Bolivar: American Liberator (93 page)

more republican now:
This sentiment was surely aided by Lima’s despotic royalist commandant Ramírez, “the Robespierre of Peru,” who sat in the Convent of La Merced and entertained himself by shaving the head of every young male passerby he suspected of being a republican. Liévano Aguirre, 342.

imposed a siege, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 440.

“serve as a brain trust”:
SB to the governments of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala, Lima, Dec. 7, 1824, SBO, II, 1016–18.

South America did not need a burly, etc.:
Arciniegas,
Bolívar y la revolución
, 133–36; A. Lleras Camargo,
El primer gobierno del Frente Nacional
, II (Bogotá: Imprenta Nacional, 1960), 21.

he had no intention of relying:
Arcieniegas,
Bolívar y la revolución
, 133–36; Lleras Camargo, 21.

Nine thousand royalists:
López, 141; Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 268.

not worried by those maneuvers, etc.:
Sucre’s report to the Minister of War, Dec. 11, 1824, quoted in O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 354.

in a torrential rain, etc.:
Miller, II, 158–59, and for subsequent details.

frantic defections occurred:
Ibid., 10, 174.

His notion was to keep the Spaniards, etc.:
O’Connor, 100.

pressed close to the foot of Cundurcunca, etc.:
López, 134.

exactly where Bolívar would have wanted:
SB to Sucre, quoted in Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 536.

brought a resplendent sun, etc.:
López, 137; Miller, II, 167.

according to one soldier:
López, 137.

a scruffy behemoth of dirt, etc.:
Ibid., 138.

the sound of cornets and drums, etc.:
Ibid., 143.

no choice for them but to win:
Ibid., 141; O’Connor, 99.

“Soldiers! On your efforts”:
O’Connor, 99.

At eight o’clock, as the sun, etc.:
López, 143–44.

as one chronicler put it:
Ibid.

General Monet asked Córdova, etc.:
López, 145–50, and for subsequent details.

helmets glinting in the sun:
Miller, II, 174.

dark, somber overcoats:
Madariaga, 488.

“Horsemen! Lancers! What you see,” etc.:
López, 151.

a young Spanish brigadier was first to attack:
This was Col. Joaquín Rubín de Celis, my great-great-grandfather. My great-grandfather Pedro Cisneros was fighting him on the patriot side. (See Acknowledgments.)

splitting their formation, etc.:
López, 154.

“Soldiers! Man your arms!”:
Miller, II, 168.

snatching their silver helmets:
Ibid., 174.

By mid-afternoon, etc.:
Ibid., 172.

three thousand royalists were taken:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 463.

found him by chance in one of the huts, etc.:
Miller, II, 176. Apart from his gallantry to La Serna, Miller invited Canterac to bed down in his hut, along with other officers. Canterac talked into the night, saying: “General Miller—General Miller—all this appears to be a dream! How strange is the fortune of war! Who would have said twenty-four hours ago, that I should have been your guest? but it cannot be helped: the harassing war is now over, and, to tell you the truth, we were all heartily tired of it.” Ibid., 178.

The dead amounted to, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 463.

The terms Sucre offered, etc.:
Ibid.; Sucre to SB, Dec. 10, 1824, quoted in O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 364–67.

His heavy wool socks, etc.:
Bulnes, 614.

“I drink . . . to the man”:
Ibid.

ambushed and killed by Indians:
Miller, II, 170 fn. By Indians of the Huando tribe.

“The battle for Peru is complete”:
Sucre to the Minister of War, Dec. 11, 1824, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 364–67.

the Pandora’s box that Peru had become:
O’Leary,
Junín y Ayacucho
, 211.

“Victory! Victory! Victory!”:
Blanco-Fombona in a footnote to the 1915 edition of O’Leary’s
Bolívar y la Emancipación
, 368.

Epigraph:
“My hope is that our republics”:
SB to Hipólito Unanue, Plata, Nov. 25, 1825, O’L, XXX, 154–56.

“to General Simon Bolívar,” etc.:
National Intelligencer
, Jan. 3, 1825; quoted in R. V. Remini,
Henry Clay
(New York: Norton, 1991), 257.

Not Alexander, not Hannibal, etc.:
Pérez Silva,
Bolívar, de Cartagena a Santa Marta
, 18 (Introduction). And for subsequent comparisons.

“European ambition forced the yoke”:
Gaceta de Caracas
, No. 30, Dec. 31, 1813, quoted in Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 251.

“this splendid victory is due entirely”:
SB, Decreto, Dec. 27, 1824, O’L, XXII, 605–6.

He tendered his resignation:
Dec. 22, 1824, cited in Lecuna,
Catálogo
, III, 368.

planned to leave Colombia someday:
SB to Santander, Lima, Dec. 20, 1824, SBO, II, 1022–26; also SB to Santander, Lima, Jan. 23, 1825, ibid., 1040–41.

assembly fell into a stunned silence, etc.:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 194.

“the greatest man and most extraordinary”:
Hamilton, I, 230.

“will be the day of my glory”:
DOC, IX, 480.

presented him with a gift of one million pesos, etc.:
O’L, XXVIII, 340–43.

Monteagudo, whose agile mind:
Monteagudo,
Ensayo sobre la necesidad de una federación general entre los estados hispano-americanos y plan de su organización
(Lima: J. González, 1825; uncompleted and posthumously published.)

found facedown on a street, etc.:
A. Íñiguez Vicuña,
Vida de Don Bernardo Monteagudo
(Santiago: Imprenta Chilena, 1867), 171.

might be part of a royalist plot:
SB to Santander, Lima, Feb. 9, 1825, SBO, II, 1044–46.

a black cook, who worked in the kitchen:
Íñiguez Vicuña, 173–74.

in private, in a dimly lit room:
Mosquera, Popayán, Sept. 20, 1878, quoted in Ricardo Palma,
Cachivaches
(Lima: Torres Aguirre, 1900), 233. Mosquera would later become president of Colombia.

had paid him 200 pesos:
Ibid.

