Revolutions - 5.25- The Tangled Swords

Episode Date: January 30, 2017

At the end of 1826 Simon Bolivar returned to Colombia to deal with the revolt of Jose Antonio Paez. 

Hello, and welcome to revolutions. Episode 5.25, The Tangled Swords. While Simone Belivar was off liberating Peru and Bolivia, and even contemplating riding down into the Rio de la Plata, his old homeland of Grand Columbia was falling apart. As Vice President Santander had written over and over, the government was in bad shape financially, and the wider economy was still a devastated shambles, not producing enough prosperity to make anyone happy. or pay back any debts. And that was a minor inconvenience compared to the political and social divide between the Venezuelans and New Granadans. Now, I almost called it a growing political and social divide, but it's more accurate to say that it was simply the same divide that had always existed and that Belivar's forced integration had done nothing but paper over. Politically,

New Granada lived under Santander and the liberal constitution, while Venezuela operated under a system of regional Caudillo governors, with Jose Antonio Paz being the first among equals. Paz and Santander could not have been more different, and after years of unhappy coexistence, both were ready to throw up their hands and fight it out. The impetus for the crisis of 1826 was Paz's handling of the troop requests from Belivar during the War of Peruvian Independence. As you'll recall, he was one of the few leaders in all of South America who answered the Liberator's call. But Paz had raised conscripts with a hard ruthlessness that trampled, the alleged rights that had been enshrined in Santander's system of laws. Paz ignored Santander's

complaints and the exasperated vice president decided that even if the Liberator had long indulged the centaur of the plains, that the man of laws would not. In April 1826, he stripped Paz of his titles and ordered him to come to Bogota at once to stand trial for his crimes. But, duh, there's no chance of that happening. And instead, Paz's cut off communications, rode to Valencia and raised the banner of revolt. He was backed now by wealthy Venezuelan landowners and the elites of Caracas in the north who hoped to use Paz's personal axe grinding with Santander as a means of achieving what they really wanted, which was true independence for Venezuela. For most Venezuelans, Bogota was an inaccessible myth way off in the mountains that may as well be on another planet.

I mean, it may as well be Madrid. So when Paz went into revolt, they backed him. But for the most, moment, both Santander and Paz were doing little more than posturing. Both had independently begged Belivar to come home and settle things, and so in the summer of 1826, they simply waited for Belivar's arrival before they would make a further move. So as we saw at the end of last week, Paz's little rebellion finally did get Belivar on a boat, and on September 3rd, 1826, he departed Lima and sailed for Guayaquil. Now, he had every intention of coming back. He was still riding a bit of of a delusional high after getting the Peruvians to accept his constitution, and Belivar now envisioned carrying the document back north and inducing his countrymen to adopt his plan for enlightened

despotism. Then, with all of these territories operating under a single constitution with Belivar as their shared president for life, that he would be able to stay continuously on the move, as was his compulsively restless nature, and govern the new federation of the Andes on a circuit. So after settling things in Colombia, he fully expected to come back down south, so much so that Manuel's science stayed behind in the Peruvian capital to protect her man's interests in the city that she knew so well. But that's really not how it went, and Simone Belivir would never lay eyes on Peru again. It had been two years since the Liberator sailed out of Guayaquil, and he was now welcomed back

a hero. The territories that had made up the old Audiencia of Qita were now being referred to. as the Colombian province of Ecuador, but its inhabitants maintained a fierce streak of independence from both Lima and Bogota. And two years after being folded into Colombia, they were supremely dissatisfied with Santander's rule. As Belivar traveled northeast to Quito and then through Posto, Belivar could see why. They were subject to taxes and laws that seemed designed to benefit the Bogota elite, but not the average Ecuadorian, where they did not feel actively oppressed,

they felt utterly neglected. Their complaints and concerns falling on deaf ears. Necessary administrative functions were deprioritized to the point of Fubogatah just abandoning the locals to their own fate. So wherever believe our past, he asserted for himself broad authority to make appointments, promote military officers, commute sentences, whatever he could do, he did. And it only fueled his conviction that the liberal constitution crafted at Kukutah in 1821 was not working, and that the Constitution he had imposed on Bolivia and Peru was the only answer. Up in Bogota, meanwhile, Vice President Sontander kept tabs on Belivar's approach with frustration and alarm. Sontander had been the de facto head of state of Grand Columbia for five years now, and whatever criticism you can level at him, laziness was not among them.

