued. “The south hates the north, the coast hates the
highlands, Venezuela hates Cundinamarca; and Cundinamarca suffers from the
disorders in Venezuela,” Bolívar lamented, “and in the midst of all this disturbance
pardocracia flourishes. ”86 At the same time, a small detachment of Brazilian troops
entered the Bolivian territory and skirmished briefly with Colombian troops,
causing Bolívar to become concerned that Pedro I, the heir to the Portuguese throne
who had ruled Brazil as emperor since 1822, might be collaborating with Europe’s
Holy Alliance to reconquer the Americas.87
As a response, in two private letters, Bolívar proposed a permanent “union of
the three republics” – Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia – that his armies had liberated
and still occupied. Colombia would be redivided into Venezuela, Cundinamarca, and
Quito, and Peru would be split into two smaller departments. Each of the six
component states would adopt the Bolivian Constitution, which would also be
applied, with some modifications, to the general government of the union. Bolívar
himself would assume the title of “ Liberator-President ” and in this role ride on an
annual circuit throughout all of the states, calming their disorders by his very
presence.
Though allowing some autonomy to each state, the “intention of this pact
would be the most perfect union possible under the federal form” of government;
“there will be one flag, one army, and one single nation.” Bolívar summarized by
describing the proposed Andean union as an intellectual and institutional “synthesis
[transacción] of Europe with America, of the army with the people, of democracy
with aristocracy, and of empire with republicanism.”88 It would be hard to find a
more complete and succinct statement of the internal contradictions of the ideology
of Creole Revolution than this one, or a better institutional illustration of antiimperial imperialism than Bolivar’s Andean union.
4.6 Creole Cosmopolitanism
Bolívar’s idea of a union encompassing all of Andean South America never advanced
beyond the short sketches cited earlier, but not for the reasons he himself most
feared. Instead of race war, partisan political conflicts amongst committed Creole
revolutionaries began to undermine Bolívar’s influence within Colombia over the
course of the 1820s, making it impossible for him to continue imposing his
29
institutional preferences at will.89 Even as his star fell at home, though, it continued
to rise abroad, so the most successful efforts of Bolívar’s late career took place in the
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