Bolivar: American Liberator (86 page)

“It pains me to see”:
SB to the Municipality, June 20, 1818, quoted in C. J. Reyes,
El mundo según Simón Bolívar
(Bogotá: Icono, 2006), 34.

amassed all the silver:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 130.

sold coffee and cocoa:
Polanco Alcántara, 469.

“We are free, we write in a free country”:
El Correo del Orinoco
, Oct. 1, 1818, JCBL.

keeping Americans ignorant:
King Carlos IV in 1785 pronounced, “It’s always best not
to enlighten Americans.” See V. Bulmer-Thomas et al., eds.,
The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 432.

“The printing press is the infantry”:
El Correo del Orinoco
, Facsimile ed. (Bogotá: Gerardo Rivas Moreno, 1998), ix.

on the pages of
El Correo:
El Correo del Orinoco
, Oct. 1, 1818, JCBL.

establishing a congress:
SB, Discurso, Angostura, Oct. 1, 1818, SB,
Escritos
, XIV, 310–16.

regularize the currency:
Páez’s silver money was suddenly recalled in an effort to impose some controls, but it was issued again later, in seeming frustration. Hippisley, 458.

his men could hardly be blamed:
O’L, XI, 455.

correspondence shows a courteous but firm:
Madariaga, p. 317.

recognized in the outside world:
O’L, XI, p. 473.

import fine wines, etc.:
Hippisley, 336–37.

clothing and supplies for ten thousand:
Madariaga, 315.

valuable cargo of arms:
SB to Palacios, Angostura, Aug. 7, 1818, SBO, I, 324; also Madariaga, 316.

large ship had sailed in from London, etc.:
Ducoudray, 233; Polanco Alcántara, 468–85.

“Arms have been my constant concern”:
SB to López Méndez, Angostura, June 12, 1818, SBSW, 156.

fine leather saddles for Páez’s cavalry:
Ibid.

he had stored away fifty thousand stands:
Ducoudray, 234.

tacit approval from the Duke of Wellington:
Col. Hippisley, who had fought in Spain under Wellington, intimates this when he describes his first visit to López Méndez in London: Hippisley, 3. Madariaga makes the connection more explicit: Madariaga, 310.

before their government issued:
In Nov. 1817, the Duke of San Carlos, Spanish ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, persuaded the British to issue an order forbidding citizens from joining the Spanish American revolution. Alfred Hasbrouck,
Foreign Legionaries
(London: Octagon, 1969), 56, 111.

The offer that López Méndez made, etc.:
The descriptions of the British mercenaries on the following pages are all from Hippisley, 12–25, 532, 632ff.

“The frequency of their mess-dinners”:
Ibid., 25.

the fabled land of El Dorado:
Madariaga, 311.

None had actually shown proof:
López Méndez, letter to the
Morning Chronicle
, London, dated Jan. 15, published Jan, 18, 1819, quoted in Hippisley, 648–50.

had been a mere lieutenant:
Britain War Office,
A List of the Officers of the Army and of the Corps of Royal Marines
, London, 1827,
http://books.google.com
, 533.

“a rifle in one hand and a bottle in the other,” etc.:
K. Racine, “Rum, Recruitment and Revolution,”
Irish Migration Studies in Latin America
, 4, no. 2 (March 2006), 47–48.

Hippisley’s correspondence:
Hippisley, 548.

the commanding colonel worried:
Ibid., p. 585.

“Any man seen drunk”:
Ibid.

“ridiculous threats”:
SB to Hippisley, Angostura, June 19, 1818, ibid., 628.

more than six thousand volunteers, etc.:
E. Lambert, “Los legionarios británicos,” in
Bello y Londres
, Bicentenario, 2 vols. (Caracas, 1980–81), I, 355–76, quoted in Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 122.

faraway terrain:
Hamilton,
Travels Through the Interior
, I, 31.

He was known to say:
C. Pi Sunyer,
Patriotas americanos en Londres
(Caracas: Monte Avila, 1978), 242.

finally located Pepita Machado, etc.:
SB to Palacios, Angostura, Aug. 8, 1818, SBO, I, 325; also Polanco Alcántara, 412–14.

“People are saying”:
SB to Palacios, Angostura, July 11, 1818, SBO, I, 308.

major offensive in New Granada:
SB, “Proclamation,” Angostura, Aug. 15, 1818, SBSW, I, 165.

had just boarded:
Palacios to SB, San Tomás, Oct. 14 1818, Archivos de Gran Colombia (Caracas: Fundación Boulton), C.XXIV, 230232.

accompany him on the long march:
Polanco Alcántara, 468–85.

tried to follow him into battle:
O. R. Jiménez, “Los recuerdos, Josefina Machado,”
El Universal
, May 5, 1983, Caracas.

died along the way, etc.:
Ibid.; also Julián Rivas, Bicentenario, enfoques365.net, Venezuela, April 30, 2010.

reach Angostura successfully:
Polanco Alcántara claims this, 414.

a large brigade of British mercenaries, etc.:
O’L, XI, 492.

This was the real Venezuela:
Polanco Alcántara, 529.

the Second National Congress:
SB, Congressional Inauguration Address, Feb. 15, 1818, O’L, XI, 493ff. English translation, SBSW, I, 173–97.

twenty-six of the thirty-five, etc.:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 548.

“Laws need to suit the people,” etc.:
O’L, XI; SBSW, I, 173–97. All quotes and summaries in the next pages are from the address.

long, frenzied applause:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 549.

straw hats and white pantaloons:
See
Recollections of a Service
, 46.

Every day for six months:
O’L, XI, 522.

some barefoot and in patches:
Recollections of a Service
, 46.

rejected the hereditary senate:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 569, O’L, XI, 522.