He had worked tirelessly to craft laws for the country that simply needed to be given time to work. He was a proud man. He was proud of what he had done, and to hear that Belivar was wandering back north, undoing all of it by arbitrary fiat, was maddening. He had also read Belivar's constitution and knew that the Liberator was angling for a lifetime presidency in a strong executive government that would no doubt shake out to be a personal dictatorship. This offended not only Santander's liberal principles, but also his own ambitions. The vice president did not want to stay vice president forever. And if Belivar was elected president for life, where did that leave Santander? Especially now that Sukre would certainly get the vice presidency as Belivar's heir apparent. Santadere's skeptical frustration with Belivar was shared by his fellow countrymen, and as Belivar crossed the border from what is now Ecuador into what is now Colombia, he felt a major shift in attitude, where previously he had been greeted by packed celebrations of people encouraging him to assume dictatorial powers,

the closer he got to Bogota, the more sullen the residents became at his arrival. The free press that he himself supported was now filled with anti-believer editorials and major support for the existing constitution of 1821. Now it hurt his feelings, but it didn't make him abandon his commitment to freedom of expression. So though all of this irritated him, he kept moving towards the capital. But the riff between Belivar and Santander was not yet a fatal brief. and as Belivar approached the edge of Bogota, Santander came out to greet him. After all, it had been the vice president who had begged Belivar to come home to help him deal with Paz. But when they got

into the city, it was clear that Bogota was not Belivar's home. It was Santander's home. On November the 14th, 1826, Belivar was welcomed into the capital of Grand Columbia by sparse crowds and cries of Viva la Constitution. Belivar stued in the cold rain that began to fall, and then finally blew his top when a speaker at the welcome ceremony started railing against the cost of the military, and Belivar just rose and cut him off. He said we should be celebrating the army, not complaining about it,

and he stormed off to the presidential palace. The next morning, though, Santander gave a grand speech in front of the assembled government and notables of Bogota. praising the Liberator and his victories and thanking God that he was now home to deal with the nation's problems. The Congress then invoked Article 128 of the Constitution that gave the President extraordinary powers in times of emergency. And with Paz leading a revolt in Venezuela, it's hard to imagine a more dire emergency. So for the moment, there was reconciliation and understanding between the Liberator and the man of laws. and it was the last time that they would see eye to eye on anything,

and oh yeah, just be prepared, it's about to be the last time for a lot of things in Belivar's life. Belivar only stayed in Bogota for ten days. He had come to deal with the revolt of Paz, and that's what everybody wanted him to go do. So he remained in town just long enough to take command of the army Santander had raised from among the native New Granotans. Belivar was to now lead these men into Venezuela

and go fight Venezuelans. But whatever the fantastic breadth of Belivar's Pan-American vision, home was still home. Belivar did not want to fight a war against Venezuelans. He wanted to avoid one at all costs. But that didn't mean he wasn't super furious at Paz. He wrote the old centaur of the plane saying, General Castillo opposed me and lost.

General PR opposed me and lost. General Marino opposed me and lost. General's Riva Aguero and Torre Tagli opposed me and lost. It would seem that Providence curses my personal enemies to hellfire, Americans and Spaniards alike. Paz got the hint, and when he got the letter, he withdrew to the safety of the Ghanos. After a slow march into Venezuela, down to Coro and then east along the coast, Belivar reached Portoogabayo on New Year's Eve 1826, and there sat down to settle things. Paz was by now deep in the grasslands where he knew he would be safe, and he dared not approach the Liberator. Belivar's name still carried magic that outshone Paz's own position as the

