Before closing this chapter some reference seems necessary to what cannot escape even the most casual student of South American history, but what, to the observant traveler, seems to be a matter of special moment. I refer to Bolivar’s policy of dividing and weakening Peru, and to his uniting under one flag the three northern countries of the continent. The separation of Upper Peru—Bolivia—from Lower Peru seems, in the light of events since the change, to have been a fatal mistake and detrimental to the best interests of Bolivia as well as to those of Peru.
I think, however, he exhibited unusual wisdom and foresight in combining in one republic—Gran Colombia—the provinces of Quito, New Granada and Venezuela. I know Gen. Mitre has denounced the idea as an absurdity—como un absurdo—[25] but, if this distinguished writer had had an opportunity to study actual conditions, as they present themselves to the traveler to-day, and to consult the wishes and welfare of the large mass of the people at present dwelling within the confines of Greater Colombia, I think he would have been disposed to accept Bolivar’s plan for a great nation, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, as the best for all concerned.
Had the destiny of Colombia, after the union, been entrusted to the direction of wise and unselfish patriots, as was the infant Republic of the United States of North America, one may well believe that the history of this part of South America, during the last three-quarters of a century, would have been quite different from what it has been, and that it would have been spared those countless internecine wars that have deluged the country in blood and rendered civilization, in its higher sense, impossible.
The geographical features of the country, and the diverse interests of its different sections, were, pace Mitre, no more opposed to the formation of a great and stable republic on the Caribbean than they were in that vast commonwealth to the north of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Stars and Stripes have so long been the symbol of peace, prosperity and national greatness. The people in the southern continent, were not, it is true, so well prepared for a democratic form of government as were their brethren in the north, but if, instead of being cursed with selfish and destructive militarism, they could have enjoyed the blessings of competent and far-seeing statesmanship, it is safe to affirm that the Great Colombia, as Bolivar conceived it, would, ere this, have developed into a flourishing and powerful republic—worthy of taking a place among the great nations of the world.[26]
But, sad to relate, Bolivar’s creation was short-lived. After a precarious existence of only eleven years, disintegration took place, and the Liberator, fallen into disfavor and condemned to exile, was forced to be a witness of the collapse of the structure that had cost him so much labor, and which he had fondly hoped would be his greatest and most enduring monument.
Shortly before his death at the hacienda of San Pedro, near Santa Marta, where he perished alone,
“Maligned and doubted and denied, a broken-hearted man,” he wrote to General Flores, of Ecuador, a letter in which occur the following remarkable statements:—
“I have been in power—yo he mandado—for nearly twenty years, from which I have gathered only a few definite results:—
“1. America for us is ungovernable.
“2. He who dedicates his services to a revolution plows the sea.