With 150 horsemen, etc.:
The full account is in “Campañas de Apure,”
BOLANH
, no. 21, 1192–94; also Páez,
Autobiografía
, 181–4; and Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 279–81.

his account to Madrid:
Morillo to the Ministerio de Guerra, Madrid, May 12, 1819, in Rodríguez Villa, 20–25; also Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 285.

Four hundred soldiers of the king, etc.:
Ibid, 281.

a robust army of seven thousand:
O’L, XI, 483.

more than a little worried:
Morillo to L X. Uzelay, in Lecuna,
Documentos inéditos para la historia de Bolívar
, XVIII.

“Patience, . . . for behind every hill”:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 183.

By May, the rains had begun:
Ibid., 203.

soldiers had little food, etc.:
O’LB, 150.

height of his physical and mental, etc.:
Ibid.; also O’L, I, 486–87, 539.

His face had lost its luster, etc.:
Boulton,
El rostro de Bolívar
, 26.

His mustache and sideburns, etc.:
O’LB, 139.

An Englishman seeing him:
Vowell,
Campaigns and Cruises
, 66–67.

sometimes two or three times a day:
O’L, I, 487.

essence of privation:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 285; also Santander, in Restrepo, II, 368.

two pounds of beef per day:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 285.

openly disdained the others:
Restrepo, 367.

vultures or campfire smoke:
Cunninghame Graham, 94.

Bolívar took great pains, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 286, 300; also Oficio, April 11, O’L, XVI, 301.

a commanding general obsessed, etc.:
SB to López Méndez, Angostura, June 12, 1818; also SB to Páez, Angostura, Sept. 29, 1818, SBO, I, 293, 351.

“For the first time”:
Morillo, Oficio al Ministerio de Guerra, Atamaica, Feb. 28, 1819, in Rodríguez Villa, 10, quoted in Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 286.

a promise to Granadans:
SB, “Proclamation to the People of New Granada,” Angostura, Aug. 15, 1818, published in
El Correo del Orinoco
, Aug. 22, 1818.

issuing a steady drizzle of rain:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 181–4.

“This is for your eyes”:
SB to Santander, Cañafistola, May 20, 1819, SB,
Cartas: Santander–Bolívar
, I, 92.

Páez had already said yes, etc.:
O’LB, 152.

assumed they would be wintering close by:
Vowell, 153.

“scrawny and mangy mares,”:
SB to Páez, Arauca, June 5, 1819, O’L, XVI, 395–96.

rains began to pelt down in earnest, etc.:
Vowell, 66–67.

feared they would desert:
By June 3, they had already deserted. SB sent Páez a letter on June 5, reporting that 50 hussars had fled their ranks, and warning him to take severe measures with them. O’L, XVI, 395.

force of 2,100, etc.:
O’LB, 153.

On June 4, Bolívar’s army, etc.:
O’LB, 154–57.

savannas flooded:
Anzoátegui to his wife, Bogotá, Aug. 28, 1819, quoted in Slatta and Lucas de Grummond, 194–95.

Hooves grew soft, etc.:
Cunninghame Graham, 167–68.

marching for more than a month:
SB to Zea, June 30, 1819, SBO, I, 291–92.

flesh-eating fish:
Vowell, 157.

Horses and cattle fell into deep water, etc.:
Cunninghame Graham, 167–68.

sleeping in standing water:
Anzoátegui to his wife, in Slatta and Lucas de Grummond, 194–95.

potatoes, barley:
Vowell, 203–4.

the forest of San Camilo:
Liévano Aguirre, 217.

bolstered by Bolívar’s enthusiasm:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 313.

Some gave up on the expedition:
O’LB, 158.

“The harshness of the peaks,” etc.:
SB to Zea, Paya, June 30, 1819, SBO, I, 392.

Often, the streams they crossed, etc.:
Vowell, 159–62.

“He was . . . invariably humane”:
Ibid.

“had no trousers”:
Ibid., 163.

A full quarter of the British contingent:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 128.

The next day he saw her marching:
Ibid.

set to work, making them shirts:
Anzoátegui to his wife.

dismissed the Páramo de Pisba:
Sámano to Barreiro, Santa Fé [Bogotá], June 29, 1819,
Los ejércitos del rey
, II (Bogotá: Fundación para la Conmemoración, 1989), 185.

“Here is where this man distinguishes himself”:
Santander, “El General Simón Bolívar en la campaña. Relación escrito por un Granadino,”
Gazeta de Santa Fé
, Oct. 4, 1819, JCBL.

“Colonel! Save the republic!” etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 339.

as rain began to spill:
Barreiro to Viceroy Samáno, Campo de Pantano de Vargas, July 25–26, 1819,
Los ejércitos del rey
, 354–55, 594–95.

Santander would later say, etc.:
Santander,
Archivo
, II, 46, quoted in Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 339.

a well-honed fighting force:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 339.

by his legendary war to the death:
Liévano Aguirre, 224.

the optimism of Barreiro himself:
Polanco Alcántara, 551–53.

they were afraid:
Liévano. Also O’LB, 160.

balance of power had shifted, etc.:
Liévano, 222.

Barreiro sent out a vanguard, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 346–48.

Sixteen hundred royalists, etc.:
O’LB, 163.

Rooke grasped the hewn limb, etc.:
O’LN, I, 559; Hasbrouck, 202–3; Mijares, 362; and Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 380.

“Viva la patria!”:
Masur, ibid.

a twelve-year-old stablehand, etc.:
José Segundo Peña (Senator), Address to the Congress of Colombia, April 12, 1880,
Boletín de historia y antigüedades
, Academia de Historia Nacional, I (Bogotá, 1903), 652–55.

Bolívar chased stragglers:
O’LB, 163.

Vinoni, the republican traitor, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 346–48.