Bolivar: American Liberator (91 page)

“beat us to the punch”:
“
El Libertador nos ha ganado de mano
,” in Mitre,
Historia
, VI, 81.

“He is not the man”:
San Martín to O’Higgins, Callao, ibid.

He had found him superficial, etc.:
San Martín to Guido, Brussels, Dec. 18, 1826, June 21, 1827,
Documentos del Archivo de San Martín
, VI, 504, 529. Also Mitre,
Historia
, VI, 81; Masur, “The Conference of Guayaquil,” 218.

bound for history and oblivion:
San Martín received little attention from Latin America in his last years. His fame was largely posthumous. He lived in impecunious circumstances in Europe during his last years and grew blind. When governor of Buenos Aires Juan Manuel Rosas visited him in France in 1849, one year before his death, the Protector could no longer see. R. Rojas,
San Martín
, pp. 338–39.

his animus grew:
Col. Heres, San Martín’s aide-de-camp, is quoted to this effect in O’LN, II, 195.

second in command had been stripped:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 186.

“His character is essentially”:
SB to Santander, Guayaquil, July 29, 1822, SBO, II, 666.

“San Martín has been taking me apart”:
SB to Santander, Cuenca, Oct. 27, 1822, ibid., 699.

“The scepter has slipped,” etc.:
Guido, 232–43.

In his final address, he assured them:
San Martín, address to congress, in Mitre,
Historia
, VI, 108.

that someday they would find documents:
Guido, quoted in Mitre,
Historia
, VI, 110.

“There is no room”:
R. Vargas Ugarte,
Historia general del Perú
, 6 vols. (Barcelona: Milla Batres, 1966), 240.

He boarded a ship:
The ship was
El Belgrano
, which belonged to San Martín. Mitre,
Historia
, VI, 101; also Col. Heres in O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 186.

Pizarro’s flag of conquest:
The flag was presented to him by the municipality of Lima on April 2, 1822. This was purportedly the standard Francisco Pizarro had flown when he entered Peru in 1532. San Martín’s last will and testament returned the flag to Lima upon his death in 1850, but it was later lost in a riot (R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 349–50). The box in which the flag was presented to him (complete with an engraved dedicatory plaque) turned up empty in Boulogne-sur-Mer, San Martín’s last place of residence. Many years later, the box was presented to the cellist Pablo Casals as a gift from French admirers. In 2008, by chance, it was given to me by Casals’s widow, Marta Casals Istomin, and her second husband, the pianist Eugene Istomin, close friends of mine.

“My successes in the war”:
San Martín to Guido, Dec. 18, 1826.
Documentos del Archivo de San Martín
, VI, 504.

“It is reasonable to say:
San Martín, quoted in Sarmiento,
Obras de D. F. Sarmiento
(Buenos Aires: Mariano Moreno, 1899), 31.

It was because of San Martín, etc.:
Paz Soldán, I, 348.

1,700 of them:
Ibid., II, 56.

pleading for him to return:
R. Rojas,
San Martín
, 300.

“Impossible!,” etc.:
San Martín to Riva Agüero, Oct. 23, 1823, San Martín,
San Martín, su Correspondencia
, 338.

No fewer than four delegations:
O’LB, 220–39.

To him, the Colombian constitution was sacred, inviolable:
Ibid., 230.

guns, weapons—all metal:
SB to Santander, Jan. 8, 1823, SBO, II, 715–17.

responded with renewed violence:
O’LB, ibid.

“You cannot imagine,” etc.:
Salom to SB, Pasto, Sept. 25, 1823, quoted in Madariaga, 458.

women and children were indiscriminately slaughtered:
O’LB, 227–28.

“The victory at Yacuanquer,” etc.:
Sáenz to SB, Dec. 30, 1822, in Lecuna, “Cartas de mujeres,” 332.

only four times:
Bernal Medina,
Ruta de Bolívar
, VII, map and graphic.

