Bolivar: American Liberator (75 page)

Authors: Marie Arana

BOOK: Bolivar: American Liberator

4.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

The presidential palace in Bogotá, the site of the September 25, 1828, assassination attempt on Bolívar’s life. At Manuela Sáenz’s insistence, he leapt to safety from a window and left her to fend off his assailants.
(Private photo collection)

Bolívar died on a sugar plantation in Santa Marta, Colombia, too ill to board a ship and go into exile.
(Painting by Antonio Herrera Toro, Colección Museo Bolivariano, Caracas)

Acknowledgments

B
efore I acknowledge the living, I must pay tribute to the dead: my ancestors, whose very frowns drove me to write this book.

When I was an unruly child in Lima, Peru, I was made to atone for my misbehavior by sitting alone on a hard stool in my grandparents’ living room. It was an airless chamber, shuttered against the coast’s alternating sun and fog. There were musty books in shaky bookcases, an ornately carved piano, marble-topped tables, bronze busts of illustrious Romans, and five immense ancestral portraits that seemed to regard me with pointed reproach. Two of the likenesses were of my beloved grandparents peering down with what I never saw on their real faces—sharp looks of haughty surprise. But the other three were of earlier vintage, painted 125 years before I was born.

One was of an imposing general named Joaquín Rubín de Celis, my great-great-great-grandfather, the first Spaniard to charge and the first to fall at the Battle of Ayacucho. His defeat won Peru its freedom. The wistful beauty who stared at him from the other wall was the daughter he never knew: Trinidad. She was born a few weeks after a rebel sword pierced his heart. At sixteen, Trinidad married a rebel general, my great-great-grandfather Pedro Cisneros Torres, who had rushed down the Andes with Bolívar’s forces on that crisp December day to fight against her father.

After three hundred years of Spanish rule, with two of my ancestors battling each other in the dust of the cordillera, the yoke of colonialism
was broken, the war of independence won. And so, although I had been instructed to sit in that room and ponder my wanton badness, I could only wonder at the glories of rebellion. A lifetime later, those faces are still with me. They hang in my study today. I only hope that I have done their history credit in this book about the man at the crucible of American possibility, Simón Bolívar.

There is no shortage of books about Bolívar. In the Library of Congress alone there are 2,683 volumes. Most are in Spanish, many are in Bolívar’s words or written by his contemporaries; many more, unfortunately, tend to be filled with hagiography or vitriol. He was a controversial man. But I owe a large debt of gratitude to a number of writers and historians whose portraits animated me: Daniel Florencio O’Leary, José Manuel Restrepo, Vicente Lecuna, Gerhard Masur, Indalecio Liévano Aguirre, David Bushnell, John Lynch, and Gabriel García Márquez. I have benefited from the friendship of others who have written about Latin American history in general: among them, Mario Vargas Llosa, John Hemming, Larrie Ferreiro, the late Germán Arciniegas, Natalia Sobrevilla, Pamela Murray, Lawrence Clayton, and Lester Langley.

In the course of researching Bolívar’s life, I visited many libraries and museums throughout the hemisphere, but I could not have written this book without the help of two great American institutions: the Library of Congress and Brown University. At the Library of Congress, I was fortunate to be made a Distinguished Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center, where I took up residence in 2009 and proceeded to immerse myself in the library’s extensive Latin American collection. I thank the eminent James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, who generously granted me that privilege. I am indebted to the Director of the Kluge Center, Carolyn Brown, and her staff members, Mary Lou Reker and Patricia Villamil, as well as Georgette Dorn, Chief of the Library’s Hispanic Division and her deeply knowledgeable colleagues; and the Map Division’s specialist Anthony Mullan, who turned out to be—of all things!—the great-great-grandson of the Lion of the Apure, José Antonio Páez. There is such wit in history.

I am grateful beyond words to Ted Widmer, former director of the John Carter Brown Library, who invited me to be a Fellow at his remarkable institution—so rich in Latin American holdings—at the
very start of my research. It was a thrill to read and write in a room alive with Bolívariana, dedicated entirely to the Liberator’s achievements. Ted’s support was invaluable, as was the help I received from his staff: Valerie Andrews, Michael Hamerly, Ken Ward, Leslie Tobias Olsen; and a string of venerable JCBL veterans, including Norman Fiering and José Amor y Vásquez.

Years ago, when I was in the thick of research, I received a note from Thor Halvorssen, who is one of the few living direct descendants of the Bolívar family. His lineage is matrilineal, and derives directly from Bolívar’s sister Juana. Thor, who is founder and president of the Human Rights Foundation, was generous with his gifts: his master’s thesis on Bolívar’s views of the Enlightenment, some precious family books, even a DNA swab of his grandfather’s cheek, which did not corroborate what some of Bolívar’s enemies believed—that the Liberator was largely black-blooded and therefore unsuitable (to them) as a leader. To Bolívar those allegations were meaningless. He spent no time arguing them, instead recruiting blacks to his ranks. But more than likely he would have been amazed that a biographer would be able to trace his haplogroup in cells harvested from a very elderly great-great-grandnephew.

I count myself fortunate indeed to be represented by my agent, Amanda “Binky” Urban, whose fortitude and friendship over the years have been my rock. Binky has seen me through many a genre and caprice, and proved her mettle when I told her I intended to leap from fiction to history. She didn’t flinch. I am grateful, too, to Binky’s colleagues in London, Gordon Wise and Helen Manders, for their ongoing faith in my work.

A biographer couldn’t have better luck than to be edited by Bob Bender, the Simon & Schuster vice president and senior editor whose astute eye and unfailing instincts have made this book better in every way. Thanks also to my publisher, Jonathan Karp, who immediately understood that Simón Bolívar deserved to have his life’s story told again, in an English-language version, and differently. I am grateful to many good people at Simon & Schuster who helped bring this book to life: Johanna Li, Tracey Guest, Maureen Cole, Michael Accordino, Gypsy da Silva, Joy O’Meara, and my phenomenally eagle-eyed copyeditor, Fred Chase.

Thanks to all my friends at
The Washington Post
, who have been a fount of support over the years. Thanks, too, to my brilliant siblings, Vicky and George, to whom this volume is dedicated. But, in truth, I could not have written any of it—or any of my books, for that matter—without the love and daily sacrifices of my husband, Jonathan Yardley, who read the manuscript of
Bolívar
at every stage, made dinners when I was oblivious, did all the shopping, walked the dog, fed the cat, and kept the cabinet stocked with good wine.

In the last days of my parents’ lives, each gave me a distinct piece of her or his mind, so characteristic of the differences between them. My father, being a traditionally minded Peruvian, insisted that I take my time. The book had better be good, he said; he didn’t want any daughter of his embarrassing the family. My mother, on the other hand, being a forward-thinking American, would sing her impatience: Hurry! When are you going to finish that thing? Don’t you know I’m on tenterhooks, waiting?

Papi, Mother, bless you for that. I couldn’t have done it without you.

MARIE ARANA
was born in Lima, Peru. She is the author of the memoir
American Chica,
a finalist for the National Book Award; two novels,
Cellophane
and
Lima Nights;
and
The Writing Life,
a collection from her well-known column for
The Washington Post
. She is writer-at-large for
The Washington Post
and a senior consultant at the Library of Congress, and lives in Washington, D.C., and Lima, Peru.