The South American Republics, Part 2 of 2

by Thomas Cleland Dawson

At the head of a victorious army of Colombians and Argentines, Sucré could naturally do as he liked with Ecuador and an assembly of the people of Quito accepted incorporation into the republic of Colombia. Bolivar, meanwhile, had had some hard fighting with the stubborn loyalists of Pasto, and the issue remained doubtful until news of the victory of Pichincha was received. The Spanish commander surrendered; Bolivar came on to Quito, and thence proceeded to Guayaquil. The inhabitants of this important city were divided. Many wanted to be independent; others preferred incorporation with Peru, to being tied up with Colombia, a country whose capital could only be reached by months of tedious travelling; others, however, were willing to maintain the ancient political connection with New Granada. As a matter of fact, discussion was useless, for Bolivar threw into the scale the weight of his military power. Guayaquil and the adjacent coast region became a department of Colombia, while the southern plateau provinces—Cuenca and Loja—were also erected into a department of Bolivar's vast confederation. This completed the division of the old presidency of Quito into four parts—Pasto and the northern provinces, Quito and the central, Cuenca and the southern, and Guayaquil with the coast, and in all of them the influence of Bolivar's satraps was predominant.

Shortly after his arrival at Guayaquil Bolivar and San Martin had their famous interview. The latter came up from Lima hoping to arrange plan of joint campaign, but he quickly saw that Bolivar would never consent to share the glory of driving the Spaniards from their last strongholds. The great Argentine magnanimously determined to retire, and returning to Lima, resigned the presidency of Peru. San Martin once out of the way, Bolivar was eager to lead a Colombian army to Lima, but the Peruvians declined his assistance. Alone, however, they had little chance against the able Spanish generals, and, aghast at the progress of the enemy, they soon sent to Bolivar begging his assistance on his own terms. The selfishly ambitious liberator gladly accepted, and within a month Sucré was on his way south at the head of a fine army of Colombian veterans. Bolivar himself followed with reinforcements, and though hampered and delayed by the revolt of the Callao garrison, Sucré's military ability backed by Bolivar's tireless energy and large resources produced their legitimate results. Bolivar in person advanced to the plateau and August 6, 1824, won the cavalry action of Junin which compelled the retirement of the Spanish army to Cuzco. Bolivar returned to Lima leaving Sucré in command, and on the 9th of December the latter annihilated the main body of the enemy in the battle of Ayacucho—the crowning victory of the war of South American independence.

Bolivar was supreme from the Caribbean to Potosí. As president of the United States of Colombia he ruled Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador, he himself was dictator of Peru, and his faithful lieutenant exercised supreme power in Bolivia. The realisation of his cherished plan for the union of all South America into one great confederacy, with himself as life-president, seemed near at hand. But successful soldier though he was—heroic, resourceful, and unwavering in reverse—his statecraft was short-sighted and impracticable. The moment of his apogee marked the beginning of his decline. He failed to appreciate that the spirit of South America was profoundly democratic and local, and that the war of independence owed its beginning and successful prosecution to a deeply rooted impulse toward division, liberty, and anarchy among the Creoles. To build a tower out of sand would have been easier than to create a stable union between the recently liberated provinces of Spanish America. Viewed in the light of subsequent events the wonder is that territorial disintegration stopped where it did, and that South America did not split into twenty instead of nine separate countries.

Bolivar's partisans in Colombia were unsuccessful in their intrigues to replace the Constitution of Cucutá with one drawn up after the plan their chief had imposed upon Bolivia and Peru. Neither leaders nor people, army nor professional classes, showed any disposition to concede him greater powers. His attempts to interfere in the affairs of Argentine and Chile were repulsed, Peru became restless under his dictatorship, Bolivia only waited a favourable opportunity to expel Sucré, the very troops he had brought from Colombia to Peru became mutinous, his pan-American congress at Panama turned out a fiasco. He remained two years in Peru, until the news of a great uprising in Venezuela made it necessary for him to hurry to the north. Hardly had he left Lima than the military chiefs in Peru virtually disavowed his authority. Under the leadership of their officers the Colombian troops in Lima revolted, and the Peruvians, delighted to be rid of these embarrassing guests, paid their pecuniary demands, and to the number of over three thousand despatched them in ships for the north. They disembarked in Ecuador, where one division took possession of Guayaquil and another of Cuenca. Bolivar was so occupied with the troubles in Venezuela that he could personally take no measures against this defection, but General Flores, a Venezuelan whom he had appointed commander of the military forces of the three southern provinces of the old Quito presidency,—Guayaquil, Cuenca, and Quito,—proved energetic and fortunate. His intrigues sowed discord among the officers of the revolting troops. A counter-revolution occurred in his favour at Cuenca, and after a short period of virtual independence Guayaquil also returned to its old connection with Quito.

The movement against Bolivar from Colombia proper involved Pasto and Popayan—the northern division of the old Quito presidency—while Quito and the southern provinces were left largely to their own devices. General La Mar, who had succeeded in making himself president of Peru, conceived the idea of enlarging the limits of that country by the acquisition of Guayaquil and Cuenca, and he was the more enthusiastic because the latter was his native province. In 1828 war broke out between Colombia and Peru. Peruvian ships blockaded Guayaquil, and in January, 1829, forced the surrender of that place, while a Peruvian army seven thousand strong invaded the Ecuadorean plateau and penetrated beyond Cuenca. Flores and his rivals united in face of the common danger, the Colombian veterans scattered through the country rallied to the banner of Sucré, who came in person to take command, and the decisive battle was fought at Tarqui in February. The Peruvians were so badly defeated that they sued for peace, and agreed to surrender Guayaquil and the greater part of the southern provinces.

GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.

By this time, however, Bolivar's own position had become desperate. Venezuela had already separated from the confederation, and when on the 12th of May, 1830, Flores proclaimed the Quito presidency independent, it was little more than the announcement of an existing fact. He attempted to disarm jealousy against Quito by christening the country by the fanciful name of Ecuador, and by decreeing that each province should have an equal vote in the legislative assembly. Flores was merely one of a multitude of military chiefs who had been fighting among themselves since the expulsion of the Spaniards. Though married to a Quito lady he was a Venezuelan and could rely on few local friendships or sympathies, and the Colombian veterans, who swarmed over the country devouring the substance of the people and eager for pay and plunder, regarded him as one of themselves and were ready to desert him for any chief who might offer higher wages.

Now that Bolivar was overthrown and Sucré murdered on a lonely mountain road by hired assassins, the sentiment of loyalty to their old chiefs tardily revived among the fickle Colombian regulars. They received Flores's declaration of independence with indignation; an insurrection broke out among the garrison at Guayaquil; and the veterans marched to the plateau. Flores had no force capable of making headway against them, and was compelled to negotiate a treaty, agreeing to support Bolivar in case the latter should remain in South America. On the other hand, the troops consented to recognise Flores if Bolivar should go into exile. Hardly had the treaty been signed than word was received of the lonely death of the great Venezuelan at Santa Marta. Most of the veterans took service under Flores, and he pursued the recalcitrants with relentless and bloody severity. Pasto and Popayan, composing the province of Cauca, the northern division of the old Quito presidency, wavered as to whether they would cast their lot with Ecuador or New Granada. The government at Bogotá sent an army into the disputed territory, and Flores tried to organise a force large enough to beat it, but he was hampered by mutinies, conspiracies, and poverty, and after a year of expensive though nearly bloodless operations withdrew and consented to a treaty by which Ecuador gave up all claim to Pasto and Popayan, losing a third of the territory and population of the old presidency of Quito.