Bolivar: American Liberator (77 page)

Don Juan Vicente’s nephew:
Fundación del Mayorazgo de la Concepción, por el presbítero Dr. Don Juan Félix Xerez de Aristiguieta. Caracas, Dec. 8, 1784. Archivo del Registro Principal de Caracas. Quoted in Juan Morales Alvarez, “Los bienes del mayorazgo de la concepción,” Instituto de Altos Estudios de America Latina, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Feb. 2011,
www.iaeal.usb.ve/documentos/nro_91/morales
.

died in 1785 with no direct heirs, etc.:
Camilo Calderón,
Revista Credencial Historia
, no. 144 (Bogotá, Dec. 2001).

Juan Vicente’s will and testament, etc.:
Madariaga, 22.

“whose milk sustained my life”
and
“the only father I have ever known”:
SB to María Antonia, July 10, 1825, SB,
Cartas:
1823–1824–1825
, 339.

Willful, irascible:
de la Cruz Herrera, 138.

No one scolded him:
Arístides Rojas,
Historia patria
, II, 252.

brought him to live:
There is some dispute about this. José Gil Fortoul, for instance, recorded it in his initial history of Venezuela, but edited the material out in a new edition. Francisco Encina, in his
Bosquejo psicológico de Bolívar
, calls it total “invention.” The historian Arístides Rojas, on the other hand, fully describes Bolívar’s stay in Sanz’s house, and quotes Sanz’s daughter as the source for many stories about the stern lawyer and naughty boy.

“You’re a walking powder keg,” etc.:
Arístides Rojas,
Historia patria
, II, 254.

locked Simón in a room, etc.:
Ibid., 254–55.

hired a learned Capuchin, etc.:
Ibid., 255.

returned to Caracas and died, etc.:
Pereyra,
La juventud
, 67.

“Concepción decided to lay her illness”:
Encina,
La primera república
, 314.

she had bled for seven days, etc.:
Ibid. Don Feliciano’s letter, quoted above, specifies that she began to bleed on Saint Peter’s day, which was a week before her death.

Within two months, he married, etc.:
Ibid., 338.

her uncle Dionisio Palacios:
Pedro Mendoza Goiticoa,
Los Mendoza Goiticoa
(Caracas: Cromotip, 1988), 39. (Quotes records, Catedral de Caracas, Libro IX de Matrimonio, folio 58.)

a connecting passageway:
Encina.

net worth equivalent today:
Polanco Alcántara,
Simón Bolívar
, 11. Polanco gives the wealth in terms of 1976 dollars ($8 million), which are translated here according to the current (2010) U.S. Consumer Price Index.

Juan Vicente was put in the custody, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 64.

time in the company of street boys:
Cited in court records:
Litigio ventilado ante la real audiencia de Caracas sobre domicilio tutelar y educación del menor Simón Bolívar:
Año de 1795
, p. 32.

no attempt to develop factories:
Bethell, III, 3.

Five thousand clerics:
Robertson,
Rise of the Spanish-American Republics
, 22.

King Carlos IV made it very clear:
Sherwell,
Simón Bolívar
,
www.fullbooks.com
, chapter I.

Contraband was punishable by death, etc.:
Restrepo,
Historia de la revolución
, I, 105–24.

Caracas was awash in smuggled goods:
Robertson,
Rise
, 15.

Books or newspapers:
Restrepo, I, 105–24.

Only the Spanish-born were allowed:
Sherwell.

It earned $60 million a year:
DOC, II, 5. The peso was roughly equivalent to the dollar.

Factories were forbidden:
Bethell, 13.

profit of $46 million a year:
DOC, II, 390.

“Nature has separated us from Spain”:
Vizcardo y Guzmán, 81.

overwhelmingly populated by pardos:
Lombardi,
People and Places
, 132.

slave ships had just sold 26,000 Africans:
Blanchard,
Under the Flags of Freedom
, 7.

reduced to a third:
Salcedo-Bastardo,
Bolívar
, 3.

Cédulas de Gracias al Sacar, etc.:
Bethell, 30.

Túpac Amaru II:
His birth name was José Gabriel Condorcanqui.

first written to the crown’s envoy:
DOC, I, 151.

“I have decided to shake off”:
Ibid., I, 147.

costing the Indians some 100,000 lives:
Bethell, 36.

“I only know of two”:
Viscardo y Guzmán, from introduction by David Brading, 20.

signaled the end of Spanish dominion:
Winsor,
Narrative and Critical History
, 317.

Chirino . . . had traveled from Venezuela:
Pedro Arcaya,
Insurrección de los negros de la serranía de Coró
(Caracas: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía y Historia, 1949), 36.

Epigraph:
“A child learns more in one split second,”
Simón Rodríguez,
Sociedades americanas en 1828
(Lima: Comercio, 1842), 60.

sent Simón to an elementary school:
Expediente de la real audiencia de Caracas sobre el “domicilio tutelar del menor don Simón Bolívar, en el mes de junio de 1795,”
BANH, no. 149; also Polanco Alcántara, 12.

as the black revolutionary Chirino fled, etc.:
Ramón Aizpurúa,
La insurrección de los negros, 1795
, BANH, no. 283, 705–23.

Simón, too, decided to run:
Litigio ventilado
, 17.

where his old wet nurse, Hipólita:
Gómez Botero, 114.

On July 31, he filed a lawsuit:
Litigio ventilado
, 30.

“We’ve already warned his guardian,” etc.:
Ibid., 31.

“Slaves have more rights”:
Ibid., 23.

“a highly respected and capable”:
Ibid., 33.

punching the boy’s chest:
Ibid., 28.

