The Spanish colonies of South America remained for three centuries in quiet submission to the mother country, if we except the desperate attempt of the Peruvian Indians, under Tupac Amaru, to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. Never were despotism, avarice and slavish obsequiousness to power, more thoroughly displayed than in Spanish America, under the government of the viceroys and captains-general, who, with all the principal officers of the viceroyal court, were sent to America from Madrid, and who, without being under any efficient responsibility, administered their authority with every species of tyranny and venality. Justice was bought and sold, and the most important legal decisions were made in favor of the highest bidder. The mercantile policy of the parent country was equally despotic and rapacious. The establishment of manufactures was not permitted, while cargoes of Spanish commodities, the refuse of the shops, were forced, in barter for silver and gold, upon a half-civilized people, who neither wanted nor could possibly use them. Foreign commerce was interdicted on pain of death; all social improvement was suppressed; and to prevent the inhabitants from knowing the extent of their degradation, all intercourse whatever was strictly forbidden with any country or people, besides Spain and Spaniards, and allowed even with them under many restrictions. Superstition and ignorance were upheld as the surest support of the colonial system; so that, previous to 1810, the whole continent, from Lima to Monte Video, contained but one wretched printing-press, and that in the hands of the monks, who consigned to the dungeons of the Inquisition every man who possessed a prohibited book.
The example of the revolt of the British North American colonies had a slow effect in propagating revolutionary ideas in the south; and the usurpation of the crown of Spain by Napoleon precipitated those movements which resulted, after a bloody struggle, in wresting from the dominion of Spain the whole of her continental possessions in America. In this momentous contest, Simon Bolivar bore the most conspicuous part, and his life comprises the substance of the history of the country in which his military exploits were performed during its most eventful period.
This celebrated man was born in the city of Caraccas, in July, 1783. He belonged to a family of distinction, and was one of the few natives of the Spanish colonies who were permitted to visit Europe. After finishing his studies at Madrid, he went to France, and during his stay at Paris rendered himself an acceptable guest in its social circles, by the amenity of his manners, and his other personal recommendations. In the midst, however, of all the seductions of that gay capital, his sanguine temper and ardent imagination anticipated the task which the future fortunes of his country might impose upon him, and even in his twenty-third year he is said to have contemplated the establishment of her independence. While at Paris his favorite occupation was the study of those branches of science which contribute to the formation of the character of a warrior and statesman. Humboldt and Bonpland were his intimate friends, and accompanied him in his excursions in France; nor did he think his travels finished till he had visited England, Italy, and a part of Germany. On his return to Madrid, he was married, and shortly afterwards returned to America, where he arrived in 1810, at the very moment when his countrymen were about to unfurl the standard of independence. On his passage homeward, he visited the United States, where he gathered some political knowledge which subsequent events rendered highly useful to him.
The revolution began in Venezuela on Good Friday, April 19, 1810, when, by a popular movement, the captain-general of Caraccas was arrested and deposed, and a congress convened to organize a new government. The talents and acquirements of Bolivar pointed him out as the best qualified person to be placed at the helm; but he disapproved of the system adopted by the congress, and refused a diplomatic mission to England. He even declined any connection with the government, though he continued a staunch friend to the cause of independence. But at length he consented to proceed to England, where he solicited the British cabinet in vain to espouse the cause of the revolution. Finding them resolved to maintain a strict neutrality, he returned to Caraccas after a short stay. In the mean time, the declaration of independence was boldly maintained by military force. Miranda was appointed commander-in-chief. Bolivar took the post of colonel in the army, and governor of Puerto Cabello, the strongest place in Venezuela.
Success attended the arms of the patriots till 1812, when a remarkable event caused them the most serious reverses. In March of that year a violent earthquake devastated the whole province, and among other places totally destroyed the city of Caraccas, with all its magazines and munitions of war. This dreadful calamity, in which twenty thousand persons perished, happened, by a most remarkable coincidence, on the anniversary of the very day in which the revolution had broken out, two years before. The priesthood, who, as a body, were devoted to the royal interest, eagerly seized upon this circumstance. In their hands, the earthquake became the token of the Divine wrath against the revolutionary party. The superstitious multitude were easily deluded and terrified with such representations and denunciations. Priests, monks, and friars, were stationed in the streets, vociferating in the midst of credulous throngs of people trembling with fear, while the royalist commanders improved the occasion by overrunning one district after another. Bolivar was compelled to evacuate Puerto Cabello. Miranda’s conduct having become suspicious, he was arrested by the patriot leaders and delivered up to the Spanish commander, who sent him to Spain, where he died in a dungeon. Bolivar is supposed to have had a share in this transaction, in consequence of which he has been severely censured. There were some circumstances, however, which appeared to justify a suspicion that Miranda was engaged in a hostile plot with the British cabinet.
