Bolivar: American Liberator (81 page)

five hundred of Monteverde’s troops:
Ibid., 490.

chatting breezily of Jefferson:
Pedro Gual,
Testimonio y declaración
, Quinta de la Paz, Bogotá, Feb. 15, 1843, published in Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 470.

“Generalísimo, At one o’clock”:
SB,
Escritos
, IV, 85, in Puyo Vasco and Gutiérrez Cely,
Bolívar día a día
, I, 126. Also Yanes, 46.

“You see, gentlemen”:
Miranda to his men (Sata y Bussy, Roscio, Espejo, Gual), as recorded by Gual,
Testimonio
, in Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 471.

retinue of five ragged officers, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, xxii.

They stole along the coast:
SB, in his report to Miranda, O’L, XXX, 517.

a swarm of Spanish ships, etc.:
Communication of Luis Delpech, Feb. 27, 1813, as given to the British by Tomás Molini, PRO/FO: Spain, 151.

“my spirits are so low”:
SB to Miranda, Caracas, July 12, 1812, SBO, I, 35.

crushed under the ruins:
O’L, XXX, 528.

“Venezuela is wounded in the heart”:
Miranda to his men, in French, as recorded by Gual,
Testimonio
, in Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 471.

next morning, before dawn:
Ibid., 472.

“They’ve probably stormed the plaza by now”:
Ibid.

did not dare raise the possibility, etc.:
Heredia, 52.

suggested that the generalísimo convene, etc.:
Mancini, 137.

He wanted nothing more:
Heredia, 52.

The republic was in extremis, etc.:
Mancini, 136.

Casa León happily volunteered:
Heredia, 53.

republicans launched a modest attack:
Yanes, 47.

charter a ship for his evacuation, etc.:
Austria, 316–22; Mancini, 139.

22,000 pesos:
M. M. Las Casas, Defensa Documentada del Comandante de La Guaira 33, in Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 239; and Austria, 150.

proof incontrovertible:
Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 145.

The pact did seem to ensure:
O’LB, 37.

made to give up their arms:
Heredia, 54.

banner of independence was lowered:
Rafter,
Memoirs of Gregor M’Gregor
, 47.

had not confided his plans:
Fermín Paúl, as quoted in Pereyra, 500.

no provision in the capitulation for their safe passage:
Rafter, 47.

why hadn’t he passed the scepter:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, xxiv.

less than three hundred of Monteverde’s:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 62.

a city of fourteen thousand:
J. Kinsbruner, “The Pulperos of Caracas and San Juan During the First Half of the 19th Century,”
Latin American Research Review
, 13, no. 1 (1978), 65–85.

in hopes of reconstituting the army, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, xxv.

no vessel could leave:
O’L, XXVII, 74. Also P. Briceño Méndez,
Relación histórica
(Caracas: Tipografía Americana, 1933), 10, quoted in Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 254.

suffocating heat, etc.:
Mancini, 136, for subsequent details.

The sea, ruffled:
Mancini. Also Lecuna,
Catálogo
, I, 252.

Miranda’s baggage had been sent:
Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 473.

22,000 pesos:
Las Casas, Defensa Documentada.

Gual stubbornly doubting, etc.:
Gual,
Testimonio
, in Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 472–73. Pedro Gual was the nephew of Manuel Gual, the rebel in the Gual-España conspiracy.

had already communicated with Monteverde:
M. Picón Salas,
Miranda
(Caracas: Aguilar, 1955), 247. Also Parra-Pérez,
Historia
, II, 443; Baralt and Díaz,
Resumen
, I, 102–3; and Gual,
Testimonio
, in Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 472–73.

sought out Las Casas and Peña:
O’LB, XXVII, 38.

contempt for his countrymen:
“He preferred his real countrymen, the English and French, saying that [Venezuelans] were brutes, incapable of following commands, and that they had better learn how to handle a gun before donning epaulettes, &c.” Conversation in Edificio Guipuzcoana, Austria, 159–60.

charge him with treason, etc.:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, xxv–vi.

He put his troops on alert, etc.:
Austria, 160.

“Too soon!” Miranda growled:
Carlos Soublette, SBC, I, 246. Also see letters between Soublette and Restrepo, BANH, nos. 77, 23, and for all subsequent details.

encountered a party of couriers, etc.:
Austria, 160–61.

“It’s no small surprise to me”:
Parra-Pérez,
Historia
, 441.

The USS
Matilda: Slatta and Lucas de Grummond,
Simón Bolívar’s Quest for Glory
, 66.

succeeded in evading capture:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, xxvi.

hastily improvised a disguise:
Larrazábal,
Correspondencia
, I, 132.

thrust into the dank crypts:
Becerra, 294.

hustled onto a shabby little boat:
Letter from Miranda to the president of the Spanish courts, June 30, 1813, in Becerra, 300–7.

“Miranda by a shameful”:
Scott to James Monroe, Nov. 26, 1812, State Department MSS, Bureau of Indexes and Archives, Consular Letters, La Guayra, I; in Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 468.

labeling him an outright coward:
Baralt and Díaz, 124.

the reward of money:
Miranda to Nicholas Vansittart, La Carraca, May 21, 1814, and April 13, 1815.

“Proto-leader”:
From Rumazo González, “Francisco de Miranda: Protolíder de la independencia americana.”

skilled at plotting grand schemes, etc.:
Robertson,
Francisco de Miranda
, 488.

hatching of revolutions:
Ibid.

opportunity to clear his honor:
SB to Miranda, Caracas, July 12, 1812, SBO, I, 34.

“a loathsome leader, despot”:
SB,
Manifiesto
, Valencia, Sept. 20, 1813, O’L, XIII, 366.

“To the last hour of his life”:
Wilson to O’Leary, London, March 4, 1832, O’L, I, 75.

