The Emancipation of South America/Chapter 37
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE REVOLUTIONS OF NEW GRANADA AND QUITO.
1809-1813
The events in Spain in the year 1808 produced great excitement in New Granada, which was increased in the following year by receipt of advices of the revolution in Quito, mentioned in the last chapter. On the 9th September, 1809, Amar, the Viceroy, summoned an assembly of the Corporations and of leading citizens of the capital, and sought counsel from them. Men of American birth, who were members of this assembly, not only spoke in favour of the Junta of Quito, but asked for the establishment of a similar government at Santa Fé de Bogotá. Spaniards advised the immediate dissolution of the revolutionary government. Amar followed the counsel of the latter, and sent a column of 300 men to dissolve the Junta; at the same time the Viceroy of Peru sent 800 men on the same errand.
The Junta of Quito had already raised three battalions of infantry, and sent two companies with three guns against the detachment from New Granada, but these troops, while on the march, were completely routed by the inhabitants of the Province of Pasto on the 16th October. The revolutionists, dismayed at this disaster, on receiving promise of an amnesty, replaced Castillo, the late captain-general, in command.
When the two expeditions reached Quito the amnesty was set aside. The leaders of the revolution were arrested, some were sentenced to death, others to penal servitude. The indignant populace attacked and captured one of the barracks, but were promptly driven out again by the soldiery and dispersed. The soldiers then proceeded to the public gaol, where the prisoners were confined, and killed twenty-five of them; after which they spread about the streets, and killed eighty citizens, among the victims being three women and three children. The butchery was only stopped by the intercession of the Bishop.
Castillo, horrified at these excesses, hastily convened an assembly of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities and of leading citizens. With their concurrence he proclaimed a general pardon, and sent the Peruvian troops, who had taken the lead in the massacres, back to Lima.
Word of these atrocities reached New Granada at the same time that news arrived of the revolution in Venezuela, and produced an immediate effervescence throughout the country.
In New Granada, according to one of their own writers, "all the races of the world had come together to mingle their blood, their traditions, their strength, and their character, and united in the work of civilization."
Two-thirds of the population were white, residing mostly in the towns and cities, hence the revolution took here a civic form, and was greatly hampered by local jealousies and by divergencies of opinion among the leaders.
The first revolutionary movement occurred at Cartagena, where the people, headed by their Cabildo, demanded a Junta. With the intervention of an agent of the Regency of Cadiz, then in the city, a Junta of three was appointed, of whom the actual governor was one; but as he openly showed his dissatisfaction with this arrangement, he was banished to Havana on the nth June, 1810.
To the east of the most easterly range of the Cordillera lie the wide plains of Casanare; here two youths raised the standard of insurrection. They were joined by some small groups of the country people, which were dispersed by troops sent against them by the Viceroy. The leaders were put to death, and their heads were sent to the capital.
On the 4th July a Junta was set up by the Cabildo of Pamplona.
At Socorro two companies of the line and some militia were quartered. In a moment of false alarm they fired upon an assemblage of the people. Eight thousand citizens arose in arms and besieged them in their barracks. A Junta was formed of eight deputies elected by the people, and the government was placed in their hands.
At Bogota everything was ripe for a revolution. Several attempts had been made without result, but the news from Venezuela and from the provinces, and above all the expectation of the speedy arrival of commissioners from the Regency of Cadiz, decided the Patriots to make another attempt, which was precipitated by an incident. On the 20th July a Spaniard spoke contemptuously of Americans; the people rushed tumultuously to the great square, demanding an open Cabildo and a Junta. They were supported by the municipal authorities. The Viceroy declined to accede to their wish. The bells of the churches w r ere rung, and six or seven thousand armed men assembled in front of the public offices. The Viceroy had a thousand troops. A conflict seemed imminent, when at last he gave way, and sanctioned the summoning of a special Cabildo.
At six o'clock the same evening the Cabildo met. The debate was stormy, Dr. Camilo Torres taking the lead. The Patriots demanded a Junta, the Spaniards sought to gain time by resisting the proposition. One of the popular orators declared that any man who left his place before a Junta was appointed, was a traitor to his country. The speech was applauded by the people outside. A Junta was named, with the Viceroy, who was very popular, as President, and was installed in office at three in the morning of the 21st July.
The Junta drew up a constitution, on the basis of a federal union of the various provinces. The sovereignty of King Ferdinand was recognised, and also the authority of the Regency of Cadiz, so long as it should exist. This was a compromise on all sides, and the Junta being overawed by the popular leaders, had no real power. Later on the Viceroy was deposed, and the Junta was instructed to govern in the name of the King in complete independence of any other authority in Spain. Two days afterwards Montufar and Villavicencio arrived as commissioners from Spain, but were powerless to do more than accept what was already done. Montufar, who was entrusted with a special mission to Quito, continued his journey to that city, where we shall presently find him at the head of the revolutionists.