A court-ordered inspection:
Expediente de la real audiencia
, Ibid.

Three days later, Rodríguez reported, etc.:
Encina, 342.

return him to “the harbor”:
Expediente de la real audiencia
, Ibid.

“hire a respectable teacher”:
Litigio ventilado
, 58.

praised by no less than the great naturalist:
SB to Santander, Arequipa, May 20, 1825, SBC, IV, 333.

other esteemed Caracans of the day:
These were Fernando Vides, José Antonio Negrete, and Guillermo Pelgrón. SB to Santander, ibid.

born in Caracas in 1771, birthed in secret, etc.:
Jesús Andrés Lasheras, from the Introduction, Rodríguez,
Cartas
, 17.

what their revolution had in mind, etc.:
Gil Fortoul,
Historia contitucional
, III, 94.

barbers, priests, doctors, etc.:
Salcedo-Bastardo,
Historia fundamental
, 238–39.

attended Rodríguez’s trial:
Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 38.

Sanz, argued the teacher’s defense:
Rourke,
Bolívar
, 26.

Rodríguez escaped conviction:
Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 38.

without so much as a goodbye:
Alfonso Rumazo González, “Simón Rodríguez,” in
Manuel Gual y José María España
(Caracas: Latina, 1997), 635.

In order to satisfy the conditions:
Esteban Palacios to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Sept. 24, 1794, in Lecuna,
Adolescencia
, 526.

“I keep worrying about the boys”:
Esteban Palacios to Carlos Palacios, June 28, 1797, ibid., 538.

“Keep a good eye on him”:
Carlos to Esteban, Oct. 1799, ibid., 562.

back to Venezuela in a canoe, etc.:
Esposición arrancada á José María de España estando en cadenas, Caracas, May 4, 1799, DOC, I, 345.

A vial of poison:
Larrazábal,
Correspondencia
, I, 26.

ship’s commander was generous, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 93.

After loading seven million silver coins:
Polanco Alcántara, 45.

borrow 400 pesos:
SB to Pedro Palacios y Sojo, Vera Cruz, March 20, 1799, SB,
Cartas: 1799–1822
, 37.

“The city of Mexico reminds one of Berlin”:
Humboldt,
Oeuvres
, 186.

snatch a few private moments, etc.:
Ramón Urdaneta,
Los amores de Simón Bolívar
, 30.

already had quite a reputation, etc.:
Saurat,
Bolívar
, 36.

the most beautiful woman:
Mme. Calderón de la Barca,
La vida en Mexico
, Colección “Sepan cuentos” (Mexico City: Porrúa, 1967), 64.

making its wary way past the Bahamas, etc.:
Clarence Haring,
Trade and Navigation Between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs
(Gloucester: P. Smith, 1964), 220.

As the king whiled away the hours, etc.:
Hans Madol,
Godoy
(Madrid: Occidente, 1933), 91.

The new object of her concupiscence, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 89.

a rich young aristocrat from the Indies:
Madariaga discusses songs of the time, which referred to young rich Americans and the demand for them among marriageable Spaniards. Madariaga, 53.

“He has absolutely no education”:
Esteban to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, June 29, 1799, Lecuna,
Adolescencia
, 552.

minister of the auditing tribunal:
Esteban to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Oct. 23, 1798, ibid., 544.

Simón arrived in Madrid, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 104.

his ship had been seized:
Ibid., 101.

“We do enjoy some favor”:
Pedro to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Aug. 1, 1799, Lecuna,
Adolescencia
, 553–54.

He hired a tailor to outfit the boy, etc.:
Ibid., 477.

He arranged special tutors:
Pedro to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Aug. 22, 1799, ibid., 556.

the marquis’s resplendent mansion:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 115.

The only surviving letter:
SB to Pedro Palacios, March 20, 1799, SB,
Cartas 1799–1822
, 37; SBO, I, 15.

Disguised in a monk’s cape, etc.:
Rourke, 20.

“There is no woman,” etc.:
French minister Charles J. M. Alquier, in Pereyra, 166.

“The Queen’s favorite in the year 1800”:
Henry Adams,
History of the United States, 1801–09
(New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1930), 347.

“How could Ferdinand VII”:
SB, in Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 4–5. Also Mosquera,
Memorias
, 9.

Esteban and Pedro moved out:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 104.

As the marquis and her father, etc.:
Liévano Aguirre,
Bolívar
, 62.

“sweet hex of my soul”:
Dalmiro Valgoma,
Simón Bolívar y María Teresa del Toro
(Madrid: Cultura, 1970); also in Polanco Alcántara, p. 69.

granted a passport:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 105.

applied for a marriage license:
Lecuna,
Adolescencia
, 568.

One of the main stipulations, etc.:
SB to Pedro Palacios, Sept. 30, 1800, SBSW, I, 38.

Madrid’s Parish Church of San José:
Lecuna,
Adolescencia
, 568. According to Lecuna, this church no longer exists. Originally, it was on the corner of Calle de la Libertad and Calle Gravina. Bernardo Rodríguez del Toro’s house was at No. 2 Calle de Fuencarral, a few blocks away.

festooned with flowers:
Polanco Alcántara, 66.

a few carefree months, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 125.

house his uncle Carlos had coveted, etc.:
Esteban to Carlos Palacios, June 28, 1797, Lecuna,
Adolescencia
, 538.

Bolívar had hoped to take her, etc.:
Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 125.

But he never accomplished this, etc.:
Ibid. Lecuna makes the point that she did not die in San Mateo, as other historians have assumed. Bolívar would not have taken his wife to live at a property that rightfully belonged to his brother; and Bolívar’s haciendas, though important properties, did not have lavish enough houses.