“General Bolívar invariably added”:
Wilson to O’Leary, London, July 14, 1832, O’L, I, 76.

kind man with a large heart:
Larrazábal,
Correspondencia
, I, 137.

flung alkali against the walls:
Sherwell, 37.

pulled from a fleeing boat:
Larrazábal,
Correspondencia
, I, 133.

Six of the most respected:
E.g., Montilla Mirés, Paz Castillo, who were SB’s cronies, ibid.

“eight monsters”:
Gil Fortoul,
Historia constitucional
, I, 196.

One thousand five hundred:
Ibid., 197.

offering himself as a guarantee, etc.:
Larrazábal,
Correspondencia
, I, 137–38.

“Here is the commander”:
Gil Fortoul,
Historia constitucional
, I, 193.

August 27, Bolívar sailed:
Zerberiz to Monteverde, Guayra, Aug. 28, 1812, ibid., 138.

face turned a deathly white:
Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 150.

Epigraph:
The art of victory is learned in failures:
SB, in Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 580.

Storms bedeviled his journey, etc.:
SB to Iturbe, Sept. 10, 1812, Curaçao, O’L, XXIX, 13.

they confiscated his baggage, etc.:
Ibid.

beginning to see his straitened circumstances:
Ibid., 14.

he had secured a loan:
O’L, XXVII, 83.

he seemed more deliberate, judicious, mature:
Mancini, 187.

words were as valuable as weapons:
SB arrived in Cartagena in mid-November (O’L, I, 85) and decamped to his first military assignment on Dec. 1 (Mancini, 187). It is very possible that he actually wrote the Cartagena Manifesto in Curaçao or even on board the ship.

Bolívar lodged in a modest house, etc.:
German Arciniegas,
Bolívar, de Cartagena a Santa María
, 10.

illusions of grandeur:
J. de la Vega,
La federación en Colombia
(Bogotá, 1952), 106–10.

Manuel Rodríguez Torices:
Although Rodríguez was his surname, it was a common enough name that he was referred to by his matronymic, Torices. This is also true for the del Toros, who were also surnamed Rodríguez.

hotbed of pirates and opportunists:
Isidro Beluche Mora, “Privateers of Cartagena,”
Louisiana Historical Quarterly
, 39 (January 1956), 74–5, 79.

wealth and abounding whiteness:
According to Restrepo (in Liévano Aguirre, 93), New Granada had 887,000 whites; Venezuela had 200,000. New Granada had 140,000 free blacks and pardos; Venezuela had 431,000. New Granada had 313,000 indigenous and mestizos; Venezuela had 207,000. New Granada was thus overwhelmingly white in comparison with neighboring Venezuela. As Liévano says, in New Granada: “the classes had more in common . . . more sympathy than hatred.”

He and his fellow Venezuelan revolutionaries:
O’L, XXVII, 86.

assumed that their military experience:
Masur,
Simón Bolívar
, 156.

General Labatut knew these men too well:
Ibid., 98.

on the deck of the USS
Matilda
:
“Généalogie et Histoire de la Caraïbe,” 87 (Nov. 1996), 1786,
http://www.ghcaraibe.org/bul/ghc087/p1786.html
.

eluding enemy cannons:
Yanes, 55.

presumptuous letters to President Antonio Nariño:
O’L, XXVII, 96–97.

On December 1, 1812:
Mancini, 187.

published General Monteverde’s official proclamations:
R. Domínguez,
Don Vicente Texera
(Caracas: Lit. Vargas, 1926), 83, LOC. Also Parra-Pérez,
Historia
, 469.

“I am . . . a son of unhappy Caracas,” etc.:
SB, “Memoria dirigida a los ciudadanos de la Nueva Granada” (Cartagena Manifesto), Dec. 15, 1812, SBO, I, 43–50.

Andrés Bello later compared him:
Bello, “Alocución a la Poesía,” SB,
Obras Completas
, III (Santiago: Ramírez, 1883), 38.

met with landowners from the Valle:
M. A. Suárez, “Movimiento independentista,” in
Becas culturales
(Bogotá: Observatorio del Caribe Colombiano, 2006), 77.

She wrote a letter on his behalf:
Lenoit to Loperena, Salamina, Nov. 3, 1812, ibid., 78. Also P Castro,
Culturas aborigenes cesarences e independencia
(Bogotá: Casa de la Cultura, 1979), 203–6.

the scant seventy men under his command:
O’L, XXVII, 99.

came from the dregs of society, etc.:
Mancini, 442.

They took off on ten
champanes,
etc:
All details about the Magdalena River campaign are taken from O’L, XXVII, 99–101; and Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 6–9.

He summoned the townspeople:
SB’s speech to the people of Tenerife, Dec. 24, 1812, SB,
Escritos
, IV, 127–30.

“Wherever the Spanish empire rules”:
Ibid.

by hand and ax:
D’Espagnat,
Souvenirs de la Nouvelle Grenade
, in Mancini, 440.

the widow Loperena and other wealthy:
Suárez,
Movimiento independentista
, 78–79. Also Castro, 212–15.

“every defensive action,” etc.:
SB, “Memoria dirigida,” SBO, I, 43–50.

five hundred punishing kilometers:
O’L, XXVII, 102.

the entire length of the river:
SB, Oficio al Congreso, Jan. 8, 1813, O’L, XIII, 133.

The operation had taken him fifteen days:
Ibid.

Bolívar’s name was known and admired:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 9.

“I was born in Caracas”:
Revista de la Sociedad Bolívariana de Caracas
, 38, nos. 129–32, (1981), 21.

sacking, plundering, and sending its governor:
Marcucci,
Bolívar
, 85.

accused Bolívar of insubordination:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 9.