volume 2, chapter 9.

COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819. The struggle for independence and its achievement. Miranda and Simon Bolivar. The Earthquake in Venezuela. The founding of the Republic of Colombia.

"The Colombian States occupy the first place in the history of South American independence. ... The Colombian States were first in the struggle because they were in many ways nearest to Europe. It was through them that intercourse between the Pacific coast and Europe was mainly carried on: Porto Bello and Carthagena were thus the main inlets of European ideas. Besides, there was here constant communication with the West Indies; and government, population and wealth were less centralised than in the more important viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru. The Indians of New Granada had always been a restless race, and the increase of taxation which was resorted to for the defence of the coast in the war with Great Britain (1777-1783) produced discontents among the whole population, both red and white. ... The French Revolution, coming soon afterwards, was another link in the chain of causes. ... In Venezuela, which the industry of its inhabitants had raised from a poor mission district to a thriving commercial province, the progress of modern ideas was yet faster. ... The conquest of Trinidad by England in 1797 gave a new turn to the movement. ... It was from Trinidad that the first attempts were made to excite the Spanish colonists to revolution. Francis Miranda, by whom this was done, was a type of many other men to whom is due the credit of leading the South American peoples to independence. He was a native of Caraccas, and when a young man had held a French commission in the American War of Independence. On his return to Venezuela in 1783 he found the populace, as we have already mentioned, in an excited state, and finding that he was suspected of designs for liberating his own country, he went to Europe, and again attached himself to the French service. ... Being proscribed by the Directory, he turned to England, and ... when the war [between England and Spain] broke out afresh in 1804, and England sent out an expedition to invade Buenos Ayres, Miranda believed that his opportunity was come. In 1806, by English and American aid, he sailed from Trinidad and landed with 500 men on the coast of Venezuela. But the 'Colombian Army,' as Miranda named it, met with a cool reception among the people. His utter inability to meet the Spanish forces compelled him to retreat to Trinidad, nor did he reappear on the continent until after the revolution of 1810. The principal inhabitants of Caraccas had been meditating the formation of a provisional government, on the model of the juntas of Spain, ever since the abdication of the king [see SPAIN: A. D. 1807-1808]; but it was not until 1810, when the final victory of Napoleon in Spain appeared certain, that they made a decisive movement in favour of independence. Spain, for the time at least, was now blotted out of the list of nations. Acting, therefore, in the name of Ferdinand VII., they deposed the Spanish colonial officers, and elected a supreme junta or council. Similar juntas were soon established in New Granada, at Santa Fe, Quito, Carthagena, and the other chief towns of the Viceroyalty ... and the fortune of the patriot party in new Granada, from their close neighbourhood, was closely linked with that of the Venezuelans. The Regency of Cadiz, grasping for itself all the rights and powers of the Spanish nation, determined to reduce the colonists to subjection. They therefore declared the port of Caraccas in a state of blockade, as the British government had done in the previous generation with that of Boston; and, as in the case of Boston, this resolution of the Regency amounted to a declaration of war. ... A congress of all the provinces of Venezuela now met at Caraccas, and published a declaration of independence on the 5th of July, 1811, and those of Mexico and New Granada soon followed. ... The powers of nature seemed to conspire with the tyranny of Europe to destroy the young South American Republic. On the 26th of March, 1812, Venezuela was visited by a fearful earthquake, which destroyed the capital [Caraccas] and several other towns, together with 20,000 people, and many others perished of hunger and in other ways. This day was Holy Thursday; and the superstitious people, prompted by their priests, believed this awful visitation to be a judgment from God for their revolt. The Spanish troops, under Monteverde, now began a fresh attack on the disquieted Venezuelans. Miranda, who on his return had been placed at the head of the army, had in the meantime overrun New Granada, and laid the foundation of the future United States of Colombia. But the face of affairs was changed by the news of the earthquake. Smitten with despair, his soldiers now deserted to the royalists; he lost ground everywhere; the fortress of Puerto Cavello, commanded by the great Bolivar, then a colonel in the service of the Republic, was surrendered through treachery. {485} On the 25th of June Miranda himself capitulated, with all his forces; and Venezuela fell once more into the hands of the royalists. Miranda himself was arrested, in defiance of the terms of the surrender, and perished in an European dungeon, as Toussaint had perished a few years before. ... Monteverde emptied the prisons of their occupants, and filled them with the families of the principal citizens of the republic; and Caraccas became the scene of a Reign of Terror. After Miranda's capitulation, Bolivar had gone to New Granada, which still maintained its independence, and entered into the service of that republic. Bolivar now reappeared in a new character, and earned for himself a reputation in the history of the new world which up to a certain point ranks with that of Washington. Simon Bolivar, like Miranda, was a native of Caraccas. ... Like Miranda, he had to some extent learned modern ideas by visiting the old world and the United States. When the cruelties of Monteverde had made Venezuela ripe for a new revolt, Bolivar reappeared on his native soil at the head of a small body of troops from the adjacent republic. The successes which he gained so incensed the royalists that they refused quarter to their prisoners, and war to the death ('guerra a muerte') was proclaimed. All obstacles disappeared before Bolivar's generalship, and on the 4th of August, 1813, he publicly entered Caraccas, the fortress of Puerto Cavello being now the only one in the possession of the royalists. Bolivar was hailed with the title of the liberator of Venezuela. He was willing to see the republic restored; but the inhabitants very properly feared to trust at this time to anything but a military government, and vested the supreme power in him as dictator (1814). The event indeed proved the necessity of a military government. The defeated royalists raised fresh troops, many thousands of whom were negro slaves, and overran the whole country; Bolivar was beaten at La Puerta, and forced to take refuge a second time in New Granada; and the capital fell again into the hands of the royalists. ... The War of Independence had been undertaken against the Regency; and had Ferdinand, on his restoration to the throne in 1814, shown any signs of conciliation, he might yet have recovered his American provinces. But the government persisted in its course of absolute repression. ... New Granada, where Bolivar was general in chief of the forces, was the only part where the insurrection survived; and in 1815 a fleet containing 10,000 men under General Morillo arrived off Carthagena, its principal port. ... Carthagena was only provisioned for a short time: and Bolivar, overpowered by numbers, quitted the soil of the continent and went to the West Indies to seek help to relieve Carthagena, and maintain the contest for liberty." Obtaining assistance in Hayti, he fitted out an expedition "which sailed in April from the port of Aux Cayes. Bolivar landed near Cumana, in the eastern extremity of Venezuela, and from this point he gradually advanced westwards, gaining strength by slow degrees. In the meantime, after a siege of 116 days, Carthagena surrendered; 5,000 of its inhabitants had perished of hunger. Both provinces were now in Morillo's hands. Fancying himself completely master of the country, he proceeded to wreak a terrible vengeance on the Granadines. But at the news of Bolivar's reappearance, though yet at a distance, the face of affairs changed. ... His successes in the year 1817 were sure, though slow: in 1818, after he had been joined by European volunteers, they were brilliant. Bolivar beat the royalists in one pitched battle after another [Sagamoso, July 1, 1819, and Pantano de Bargas, July 25]: and at length a decisive victory was won by his lieutenant, Santander, at Boyaca, in New Granada, August 1, 1819. This battle, in which some hundreds of British and French auxiliaries fought on the side of liberty, completely freed the two countries from the yoke of Spain."

_E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 16._

ALSO IN: _C. S. Cochrane, Journal of a Residence in Colombia,