Bolivar: American Liberator (98 page)

An army captain had just reported, etc.:
González, 125.

a woman had been emboldened to go directly, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, Paita, Aug. 10, 1850, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 416–23.

in the house of Santander’s deputy, etc.:
“Testament.” One of the ministers was Castillo, one of three original targets, along with Bolívar and Urdaneta. González, 127.

rain had drenched the city:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

slick with mud:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121.

the moon was bright and full:
NASA, Moon Phases,
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/phase/phases1801.html
;
also Posada Gutiérrez, I, 115; also Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

That night, everyone in Bolívar’s circle was ailing, etc.:
This and all following details and quotations from Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

Peruvian generals:
These were generals Gamarra and Santa Cruz.

it’s time for a palace coup:
The ensuing account and all quotations: Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

Despite the few guards:
“Testament.” There were only thirty to thirty-five for the entire palace that night.

Colonel Guerra had assured him, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

He asked Manuela to read to him, etc.:
Ibid.

in his nightshirt:
Boussingault, III, 232. Boussingault claims this information is from Manuela’s lips. Sáenz, in her testimony to O’Leary, says only that he was undressed.

His only pair of boots, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, and subsequent details.

“There appeared in the doorway,” etc.:
González, 127.

“He’s not here,” etc.:
Boussingault, III, 226.

Carujo and his sharpshooters, etc.:
González, 130–31; also Boussingault, III, 232.

The conspirators had daggers in hand, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

She crossed her arms, standing her ground, etc.:
Boussingault, III, 227.

“He’s safe!,” etc.:
Ibid.

“I didn’t come here to fight women”:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación;
also González, 131.

as cannon fire exploded outside, etc.:
González, 131.

the sharp clatter of boots, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

“What’s going on?”:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 120.

he saw his pastry cook, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

no idea that a coup was afoot:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 119.

Sometime after the bell tower struck two:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 452.

the conspirators had vanished, etc.:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 119.

Soaked to the bone, slathered in mud, etc.:
Ibid., 121.

eyes glistening with tears, etc.:
Posada Gutiérrez, I; also Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 453.

“Here I am, dying of grief,” etc.:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121.

his “patriots”:
SB to Carabaño, quoted in Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 454.

so battered she could hardly walk:
Boussingault, III, 228; also Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 454; Murray,
For Glory and Bolívar
, 66; Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
; Posada Gutiérrez, I, 116.

By four in the morning:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121.

“You are the Liberatrix of the Liberator,” etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.

Bolívar’s first impulse, etc.:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121–22.

“My heart is in pieces,” etc.:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 454. For his general demoralization: Restrepo, IV, 119.

he preferred to die, etc.:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 121–22.

Colonel Guerra, who had spent the evening:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, II, 454.

“I am crushing the aborted conspiracy” etc.:
Bolívar to Sucre, Oct. 28, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 230–33.

In the end, of the fifty-nine men identified, etc.:
These verdicts are expressed in an official memorandum from Castillo, Vergara, and Córdova to the Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1828, Bogotá, O’L, XXVI, 493–98.

Santander . . . was issued a death sentence:
O’L, XXVI, 493–98.

“I’ve got conspiracy up to the eyeballs”:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 242.

that he was the soul of clemency, etc.:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
; Manuela was not the only one to note Bolívar’s forgiveness. Among others, Carujo, who deserved death more than most, gave him the same tribute: Carujo to the Sons and Inhabitants of Bogotá, Nov. 13, 1828, O’L, XXVI, 502–3.

González had prevented his goons from killing her:
Sáenz to O’Leary, O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación.
Looking back on this, one has to wonder whether González was spared because he was affianced to Bernardina Ibañez, for whom the Liberator had once cared, and who was, after all, the widow of one of Bolívar’s beloved officers.

inexplicably freed and pardoned:
In Nov. of 1828, Carujo eluded a death sentence and was sent to prison in Bocachica (where Santander, too, spent time). Thereafter, he lived an eventful life in and out of favor. González was sentenced to solitary confinement in Bocachica, but after eighteen months was set free. He returned to Colombia in 1831 to serve in Santander’s administration and marry Bernardina Ibañez. Years later, he ran unsuccessfully for president of the republic. In time, he emigrated to Argentina.

slipped into a fatal spiral:
Restrepo, IV, 119.

Epigraph:
No one achieves greatness with impunity:
SB to Restrepo, Bucaramanga, June 3, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 136.

he withdrew to La Quinta to convalesce:
Liévano Aguirre, 486.

Le Moyne, who arrived three months after, etc.:
J. O. Melo, Introduction, “El ojo de los franceses,” in Augusto Le Moyne,
Viaje y estancia en la Nueva Granada
(Bogotá: Ed. Incunables, 1985).

voyage up the Magdalena in a canoe, etc.:
Ibid.

“We arrived at la Quinta,” etc.:
A. Le Moyne,
Voyages et séjour
(Paris, 1880), in Liévano Aguirre, 486.

painted by a soldier:
This was José M. Espinosa, who created some of the most renowned likenesses of Bolívar. His initial sketches—done from life—were transformed into numerous portraits, the majority of which reside in Caracas. Espinosa wrote about the revolution in his memoir,
Memorias de un abanderado
, from which the opening scene of this biography is taken.

the thin hair, sunken cheeks, etc.:
Boulton,
Los retratos de Bolívar
, 110–11.

listening in turns to Sucre, Manuela, etc.:
Sucre to SB, cited in Polanco Alcántara, 992; Nicolasa Ibañez to SB, Bogotá, Duarte French,
Las Ibañez
, 100.

