The Emancipation of South America

by Bartolomé Mitre

Piar, with a strong column, occupied Barcelona, which was evacuated on his approach by Cajigal, who retired to Guayana. When he reached the Orinoco, a man named José Tomas Boves, who had served under Antoñanzas and Zuazola, and a Canarian named Morales, asked to be left behind, in order that they might raise the Llaneros against the Patriots. Cajigal gave them permission to make the attempt, and also left with them one hundred men and some supplies. This small force became the nucleus of a powerful army, which was destined to crush the Republic of Venezuela for the second time.

José Bermudez, with another column, captured several towns on the coast of the Gulf of Paria, and furious at the death of his brother, killed every Royalist who fell into his hands.

In eight months all the eastern part of Venezuela was thus reconquered by the Patriots, who named Mariño Dictator of the Provinces of Cumaná and Barcelona, and of the island of Margarita, with Piar as his second in command, at the same time that Bolívar entered Caracas in triumph and was acclaimed Dictator of the West after one of the most extraordinary campaigns of the epoch, which in some respects resembles the first campaign of Buonaparte in Italy.

While Bolívar, after his victory over Correa, was awaiting due authorization from the Government of New Granada to proceed with his scheme of reconquest, a young lawyer named Briceño, who had been a member of the Congress of Caracas, maddened at the excesses of Monteverde, presented to him a plan he had published in Cartagena, which he with others had sworn to carry out. His design was to make a general massacre of “the cursed race of European Spaniards and of the Canarians.”

Bolívar and Castillo Rada, who shared the command with him, assented to it with the proviso “those found with arms in their hands.”

Briceño started off on his campaign of murder with one hundred and forty sworn assassins, and a few days after sent back two heads as a trophy, a present which excited the horror of the two commanders. Briceño was soon after defeated and made prisoner by a very superior force, and was shot at Barinas, which execution was afterwards used by Bolívar as a pretext for cruel reprisals.

The Government of New Granada adopted the idea of Bolívar; the Republic of Venezuela should be restored under its auspices, and the federal form of government should be re-established under the previous authorities. The invading army was to be a liberating army only, and should take no part in the internal affairs of the sister republic, which should be called upon to pay the expenses of the expedition. Bolívar accepted these conditions, and swore to carry them out faithfully.

His first step was to detach Castillo Rada with 800 men against Correa. Castillo defeated the Royalist army in a sharply contested action, and drove it back to Trujillo, but then withdrew his forces and resigned his command through jealousy of Bolívar, thinking that his fellow-countrymen would prefer him as a leader to a Venezuelan. But Torres did not hesitate, he chose Bolívar to command the Granadian contingent, conferred the rank of brigadier upon him, and ordered him at once to drive the Royalists out of the Provinces of Mérida and Trujillo, after which he was to await instructions, which would be conveyed to him by commissioners from Congress, who would accompany him in all his future operations as those of the Convention accompanied the armies of Revolutionary France.

Bolívar had barely 600 men, while he was opposed by 6,000, who were so posted that wherever he attacked them they were always two to one. The first invasion of Bolívar along the western slopes of the eastern range of the Cordillera which crosses the territory of Venezuela, was a series of flashes of lightning which ended in a thunderbolt. On the 30th May he took Mérida unopposed. The city raised a battalion of 500 infantry and a squadron of cavalry to reinforce his army. His vanguard, under Girardot, then occupied Trujillo, and a strong detachment under D’Eluyar forced Correa to take refuge in Maracaibo.

The garrison of Trujillo retreated to Carache, a town devoted to the Royalist cause, but were driven out by Girardot, who shot all the Spaniards who were taken prisoners, and the town was declared “infamous” by Bolívar in a proclamation. In fifty days there was not an enemy left in either province.