Anarchy and reaction were not slow to follow on these hasty steps. Local jealousies, which had been kept in check by the colonial system; divergence of opinion between the leaders of the movement; the antagonistic interests of Americans and Spaniards, and the instincts of the masses who grouped themselves on geographical lines, all combined to bring on complications in which the strength of the country was wasted without any good result.
The Junta sent a circular to the provinces inviting them to send deputies to a Congress. Nearly every province followed the example of the capital by appointing a Junta, but some of them refused to send deputies to a Congress, preferring to consider themselves independent republics.
Cartagena refused to acknowledge in any way the authority of the Junta of the capital, and invited the other provinces to send deputies to a Congress in that city. One province only acceded to this proposition, but it sufficed to prevent the assemblage of the Congress at Bogota, and postponed the formation of a central government, which was the urgent necessity of the moment.
The revolutionary leaders in the capital then tried a new plan. They formed the Province of Santa Fé, of which Bogotá was the chief city, into a monarchical republic, Which they called "The State of Cundinamarca," its ancient name, with a legislature of two chambers, and Dr. Lozano was named President during the captivity of the King.
Lozano, after several fruitless attempts to bring about a general understanding, succeeded at last in assembling a Congress, but the want of a central government had produced such anarchy that the people, inflamed by the writings of Don Antonio Nariño, who advocated a centralized government, deposed Lozano, and on the 19th September, 1811, appointed Nariño Dictator.
Congress continued the debate on the Constitution, and adopted the federal system by a majority, but had no power to establish it, and withdrew from the capital, where it was overawed by the popular leaders, to the small town of Ibague, in the Province of Mariquita.
On the 11th November, 1811, the Province of Cartagena declared itself an independent State, and the Eastern Provinces endeavoured to join the Confederation of Venezuela.
Meantime the Royalists made no attempt to oppose the revolution in the great centres of population, but secured all the country to the south of the Province of Santa Fé, and established their base of operations at Quito, with Guayaquil as their port on the Pacific. To the north they held the Provinces of the Isthmus of Panama, with the fortress of Portobello, and also the city and Province of Santa Marta on the western bank of the Magdalena, and the Province of Rio Hacha, also on the Magdalena, but further inland. The insurgent Province of Cartagena, lying on the coast, was thus isolated from the other provinces which had declared for the revolution.
The Royalists established a second base of operations at Santa Marta, where they raised an army of 1,500 men, besides militia, and were reinforced by a battalion of Spanish troops from Cuba, while three Spanish ships-of-war guarded the coast, and either sunk or captured a Patriot flotilla sent against them from Cartagena in March, 1812.
Dr. Torices, a young man, twenty-four years of age, being named Dictator by the Constituent Convention of Cartagena, fitted out another flotilla, which he placed under the command of a French adventurer named Labatut, and sent it against the Royalists, who had crossed the Magdalena. Labatut drove them from the lower part of the river, and then returned and captured the city of Santa Marta in January, 1813.
At this time Don José Domingo Perez, who had been appointed Viceroy of New Granada by the Regency of Cadiz, reached Portobello, but his authority was not recognised by the insurgent provinces.
On the outbreak of the revolution Colonel Tacon was Governor of Popayán. By his energy he prevented the installation of a Junta in that city, but the Patriots set one up in the small town of Cali. The Governor sent troops against them. Santa Fé sent 300 men, under Colonel Baraya, to their assistance, on which basis they raised an army of 1,100 men, mostly Indians, armed with lances. Tacon led another army, 1,500 strong, against them, but was attacked and defeated by Baraya on the 28th March, 1811. This was the first victory gained by the Patriots of New Granada, and Tacon was forced to retire to the valley of Pasto, where he stood at bay in the passes leading to Quito, while Popayán fell into the hands of the revolutionists.
Meantime a fresh insurrection had taken place at Quito, and Tacon, after raising the Royalist population of the valleys, marched upon that city with 600 men. The new Government sent against him Don Pedro Montufar, the envoy from the Regency of Cadiz, and Tacon, being deserted by the greater part of his men, retreated to the coast, where he received help from Guayaquil, but was aeain defeated and withdrew to Peru.
Montufar easily dispersed the Royalist levies in the valley of Pasto, and returned to Quito, but the Royalists soon reassembled, and, incited by the priests, attacked the city of Popayán, but were beaten off, and were totally dispersed on the night following by a sortie of the garrison, which was headed by a young North American named Macaulay. A portion of them, aided by fresh levies, captured the city of Pasto before Macaulay could reach the place, but he prevailed upon them to give up their prisoners, and then marched away by night to join a column advancing from Quito. Being again attacked by these men of the valleys, he arranged a truce with them, which they made use of to surprise his camp, killing 200 men and making 400 prisoners, he himself being among these latter, with Caicedo, the late commandant of Pasto.
These valleys of Pasto and Patia were the Vendee of the revolution of New Granada, and the reaction was now there triumphant.
