THE HOME OF BOLIVAR.
Morillo never returned to New Granada. Before he arrived in Venezuela, Bolivar had temporarily retired, and the llaneros retreated to the vast solitudes in which they were unconquerable. Though the Spanish regulars won battle after battle their victories were fruitless, and Bolivar soon returned to Venezuela to be again placed at the head of the patriots and to wage unremitting warfare with cavalry from a secure base in the llanos, while he imported British mercenary infantry capable of making headway against the Spanish regulars. From 1816 to 1819 New Granada suffered hopelessly and silently the bloody despotism of the Spanish generals, while the tide of war rolled to and fro in Venezuela. In the early part of the latter year Samano sent a small expedition down the steep Cordillera slope against the guerrillas in the Casanare plains north-east of Bogotá. This gave Bolivar a great strategical idea. He knew that the tableland of New Granada had been denuded of troops; but it was useless to try an attack from the direction of the provinces south of Maracaibo Bay because this well-travelled route and its populous towns were in secure possession of the enemy. Where Spaniards could go he could follow—so he reasoned—and determined to assault Bogotá directly from the Orinoco plains, thus striking the centre of the Spanish line.
With a mixed army of British mercenaries and hardy Venezuelans the Liberator mounted the difficult pass which leads from Casanare up to Tunja. Samano had only three thousand troops and these he sent under the command of General Barreiro to meet Bolivar. Though the patriots were somewhat inferior in numbers and arrived on the plateau fatigued, starving, and without horses, Barreiro, not knowing their real numbers, hesitated about attacking. Bolivar was given time to rest and remount his men, and then took a vigorous offensive. His rapid movements confused the Spanish commander, and the latter allowed the patriot army to get between him and Bogotá. Thus cut off from his base, Barreiro made a desperate dash to reach the capital, but ran against the patriots posted directly across his path at Boyacá, on the 7th of August, 1819. The loyalists attacked at a disadvantage and without hope. After losing a hundred men they fled in disorder and the whole army dispersed or was captured. The way to Bogotá lay open, and Samano had no forces to defend the city. Within three days Bolivar had traversed the hundred miles from the battlefield, and Samano fled in such precipitous haste that he left behind the government archives and even the money in the treasury. A month later the whole of New Granada, except the stubbornly loyalist Pasto and the fortress of Cartagena, was free. Bolivar had himself made president and military dictator, naming Santander vice-president, and giving each province two governors, one military and the other civil, responsible directly to Bogotá. The municipal governments were preserved, and the Spanish system of taxation continued, but patriot republicans displaced loyalists in all the offices.
Bolivar soon returned to his Venezuelan headquarters on the Orinoco to fight Morillo and organise the grand republic he had dreamed of so many years. Though all of Venezuela except the Orinoco valley, all of Ecuador, and the sea-ports and southern provinces of New Granada still remained in the hands of superior Spanish armies, and although the Creole ruling class had already proved strongly prejudiced in favour of local autonomy and the tearing down of aristocratic forms, his imagination vaulted all obstacles and he planned the new state down to its minutest details. His idea was a centralised system with himself at its head as life president, backed by a hereditary senate, and ruling the three grand divisions of his empire through docile vice-presidents. But his military power and prestige were insufficient to overcome the opposition of jealous generals and ambitious lawyers. He spent the year of 1820 in futile intrigues among the politicians, and in unsuccessful campaigns against the Spaniards in Venezuela, while the patriots trembled at the news that a great army was assembling at Cadiz which would surely sweep them out of existence. A liberal revolution in Spain came opportunely to interrupt military operations.
Bolivar was obliged to compromise with the advocates of federalism and democracy. A congress representing the Granadan and Venezuelan provinces then in the hands of the patriots assembled at Cucutá early in 1821. Composed of ambitious civilians it was opposed to centralisation or military rule, and in spite of the Liberator's protests adopted a compromise Constitution. Though Bolivar was conceded the title of president, he was required to give up his civil authority whenever he took command of the army, and this meant an abolishment of the dictatorship. The idea of a life presidency or a hereditary senate was abandoned, and the only part of his system which Bolivar managed to retain was the subordination of the provinces to the central government. The Liberator now devoted himself to the direction of the war, leaving that long-headed schemer, Santander, in power at Bogotá as vice-president. The winning of the battle of Carabobo in Venezuela in June, 1821, and the surrender of Cartagena in September, made necessary the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the Isthmus. Panama immediately declared itself independent, in November, 1821, and announced its intention of joining the great confederation of Colombia, then composed of the provinces of Venezuela, and New Granada, and later of those of Ecuador.
Pasto alone remained in the hands of the Spaniards. Bolivar determined to expel them from this province, and also from Quito and Guayaquil, while visions of conquests in Peru and Bolivia, and of returning to his dazzled countrymen in Colombia crowned with laurels gathered on southern battle-fields, floated through his mind. Congress gladly gave him leave of absence and Santander promised supplies of money and soldiers. In 1822 he advanced against Pasto, sending his able lieutenant, Sucré, around by sea to Guayaquil to take Quito from the south. Gathering three thousand men at Popayan he marched into Pasto and on the 7th of April came upon the royal army at Bambona. A bloody battle followed and Bolivar by inciting his men to reckless charges remained master of the field. However, he lost three times as many men as the royalists; the latter retired in good order, and the Liberator, after encamping eight days on the plateau, surrounded by a hostile population, hampered by the difficulties of the mountain paths, with a strong enemy in front, was compelled to retreat on Popayan, leaving his sick and wounded. He remained inactive until the glorious news of Sucré's overwhelming victory at Pichincha arrived. The loyalists in Pasto were now completely isolated. The Spanish commander made terms with Bolivar and the indomitable mountaineers were induced to submit on the promise that they should be allowed to retain their local laws and customs.
PANAMA FROM THE BAY.