cowboy warlord of the West. But Paz did not really have anything to fear here. As had happened so many times in the past, Belivar was not really keen to crack down on him. The minute Belivar recognized Paz was the key to Venezuela way back in 1817, he had indulged Paz's repeated in subordinations, just as long as ultimately the lion of the Apura returned to the patriot fold. And this time was no different. Belivar wrote to Paz and said, come down, let's talk, I offer you full amnesty for you and for your men, and the restoration of all your old titles and dignities. You will be made supreme commander of Venezuela an answer only to me. Now, Paz wanted to take Belivar at his word and did come to the arranged meeting place,

but he could not help but surround himself with armed guards. But when Pah saw Belivar arrive alone and unarmed, he realized that the Liberator meant what he said. So the two old comrades dismounted their horses and embraced. Then, as they tried to pull apart, the hilts of their swords became entangled and for a moment hindered their attempt to disengage. Belivar laughed and called it a good omen.

And somewhere off in Bogota, Santander felt a great disturbance in the fore. The two great Venezuelan generals then made their way into Caracas together and entered Belivar's hometown on January 4, 1827. The contrast between the reception here in Caracas and the reception back in Bogota could not have been more stark. Here the streets exploded with joy and showered the Liberator with love. He was given two laurel wreaths to celebrate his victories over the Spanish, but Belivar proclaimed that he wanted them to go to those who had really won Venezuelan Inde dependence. So he handed one to pause, and he tossed the other out into the crowd. Let it not be said that Belivar doesn't know how to work a room. After settling into his old house, Belivar visited with

old friends and family, many of whom he had not seen in years. One of his beloved sisters had returned from a long exile, and they had maintained correspondence, but he had not seen her in more than ten years. Also back in Caracas was his old Uncle Esteban, who you might remember from way back in episode 5.5. Belivar had not seen old Esteban in more than 20 years since they had parted ways in Spain. Comfortable and happy, Belivar settled into Caracas to begin directly administering the country of his birth. Back in Bogota, however, Asantan Der exploded at the unbelievable news coming out of Venezuela. Belivar had not only issued blanket pardons to all the rebels he had been sent to suppress, but he had confirmed the legality of pause as claimed to something called

Supreme Commander of Venezuela, an office not mentioned in the Constitution, and which amounted to little more than Belivar giving the Caudillo structure of Venezuelan warlords the veneer of legitimacy. When Belivar left Bogota, it seemed like he was riding off to defend the Constitution of 1821 and bring a rebel to heal. Instead, he had promoted the rebel and turned his back on the law. But by now Belivar was tired of Santander's legalistic formulations, and he believed that his vice president love the law more than he loved people. And as if that wasn't enough, Santander soon started getting reports that Belivar was unhappy with the vice president's financial management of the country. Recently, Colombian emissaries in London had managed to secure a $300 million loan from

British banks. But to the embarrassment of everyone, this money disappeared as soon as it arrived. Belivar openly blamed Santander and his cronies for corruption and accused them of lining their pockets, which sent Sondar into a nuclear rage. He had spent the last five years telling Belivar that they had to cut expenses, especially in the army, that there wasn't enough money to go around and Belivar had cavalierly blown him off and instead written romantically of political liberation and military glory. So where has the money gone? I'll tell you, it went to pay for your adventures, and now you have the audacity to question, my honor? Now, of course, some of the money wound up in Santander's pocket. Sure, I mean, what's the point of going into politics if you can't

skim a little off the top? But I think Santander had every right at this point to really, really want to punch Simone Belivir right in the face. As Santander and Belivar exchanged testy letters, news arrived in Caracas in April of 1827 of dire events back in Lima. Back in mid-January now, the Colombian troops Belivar had left behind in the Peruvian capital had mutinied. Now, you might think the Peruvian leaders would be horrified by this Colombian mutiny, but in reality, they had been the ones to help stage it in the first place. Anoyed that Belivar had left this foreign garrison behind, the Peruvians had so discontent in the ranks over cuts to pay and rations,

and then stoked the mutiny against Belivar's officers. On January the 26th, 1827, the 3rd Division went into revolt. They expelled their officers and seized both the fortress of Kajou and the seat of Ville. Lima's government. Manuel Assigned had tried to halt the mutiny, donning her colonel's uniform and riding out to directly confront the ringleaders and implore them to stay loyal, but she was only able to stall their anger for so long. At midnight, on February the 7th, she was arrested by Peruvian authorities and tossed into a locked cell in a convent. The leaders of Peru were now free to use the mutiny as an excuse to expel the Colombians from their country. Back up in Bogotop,