She was lovesick, etc.:
Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 36.

a fanatical partisan, etc.:
All these traits are amply described in Murray’s excellent biography. See also Rumazo González,
Manuela Sáenz.

capable of mauling his face:
Boussingault, III, 209.

she likely offered to serve as an informant:
Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 36.

“She has a singular configuration”:
Boussingault, 206.

Bolívar made it known to Peruvians:
SB to José de la Mar, Loja, Oct. 14, 1822, SBO, II, 696–97; Cuenca, Oct. 28, ibid., 700–2; SB to Riva Agüero, Guayaquil, April 13, 1823, ibid., 735–37.

a man should mind his own house:
SB quotes Santander in SB to Santander, Cuenca, Sept. 29, 1822, ibid., 693.

Santander finally took Bolívar’s request:
Santander al Presidente del Senado, Bogotá, May 10, 1823,
Actas y correspondencia
(Bogotá: Biblioteca de la Presidencia de la República de Colombia, 1989), I, Doc. 46, 286.

He sent it six thousand troops:
SB to Riva Agüero, ibid.; SB to Manuel Valdés (commandant of Colombian troops in Peru), Guayaquil, April 14, SBO, II, 737–38.

“The anarchy here is beyond description!”:
Sucre to SB, Callao, June 19, 1823, O’L, I, 47.

insisted that he was still in charge:
A good account of this and of Riva Agüero’s subsequent treason is in A. Gutiérrez de La Fuente,
Manifiesto que di en Trujillo en 1824
(Lima: Impreso Masias, 1829), 2–5.

“Peru awaits the voice that bonds”:
Olmedo to SB, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 237.

“For a long time now”:
Ibid., 238.

before the hour was out:
Ibid.

Epigraph:
All the power of the supreme being:
San Martín, quoted in Bulnes,
Ultimas campañas
, 282.

“Peru . . . contains two elements”:
SB, Contestación de un americano meridional a un caballero de esta isla (“Letter from Jamaica”), Kingston, Sept. 6, 1815, SBO, I, 161–77.

he was reminded of it now:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 252.

It was the 1st of September:
Ibid.

the morning air:
The
Chimborazo
sailed along the foggy coast in the morning, approached Callao at noon, dropped anchor at 1
P.M.
, and at 3
P.M.
the procession began. See
Gaceta de Gobierno
, Sept. 3, 1823,
BANH
, no. 104, 321.

Any visitor to the bustling center, etc.:
Liévano Aguirre, 302.

six thousand gilded carriages:
Ibid.

dropped anchor at one o’clock:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 252.

procession for the Liberator’s long-awaited entrance, etc.:
Proctor,
Narrative of a Journey
, 245; also O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 252.

refrained from saying much of anything:
Proctor, 245.

“You could probably get Congress”:
Sucre to SB, Lima, May 15, 1823, in O’L, I, 35–36.

Rumor had it that Bolívar was a mulatto:
Martha Hildebrandt, a Peruvian linguist, notes that SB was called “una pasa” (a raisin), which was a term used by whites of Spanish extraction to refer to blacks. Hildebrandt,
La lengua de Bolívar
, 234. Ricardo Palma also recorded this Peruvian attitude toward Bolívar’s swarthiness and curly hair in
Tradiciones peruanas.
To this day, many Peruvians assume Bolívar was part black.

his army was a thundering horde:
Liévano Aguirre, 312.

to address the corruption:
S. Lorente,
Historia del Perú desde la proclamación de la independencia
(Lima: Callé de Camaná, 1867), 188.

Torre Tagle had raided the public treasury:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 253; also Paz Soldán, I, 253–57, quoted in Madariaga, 461–62.

He spent those first few days:
Proctor, 246–51.

“The men seem to admire me,” etc.:
SB to Santander, Lima, Sept. 11, 1823, SBO, II, 805–8.

“a chamber of horrors”:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 187; “Un campo de Agramante,” O’L, XXVIII, 240.

called it “a corpse”:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 206.

sent Riva Agüero in Trujillo a letter, etc.:
SB to Riva Agüero, Lima, Sept. 4, 1823, SBO, II, 799–801.