Bolivar was now entrusted with the command of an army of six thousand men, which he led across the mountains to the further extremity of New Granada. In the hostilities of this period, deeds of the most revolting ferocity were perpetrated by the royalist troops, and the whole country was reduced to a frightful state of misery. On the most trivial pretexts, old men, women and children, were arrested and massacred as rebels. Friars and military butchers reigned triumphant. One of the Spanish officers, named Suasola, cut off the ears of a great number of patriots, and had them stuck in the caps of his soldiers for cockades. Bolivar, who had hitherto conducted the war with great forbearance, was inflamed with indignation at these cruelties; he swore to avenge his countrymen, and declared that every royalist who fell into his hands should be consigned to the vengeance of his soldiery. But this spirit of inexorable justice and retaliation ill accorded with Bolivar’s character, and it was exercised only on one occasion, when eight hundred Spaniards were shot. Afterwards it was formally announced by Bolivar, that ‘no Spaniard shall be put to death except in battle. The war of death shall cease.’
The royalists, who, by the practice of the most bloody and ferocious atrocities, had gained possession of nearly the whole country, now began to give way before the arms of Bolivar. Passing from one victory to another, he drove the enemy from every post, and on the 4th of August, 1814, made his triumphant entry into the renovated city of Caraccas. The enthusiasm and joy of the people exceeded all bounds, and this was certainly the most brilliant day in his whole career. Greeted by the acclamations of thousands of the inhabitants, artillery, bells and music, the Liberator was drawn into the city in a triumphal car by twelve beautiful young ladies, of the first families of the capital, dressed in white, and adorned with the patriot colors, while others crowned him with laurel, and strewed his way with flowers. All the prisons were thrown open, and hundreds who had been suffering for political opinions came forth, pale and emaciated, to thank him for their liberation. The royalists throughout the province capitulated, and the triumph of the patriots was complete.
Bolivar was now constituted dictator, and entrusted with unlimited power. This measure was prompted by the sentiments of enthusiasm and gratitude during the first moments of exultation in the people; but, as is the case in all infant republics, they soon began to give manifestations of a jealousy for that liberty which had cost them such sacrifices. The power of the dictator, who delegated his authority to his inferior officers, by whom it was frequently abused, redoubled their apprehensions. Suspicions arose, that the primary object of Bolivar was his own aggrandisement. In consequence of this, on the 2d of January 1814, he made a formal tender of his resignation. This lulled the suspicions of the people, and the royalists having begun to rally and arm their negro slaves, he was solicited to retain the dictatorship. The war was now renewed, and many battles were fought. On the 14th of June, 1814, Bolivar was defeated at La Puerta, with the loss of fifteen hundred men; and again, on the 17th of August, near his own estate of San Mateo, where the negro leader Boves, with a squadron of cavalry named the ‘infernal division,’ with black crape on their lances, rushing with hideous shouts from an ambush, scattered his remaining forces, and would have made him a prisoner but for the fleetness of his horse. His cousin, Ribas, was taken and shot, and his head set upon the wall of Caraccas. Bolivar’s beautiful family mansion was burned to the ground, and he was compelled, in September, to leave the royalists again in complete possession of all Venezuela, while thousands of the patriot army deserted to their ranks.
In spite of these reverses, we find him, in December of the same year, at the head of two thousand men, marching upon the city of Bogota, which he stormed and captured. But other circumstances having caused him to despair of any permanent success against the Spaniards at that time, he left the country in May 1815, and retired to Jamaica. The war in Europe being brought to a close, the Spanish government were enabled to send an army of twelve thousand men, under General Morillo, to Venezuela and New Granada. This commander overran both provinces, and executed two thousand of the inhabitants. While Bolivar resided at Kingston, in Jamaica, he employed himself in writing a defense of his conduct in the civil war of New Granada, and issued several spirited exhortations to the patriots, for which his assassination was attempted by the royalist party. A Spaniard, stimulated by a bribe of fifty thousand dollars and a promise of perfect absolution by the church, ventured upon this undertaking. He obtained admission into Bolivar’s apartment, and stabbed to the heart his secretary, who, by chance, was lying in the general’s hammock.
From Jamaica, Bolivar proceeded to Hayti, where he raised a force of blacks and patriot emigrants, with which he landed in Cumana, in July, 1816. But, at Ocumare, he was surrounded by the royalists, defeated with great slaughter, and again expelled from the country. A few months afterwards, he landed once more upon the continent, and, after a battle of three days, completely routed the army of Morillo. This success reinstated him in the office of captain-general, and supreme head, and he followed up this advantage by other victories over the royalists. On the 15th of February, 1819, the congress of the Venezuelan republic was installed at Angostura, when Bolivar submitted the plan of a republican constitution, and formally laid down his authority. A strong representation of the exigencies of the times was again pressed upon him and became his inducement to resume it. In the following summer he undertook an expedition across the Cordilleras. Fatigue and privations of every kind were endured with exemplary fortitude in the advance of the army through this wild, precipitous and barren region, where they lost their artillery and most of their equipments. On the heights of Tunja, they found a Spanish army of three thousand five hundred men, whom they instantly attacked and defeated. This, and a subsequent victory at Boyaca, compelled the Spanish commander-in-chief, Barreyro, to surrender the remnant of his army. Samano, the Spanish viceroy, fled from Bogota, leaving in the treasury a million of dollars behind him; and the deliverance of New Granada was complete.