This all played so well into Santander's hands that there's good reason to believe that he, too, was in league with the entire plot. No one wanted the Colombian troops home more than the vice president did. And far from condemning the disloyalty of the soldiers, he joined in the spontaneous party that broke out in Bogota when the city heard the news. He then wrote a letter thanking the leader of the mutiny, a captain named Jose Bustamante, for acting in the best interests of the country. Then he promoted Bustamante to Colonel. See, Belivar is not the only one who can legitimize a rebellion if he wants to. So now it was Belivar's turn to be enraged. He knew instantly that his enemies in Bogota and Lima had conspired to corrupt his faithful troops

and undermine his vision for the Federation of the Andes. Of his vice president in particular, he said, Santander is a snake. I trust neither his principles nor his heart. And as he was getting this news, even more news was being made at that same moment in prison. Peru. After two months of house arrest, Manuel's science was put on a boat with a dozen other senior Bolivarian officers and shipped out of the country. The Peruvians then annulled the Constitution

Bolivar had forced them to adopt and went back to their old model. Then they went even further. The mutinous Third Legion departed Lima, just as everyone wanted, but only to go occupy Guayaquil, expel Belivar's allies from the city, and probably paved the way for Peruvian annexation. Having helped let this cat out of the bag, Santander now turned around and ordered Colonel Bustamante to stand down, but the border between Peru and Colombia was now back on the table and would be a problem for years to come. Belivar was by now becoming profoundly disillusioned, and he said famously after all of this, we have arrived at an era of blunders. In order to fix one, we commit 50. Now at this point, what I want for Simone Belivar is for him to let it go.

Just let it all go. He was back home, where he was well loved. Venezuela had a ton of problems to deal with. The economy was in ruins. There were social dislocation. There were racial integration matters to deal with. More than enough to keep him busy. And he had met hardly a soul in the entire continent of South America who shared his particular vision for the Federation of the Andes.

Santander was constantly trying to stab him in the back. Lima wanted no part of him. Bolivia was already its own country. And after riding from Guayaquil all the way to Caracas, he had added another 2,000 miles of hard riding to a revolutionary career that probably saw him on horseback for somewhere between 70 and 75,000 total miles. The Spanish were now evicted. His country was liberated.

So what I want Belivar to do right now is to say, Okay, I will be president of Venezuela. I will stay here in Caracas with my friends and my family, live on my ancestral estates, and do my best to build a country with my own idiosyncratic brand of enlightened despotism. His fellow South Americans would have rejoiced at that announcement, that the Liberator was finally going to stay home, and he would have been remembered everywhere

as the legendary Liberator who had freed them all and then gone home and allowed them to plot their own destiny like the free people he kept telling them that they were. I picture him in a wide straw hat, sitting on a veranda, sipping some nice wine, and dictating memos that would ensure Venezuela would become a strong, healthy, and vibrant new nation.

It was a retirement that he had certainly earned. But, alas, Belivar, alas, you did not do any of those things. Instead, he got all riled up in June of 1827, when he found out that Sontander had induced the Congress to strip Belivar's emergency powers, which, I mean, isn't the craziest thing in the world. When Belivar pardoned Pahas, that meant the emergency was over. But Belivar couldn't take it as anything but Santander trying to undermine him. And in a flash of defiant anger, Belivir said, I'm ready to do whatever it takes to liberate my people. I would even declare war to the death

