The Royalists were defeated, but they were not conquered; they soon recovered from their stupor, and reports of reactionary movements came from all sides. Then on the 6th September the Dictator fulminated another decree, his last thunderbolt in this war to the death, which produced one of the most dreadful hecatombs of which history bears record. He declared that all Americans who should even be suspected of being Royalists were traitors to their country. This extreme and ill-advised measure greatly contributed to the defeat of Bolívar in the campaign now commencing. Such is the logic of Destiny!
On the 16th September the frigate Venganza arrived at Puerto Cabello from Spain, accompanied by an armed schooner and six transports, with the Granada regiment, 1,200 strong, under command of Colonel Salomón. Bolívar raised the siege and retired to Valencia.
Monteverde, encouraged by the retreat of the Patriots and by the reinforcement he had received, took the field on the 26th September with 1,600 men. But he had no fixed plan and committed the grave mistake of dividing his force. He himself took up a position on the road to Valencia at a place called Las Trincheras, and detached 500 men by another road to the heights of Barbula. Bolívar remained quiet for four days, unable to divine his intentions, and then sent Girardot and D’Eluyar with the Granadian troops against the enemy at Barbula, while a column under Urdaneta went in support. On the 30th September the Royalists were driven from this strong position, but Girardot fell, shot through the head in the moment of victory. His troops, in revenge, asked permission to attack the main body at Las Trincheras by themselves. Bolívar acceded to their request but supported them with 1,000 of his own troops. Monteverde was driven out of the entrenchments he had thrown up, with heavy loss, on the 3rd October. He himself being wounded returned to Puerto Cabello, leaving Salomón in command till he should recover, and the Patriots under D’Eluyar again laid siege to this fortress.
Bolívar, eager for fresh ovations, decreed sumptuous funeral honours to the memory of Girardot, to whose valour both New Granada and Venezuela owed their greatest victories. The citizens wore mourning for a month; his heart was taken out and carried to Caracas to be deposited in the Cathedral, his body was sent to Antioquia, his native province, and his pay was secured to his posterity. Bolívar himself accompanied the funeral procession to Caracas.
On the 14th October, the day of the obsequies, twenty of the civic functionaries of the capital assembled and decreed that Bolívar should be appointed Captain-General of the armies of Venezuela with the title of “Liberator,” which he had already bestowed upon himself, and that the inscription “Bolívar, Liberator of Venezuela” should be inscribed over the gateways of all the public offices. Posterity has confirmed this title to him, but its acceptance at that time, when the reaction was gaining ground every day, was a symptom of inordinate personal vanity.
In return for this compliment Bolívar instituted the military order of “The Liberators”; a star with seven rays, symbolical of the seven provinces of the Republic, given as a decoration to those who should merit it by deeds of arms, and which carried with it certain privileges. This order was more democratic than those instituted by O’Higgins and San Martin in Chile and Peru, as it was for lifetime only, and was less aristocratic than the order of Cincinnatus created by Washington.
The time which Bolívar wasted in theatrical displays the Royalists made good use of for their own purposes. Boves was a Spaniard by birth, whose real name was Rodriguez. In his youth he was condemned to eight years penal servitude at Puerto Cabello for piracy, but was released chiefly through the intervention of a man whose name he then adopted in gratitude. He joined the revolution when it first broke out, but being looked upon as disaffected he was thrown into prison at Calabozo till that town was retaken by Antoñanzas, when he joined the Royalists and took part in the butchery at San Juan de los Morros. Morales, his companion and second in command, had served as a volunteer with the Royalists at Barcelona, and was made a sub-lieutenant of artillery by Monteverde. These two men were both endowed with the warlike instinct, were both distinguished by indefatigable activity and by an iron will; they were just the sort of men to act as leaders of semi-barbarous troops. But Boves, with all his ignorance and brutality, had something of moral elevation about him: he fought for a cause, not for rapine. Morales took an actual pleasure in cruel deeds, and was of insatiable rapacity. These two men were the first to discover the latent strength of the people, which the revolution later on assimilated to itself. Up to this time the revolutionary movement had been confined to the cities and towns; Bolívar with all his perspicacity never suspected that the main strength of the country lay on the plains around them.
When these two men were left on the north bank of the Orinoco by Cajigal they adopted Bolívar’s plan of rousing the country by proclamations. They called the Llaneros to arms, offering them bloodshed and booty in the cause of the King, with pain of death to all who disregarded the summons. Each man presented himself on horseback with a lance; in each district a squadron was formed which took its name. Boves taught them the secret of victory, which was to have no fear of death, to go straight on and never look behind. In a very short time they had 2,500 men embodied, an army of horsemen such as had never yet been seen in America.
Colonel José Yañez, a Canarian, was a man of the same stamp as Boves and Morales, but of greater military skill. After the dispersion of the column by Tiscar, he had retreated to San Fernando on the Apure River, and with some help from Guayana, had there organized an infantry corps of 500 men, which he named the “Numancia” battalion. He also raised two regiments of Llanero cavalry, each 500 strong. With this force he invaded Barinas in September, before the waters had retired from the plains.
Boves opened his campaign by surprising a column of 1,000 men which had been sent against him, near Calabozo, on the 20th September. The cavalry passed over to him, the infantry he routed. He murdered all his prisoners, and then took and sacked the small town of Cura.