The Liberator was flabbergasted:
Ibid.

a Peruvian general had poisoned him, etc.:
Mosquera, 233–34.

It was a murky chain of events:
SB himself thought it might be a plot undertaken by the Holy Alliance: SB to Santander, Feb. 9, SBO, II, 1044–46. Others have posited that it was a Masonic intrigue, since Sánchez Carrión was leader of the secret society that had pledged to exile Monteagudo from Peru and kill him if he ever returned. Indeed, Sánchez Carrión had written an article for
El Tribuno
, saying that every Peruvian had a right to exterminate Monteagudo: Ricardo Palma,
Mis últimas tradiciones peruanas
(Barcelona: Editorial Maucci, 1908), 541–70.

she scandalized Lima society:
Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 40.

“more jealous than a Portuguese”:
Ibid., 33–34; Sáenz to Thorne, Lecuna [n.p., n.d.] Archivo del Libertador, Caracas, 1961, roll 34; also Lecuna, “Papeles de Manuela Sáenz,” 501.

he swallowed his pride and begged, etc.:
Boussingault, 208; Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 33–34.

“No, no, no, hombre!”:
Sáenz to Thorne, Lecuna, 501.

Even in a city where women:
Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 21.

“At times she behaved like a grand lady”:
Boussingault, 205–11.

was infatuated with Manuela:
Lecuna claims that Boussingault was “madly in love” with her. Lecuna,
Catálogo
, III, 219.

Bolívar didn’t much care:
Boussingault, 208.

filled with tenderness:
These are too many to cite, but see especially SB to Sáenz, La Plata, Nov. 26, 1824, O’LN, II, 376–77.

Far from spurring an era of creativity:
I owe this insight to Colombian historian and diplomat (president of the United Nations General Assembly) Indalecio Liévano Aguirre,
Bolívar
, 351–52. See also O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 416.

Upper Peru:
A counterintuitive geographic term. Although it suggests north, it is the opposite: it lay south of Peru as we know it, and north of Chile.

an astounding twenty-one miles a day:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 410.

a sight that seldom fails to move:
Tristan,
Peregrinations of a Pariah
, 85. Tristan, mother of Paul Gauguin, whose parents were acquaintances of Bolívar’s, made a similar trip eight years later.

dissipate the moment he was gone:
Madariaga, 508–9.

returned to South America after decades of exile:
Simón Rodríguez arrived in Guayaquil in 1824, Rodríguez to SB, Guayaquil, O’L, IX, 511.

“The opus is finished”:
San Martín to D. Vicente Chilavert, Brussels, Jan. 1, 1825, San Martín,
San Martín, su correspondencia
, 172.

gave Bolívar a welcome, etc.:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 415–17.

Gold and silver ornaments, etc.:
Ibid., 417.

a fierce original, etc.:
SB to Olmedo, Cuzco, June 27, 1825, SBO, III, 1121–23.

He was presented with a crown, etc.:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 418

he sent the crown to Sucre, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, III, 370–71. Sucre eventually gave the crown to the national museum of Colombia:
Cuerpo de leyes de la República de Colombia
, Jan. 30, 1826 (Caracas: Imprenta Espinal, 1840), 421.

eliminated all titles of nobility, etc.:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 418–22.

“I want to do all that is possible”:
AV to Santander, Cuzco, June 28, 1825, SBO, III, 1125–27.

he ordered roads built, etc.:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 418–22.

something repellent about Peru:
“The Venezuelans are saints in comparison. The people of Quito and Peru have this in common: They are vicious unto infamy and low to the extreme.” To be fair, this was written while he was still emerging from illness in Pativilca, but his antipathy to Peru is evident throughout his correspondence. SB to Santander, Pativilca, Jan. 9, 1824, O’L, XXIX, 376. See also the account in Paulding,
Un rasgo
, 58–59: “He condemned Peruvians in general: he called them cowards, claimed that as a people they had no manly virtues. In sum, he made no effort to mask his bitter disdain.”

at the hands of his own men, etc.:
L. Lumbreras,
Historia de América andina
(Quito: Libresa, 1999), IV, 124 fn; also Morote, 164.

a fraction of his original force:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, III, 497; see also O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 430.

and the old viceroyalty of Buenos Aires began:
This was actually the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, ruled out of Buenos Aires.

From Pichincha to Potosí:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 273.

Liberator was handed another crown:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 455.

“This belongs to the true victor”:
Ibid.

to deliver the region to war-torn Argentina, etc.:
SB to Santander, Feb. 18, 1825, SBO, II, 1047–49.

Bolívar soon disabused him:
O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 435–42.

laws that were clearly arbitrary and racist:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 199.

delighted with the news:
SB to Santander, La Paz, Aug. 19, 1825, SBO, III, 1169–70.

“If we wait any longer”:
SB to the Governments of the Republic of Colombia, Mexico, the River Plate, Chile, and Guatemala, Lima, Dec. 7, 1824, SBO, II, 1016–18.

Bolívar noted a viral dread:
SB to Santander, Lima, Feb. 18, 1825, SBO, II, 1047–49.

“We slip in between,” etc.:
H. Temperley, “The Later American Policy of George Canning,”
American History Review
, XI, 781, quoted in Whitaker, 584.

toyed with the notion of taking his liberating army:
SB to Santander, Potosí, Oct. 10, 1825, SBO, III, 1193–98.