all over again. Now, he tempered his rage, but he refused to quit. So instead of settling into a life, of comfortable despotism, when Belivar got the news that his powers had been stripped, he boarded a ship on July 4, 1827, and sailed for Cartagena. The next day was the anniversary of the first Declaration of Independence that he himself had helped bring it back way back in 1812. Instead of staying in Caracas and celebrating, he was on board a ship with his home receding in the rearview mirror. Belivar, he should have stayed. You will never see Caracas again. Nice, work, dummy. When Belivar got to Cartagena, he was greeted by the commander of the city, a guy named General Montia, who was a strong Bolivarian officer. Alongside him was the equally patriotic Admiral Padilla,

the guy I introduced at the end of episode 5.21, who gets credit for leading the final naval battle against the Spanish on Lake Maracaibo. Now back in his native Cartagena, Padilla was much less impressed with Belivar, though he was hardly a partisan of his countryman Santander. Santander represented the Creoyo elite, as in love with their own liberal principles, as they were terrified of racial revolution, and Padilla represented that racial revolution. We talked about this in episode 5.18, but Padilla was now the highest ranking Pardo in the Venezuelan army. He was mixed race and had emerged from the lower classes, and for him, the revolution was supposed to mean liberation and equality, and instead it looked like the whites were just going to re-entrench and merely switch their praise from God and the king to the Republic and the Liberator.

Padilla chafed at the broken promises and maltreatment by his fellow white officers, but for the moment he kept his distaste to himself, as Belivar gathered a small army in Cartagena to lead up the Magdalena River to Bogota. This time with a plan to liberate the people of Bogota from the people of Bogota. With Belivar on the way, Santander and his allies braced for impact. The vice president considered running. He also considered standing his ground. But in the end, Santander decided he could never beat Belivar in a military confrontation. So instead, a group of notables went out to meet Belivar as he approached Bogota and begged the Liberator to make a peaceful entry into the capital, to which Belivar said,

of course, I wouldn't dream of anything less. But even still, when he entered the city on September the 10th, 1827, the atmosphere was thick with tension. With the Congress and other leading citizens assembled in a grand church, Belivar gave a passionate speech, as passionate as his frail body would allow, and it was in defense of his ideals and the actions he had taken. And then he announced that the Constitution of 1821 was broken, and that in six months a new convention would meet in the Colombian city of O'Kanya to draft a new document, and by that Belivar clearly meant adopt the constitution that I am wandering around imposing on everyone.

When he was done with this speech, he went to the presidential palace and there met Sontander, where the two exchanged icy pleasantries. But though there was a permanent breach between them now, Santander did not quite feel strong enough to defy Belivar to his face, and even said later, his force of personality is such that on countless occasions when I have been filled with hatred, and revenge, the mere sight of him, the instant he speaks, I am disarmed, and I come away filled with nothing so much as admiration. So rather than defy Belivar, Sontander dawned his old military uniform and formally apologized for his conduct regarding the mutinous troops down in Lima.

Ever gracious, Belivar accepted the apology. But though he had, quote-unquote, won this showdown, it's not like Belivar thought he could come down hard on Santander on his own turf. If Belivar tried to lay hand on the native son of Bogota, the city would have gone into revolt. With things for the moment calm, Belivar reunited once again with Manuel's science, who completed her own long journey from Lima to Guayaquil to Kito to Bogota, arriving shortly after Belivar's return to the city. She took over care of his personal health, along with his papers, and the two routinely retired to an estate outside the city, where the Liberator rested and enjoyed the pleasant company of his de facto wife, and what friends he had around. But though it was just a few episodes back that we saw Belivar take the hint that preparation and planning were actually pretty helpful to winning a hard campaign,

this recognition did not extend to political battles, the arena where Santander, not Belivar, was the greater power. So while Belivar rested over the next few months, Santander tirelessly criss-crossed the country, stopping in every bar, church, and public square to shake hands, make promises, and ensure, that when the elections to the Constitutional Convention came, that it would be packed with his allies. Meanwhile, Belivar rested on his laurels, thinking that those laurels would be enough. But his delusions about classical disinterested statesmanship soon betrayed him.