“Stop conducting a war”:
Ibid.

approached the viceroy himself:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 326–28.

now marched his army south:
SB to Santa Cruz, Lima, Sept. 8, 1823, SBO, II, 801.

He was jealous, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 309–15.

“I shall always be a foreigner,” etc.:
SB to Santander, Lima, Sept. 11, 1823, SBO, II, 805–8.

“If we lose Peru,” etc.:
SB to Santander, Lima, Oct. 13, 1823, SBO, II, 821–22.

San Martín’s likeness was not on display:
Villanueva, 249.

a point to toast San Martín:
Bulnes, 283; also Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 212.

two words: attack and unite:
Belaunde,
Bolívar and the Political Thought
, 136.

“The soldiers who have come,” etc.:
Paz Soldán, II, 168.

anarchy reigned:
Rivadeneira to San Martín, Lima, July 26, 1823, San Martín,
San Martín, su correspondencia
, 286.

expressing grave doubts:
SB to Santander, Pallasca, Dec. 8, 1823, SBO, II, 845.

a solid battalion of horsemen:
Ibid.

army of twelve thousand:
SB to Santander, Trujillo, Dec. 21, 1823, ibid.

“victory’s favorite son”:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 212.

thought to be suffering from typhus:
J. Herrera Torres,
Simón Bolívar, vigencia histórica y política
(Caracas: Editiones Bolívar, 1983), II, 558.

from the other side of an enormous curtain:
O’Connor,
Recuerdos
, 54.

“You would not recognize me”:
SB to Santander, Pativilca, Jan. 7, 1824, SBO, II, 868–70.

“He was so gaunt and skeletal”:
Mosquera, quoted in Bulnes, 461–63.

In France, the revered bishop, etc.:
Bishop de Pradt and SB had already been in correspondence for some time; see SB to Revenga, San Cristóbal, May 20, 1820,
Doctrina
, 126. SB had also mentioned de Pradt’s views of America in his “Letter from Jamaica,” Sept. 6, 1815. This particular citation refers to de Pradt’s publication of
L’Europe et L’Amerique en 1821
, 2 vols. (Paris: Béchet Ainé, 1822).

“When one considers how he began”:
de Pradt, II, 329–30. These sentiments were repeated in de Pradt’s later volumes, published in 1824.

George Canning, who had made it known:
The Polignac memorandum (a report on Canning’s conversation with the French ambassador to Britain, Prince Polignac), Oct. 1823. See Bethell, III, 212. Also Sir Adolphus W. Ward,
The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy: 1815–1866
(London: Octagon, 1970), 67.

a viceroy’s courtesan:
The infamous Peruvian diva, La Perricholi (Micaela Villegas, 1748–1819), who maintained a fourteen-year romance with Viceroy Manuel Amat y Juniet—even had a child by him—and loved to scandalize Lima by appearing at his side. According to Von Hagen, Sáenz was often a guest in La Perricholi’s box at the Coliseo de Comedias. Von Hagen,
The Four Seasons of Manuela
, p. 21.

It was a stucco house, etc.:
Details from a personal visit and research by the docent staff, Museo Casa de Bolívar, Plaza Bolívar, Pueblo Libre, Lima, Peru, March 2011.

might even take up arms, etc.:
Inés Quintero, paper presented at the symposium “Creating Freedom in the Americas, 1776–1826,” LOC, Nov. 19, 2010.

rarely . . . paid a salary:
Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 37. Murray explains that Sáenz’s salary was paid out from SB’s account. Since he had refused a salary from Peru, this may well have been from his expense allotment.

a cavalry soldier, a hussar:
SB to O’Leary, Lima, Sept. 28, 1823, Alvarez Saá,
Manuela
, 76.

When she read of it in a routine report:
Sáenz to SB, Lima, Feb. 27, 1824, ibid., 77.

called on President Torre Tagle to negotiate:
SB to Col. Heres, Pativilca, Jan. 9, 1824, SBO, II, 872–76.