Was it right to grant clemency to a white, etc.:
SB to Briceño Méndez, Bogotá, Nov. 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 239–40.

the blood of so many:
SB to Briceño Méndez, Bogotá, Nov. 28, 1828, ibid.

his enemies called themselves “liberals”:
SB to Briceño Méndez, Bucaramanga, April 23, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 73–75; also SB to Urdaneta, Purificación, Jan. 1, 1829, ibid., 281–85.

As one historian put it, etc.:
Mijares, 538.

“Beware the nation,” etc.:
SB, Discurso, Caracas, Jan. 1, 1814, SB,
Doctrina
, 28.

most radical and impetuous of world revolutionaries:
Arciniegas,
Bolívar y la revolución
, 345.

filled with a mortal hesitancy:
SB to Briceño Méndez, Bogotá, Nov. 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 239–40.

They knew that wherever Bolívar went:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 252–53.

“You are the anchor of all our hopes,” etc.:
Santander to SB, Bogotá, June 8, 1826, O’L, III, 265–66.

“the magic of his prestige”:
O’L, II, 639.

“Goodbye, sambo!”:
Madariaga, 380.

Populations had been cut in half:
B. Hammett, “Popular Insurrection and Royalist Reaction,” in Archer, 50. Also see Jay Kinsbruner,
Independence in Spanish America
, (Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 153–57.

Regional economies had come to a rumbling halt, etc.:
Kinsbruner, 130–31.

The Americas that were emerging, etc.:
Liévano Aguirre, 512–13.

Eventually this would change, etc.:
Kinsbruner, xvii.

vent his sorrows:
SB to Briceño Méndez, O’L, XXXI, 239–40; SB to Alamo, Nov. 19, 1828, ibid., 242.

“You will see in the attached documents,” etc.:
SB to Sucre, Bogotá, Oct. 28, 1828, ibid., 230–33.

“favorite son”:
“If God had given us the right to choose our own families,” SB had once said, “I would have chosen General Sucre as my son.” Sucre,
Documentos selectos
(Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1993), vii.

He expected O’Leary to explain:
SB to Flores, Bogotá, Oct. 8, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 223–24.

Flores had already spent sixteen years, etc.:
Vásconez Hurtado,
Cartas de Bolívar al General Juan José Flores
, Introducción.

He had made up his mind that he would govern:
Madariaga, 582.

“shining, unblemished” exemplar:
SB’s description of Sucre in SB to Sucre, O’L, XXXI, 230–33.

Now Flores was being told in no uncertain terms:
SB to Flores, ibid.

his elegant bride in Quito:
Mariana Carcelén Larréa, the marquesa of Solanda, whom Sucre had met in Quito. He had given power of attorney to General José María Pérez de Urdininea to effect the marriage in 1823. Sucre,
De mi propia mano
, 470.

He had had to speed away with a bullet, etc.:
Sucre also left behind a mistress: Rosalía Cortés, a Bolivian, with whom he had had a relationship in La Paz. Their illegitimate son, born on Jan. 13, 1826, was José María. Ibid., 464.

hoping to rid himself of the black mood:
SB to Alamo, Chia, Nov. 19, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 241–2.

he wrote to General La Mar:
Obando to La Mar, Pasto, Dec. 14, 1828, O’L, III, 481; also from Guáitara, Dec. 29, 1828, ibid., 483.

impending Peruvian invasion of Colombia:
La Mar, “El Ciudadano General La Mar, Presidente de la República, a los Peruanos,” in O’Leary,
Bolívar y la emancipación
, 496–98.

Obando attacked Popayán:
Obando’s close colleague in this pro-Granadan rebellion was José Hilario López, a native of Popayán, who was a fervent loyalist of Santander. In time, Santander, López, and Obando all became presidents of the Republic of New Granada.

a confrontation with Peru was inevitable:
SB to Ibarra, Bogotá, July 16, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 166.

sparring with Peru’s ambassador:
This was José de Villa, the former private secretary and close friend of Gen. Berindoaga, who had abandoned the patriots to join the Spaniards alongside Torre Tagle. Bolívar had had Berindoaga executed for treason. Madariaga, 580.

a robust army of forty thousand:
SB to O’Leary, Bogotá, Aug. 15, 1828, O’L,
Ultimos años
, 475.

a convalescence that should have lasted two months:
SB to Alamo, ibid.

He was working on instinct now:
SB to Flores, Oct. 8, 1828, O’L, XXXI, 223–24.

barely ride two hours at a time, etc.:
Posada Gutiérrez, I, 140.

rains were incessant, etc.:
SB to Urdaneta, Paniquitá, Jan. 22, 1829, O’L, XXXI, 304–6.

it had overtaken the city of Cuenca:
Peruvian president La Mar’s birthplace. Although he had fought with SB and Sucre in the effort to liberate Peru from Spain, the fact that Cuenca and Guayaquil had been appropriated by Bogotá had always rankled him.

he led fifteen hundred men, etc.:
The actual number of troops (not all represented in the battle): 4,000 Colombians; 8,000 Peruvians. Posada Gutiérrez, I, 146.

who seemed to materialize out of nowhere, etc.:
Monsalve,
El ideal político
, 196.

The Colombians were poorly armed, poorly fed, etc.:
Ibid.

Sucre wrote to Bolívar, etc.:
Sucre to SB, Cuenca, March 3, 1829, O’L, I, 521–22.