So over the early months of 1828, Belivar did nothing, while Santander ensured that Belivar's constitution would only get a hostile reception at the coming convention in O'Conia. And worse for Belivar, he felt compelled personally to stay away from the convention to not make it look like the Liberator was down there putting his sword on the scales. Santander had no such hang-ups, and so when the delegates met in O'Conia on April 9, 1828, Sontander had at his disposal a pretty unified block of Grenad and liberals who supported the existing constitution of 1821 and believed that it only needed a few modifications. Meanwhile, Belivar's preferred model of enlightened despotism was represented only by a haphazard group who got little guidance and did not even really consider working together as a group. And then scattered amongst those delegates were men who had come to promote a clean break and mutual independence for everyone, and they were far more sympathetic to Santander than Belivar. Belivar called the convention of O'Conia Columbia's Last Hope, and he was right. While he waited outside O'Connor felt like he was losing his grip everywhere.

Down in Cartagena, Admiral Padilla's fury at slights, both real and perceived, boiled over, and he tried to raise the banner of revolt. He rallied the mixed-race population of the city and declared himself Commandant General and Intendant of Cartagena. He railed against Belivar and the other white elites, who were every bit as tyrannical as the Spanish and who were the true enemies of freedom in the Americas. but Padilla's revolt stalled quickly. He was unable to raise as many men as he hoped from the mixed-raced-race lower classes,

and General Montia was able to rally professional Bolivarian soldiers to enter the city and restore order. His aborted revolt, Padilla fled up the river to O'Conia, where he sought the protection of Santander, who did greet Padilla warmly and offer him both protection and understanding. Now, though Belivar was not himself at O'Connia, He was just 90 miles away now and receiving daily updates about the progress of the convention. He was already grumpy about Santander's duplicitous machinations, which is to say that Santander had organized a campaign of opposition.

Belivar learned of Padilla's revolt and flight to Santander's open arms with the press dread. Nothing seemed to be going right, and everyone seemed to be against him. With Belivar's constitution rejected, Santander then introduced a modified version of the Constitution of 1820. the only significant modification being the elimination of the emergency presidential powers clause that Belivar had so recently invoked. There was no sure proof that Sont d'arment to curtail Belivar's plan for enlightened despotism and maintain the status quo that was supposedly so unsustainable. Desperate to halt ratification, 19 Boulevardian delegates staged a walkout on June the 10th to prevent the convention from reaching a quorum and ratifying the Constitution. When they

left, the convention of O'Connor could only cease operations. There was nothing more that could be done. Columbia's last chance had now come and gone, with nothing at all being done. Unable to impose his will through these proper constitutional channels, Belivar and his allies were now ready to invoke the cause of the greater good, and sweep aside all of Santander's laws in one fell swoop. And surprisingly enough, support for all of this came from Bogota. When the Senior Council of Ministers heard of the breakdown of the convention. They feared that the country was on the brink of civil war. So they got together on June the 24th, 1828, and declared their intention to make Belivar dictator. Now, this, of course, only spoke to their intentions, but Belivar made it clear that

he was no longer so firm in his unwillingness to assume absolute power that he would let Grand Columbia disintegrate, rather than take the reins and lead his country back to glory. So Belivar rode up to Bogota to take over the reins of government. The constitutional situation was now completely muddled, and after the collapse of the Convention of O'Conia, no one from anywhere knew where political authority now sprang. What constitution was in effect, what laws still stood. So ignoring all that Sontander had done, the Council of Ministers came up with a new document that they called the organic decree, invoking the sovereignty that sprang from the natural

rights of man and the sovereignty of the people. The organic decree made Simone Belivar, president-dictator of Colombia, with unlimited, absolute power to do what he saw fit to save the nation. And when he accepted this mantle, he addressed them with his standard platitudes. Columbians, I won't even utter the word liberty, for if I am good on my promises, you will be more than liberated, you will be obeyed. Moreover, under a dictatorship, how can we speak of liberty? On this, let us agree. Pity the nation that obeys one man, as we should pity the man who holds all the power.

But believe our self-effacing platitudes had fewer and fewer men now willing to stand them. And next week, they will get together to solve the problem of Simone Belivar once and for all. For liberty to reign, the liberator must die. Thank you.