Don Pedro Montufar, in the capacity of commissioner from the Regency of Cadiz, had reached Bogotá after the pacific triumph of the revolution in that city. He had acceded to the new state of affairs, and had afterwards gone on to Quito, where he was received with enthusiasm. Under his auspices a Junta was there installed on the 19th September, 1810, under the presidency of Ruiz de Castillo, the late captain-general, but the authority of this Junta was not recognised by the Southern Provinces, where Peruvian influence was supreme. The Junta then raised an army of 2,000 men, which it placed under the command of Montufar, with orders to reduce these provinces to submission.
At the same time Molina, who had been appointed by the Viceroy of Peru captain-general of Quito in place of Ruiz de Castillo, reached Guayaquil, where he raised an army for the defence of these provinces. Neither Molina nor Montufar had much confidence in their troops, and confined their operations to desultory skirmishes, until, on the 11th December, the citizens of Quito deposed Ruiz de Castillo from his post as President of the Junta, summoned a Congress, and declared Quito to be an independent State. Ruiz retired to a convent, from which he was dragged by a mob and brutally murdered.
In the following year Marshal Montes arrived from Peru to take command of the Royalist forces, and on the 2nd September, 1812, defeated the Patriots at Mocha, giving no quarter. Montufar raised a new army, and took up a position on some precipices which covered the road to the capital, but Montes, marching for nine days by a circuitous route over the rugged slopes of Chimborazo, gained his rear and obliged him to retreat.
The Patriots then fortified the city of Quito, and declared they would hold out to the last extremity, but it was taken by assault on the 3rd November. Montufar retired northwards with the remnant of his force, but was pursued by Colonel Samano, who beat him twice and captured all his guns. Samano following out his instructions, shot all superior officers who fell into his hands, and, going on to Pasto where the prisoners of Popayán were confined, he shot one in every five of the officers and one in every ten of the soldiers, the victims being chosen by lot. Caicedo and Macaulay were among them. Thus was crushed the second revolution in Quito.
While the reaction closed in upon New Granada, the interior of the country was a prey to anarchy. Federalism struggled against centralization, Cundinamarca against the provinces, Nariño against Congress, till all was chaos.
Nariño pursued his policy of centralization by sending troops into the districts around the capital and annexing them to what he called "the legal province." Congress protested from its retreat at Ibague. Baraya, with the district of Tunja, pronounced in favour of Congress, and defeated a force sent by Nariño to reduce the Province of Socorro. Nariño was forced to come to terms, and resigned, but was reinstated by the citizens of the capital, who, on the 11th September, again proclaimed him Dictator, with absolute powers.
Congress, with eleven deputies who represented seven provinces, met soon after at Leiva and named Dr. Torres President. Torres, who was an enemy of Nariño's, soon found a pretext for an open rupture with him. Civil war broke out; Baraya, in command of the Federal troops, defeated Nariño and laid siege to Bogotá, but was repulsed and totally defeated in an ill-planned attack upon the city.
At this time Marshal Montalvo, a Cuban by birth, arrived as Viceroy in place of Perez. Patriotism, enervated by civil strife, revived. On the 16th July, 1813, Cundinamarca declared itself an independent State, and the Province of Antioquia followed the example. Nariño came to an arrangement with Congress, and offered troops to reinforce the army which was sent against the Royalists now advancing from the south.
General Sámano had occupied the city of Popayán with 2,000 men, and now menaced the Province of Antioquia. Congress placed the Federal army under the command of Narino, giving him the rank of lieutenant-general. Nariño then abdicated the dictatorship and marched against the enemy. His first operations were successful; he defeated the main body under Sámano, occupied Popayán on the 31st December, and on the 13th January, 1813, again defeated the Royalist army, which fled to Pasto, but he made no attempt to follow up his victories. General Aymerich, who then replaced Sámano in command, was allowed two months in which to reorganize his scattered forces. Then Nariño again advanced with 1,400 men, and made his way through the guerillas, who swarmed in the valley of Patia, to the Juanambu river, where he found that the fords were defended by batteries. He forced a passage by one ford, but was driven back by Aymerich, who afterwards retreated.
This river Juanambu is an impetuous torrent, rushing westward between precipitous cliffs from the slopes of the eastern Cordillera. The few fords are only occasionally passable, and the river is generally crossed by means of baskets or troughs of raw hide slung upon cables stretched from bank to bank, which are called "taravitas." The Patriot army was delayed twenty days in crossing by means of taravitas established by themselves, and then advancing again encountered the enemy strongly posted on the hills of Chacabamba.
The position was carried, with heavy loss, after four hours of desperate fighting. Again the Royalist army retreated, but the country people rose en masse in defence of their homes and drove back the Patriot vanguard, which was led by Nariño in person. Fugitives from this skirmish reported that he was taken prisoner; the main body was seized with panic, spiked their guns, and fled precipitately; only 900 reached Popayán. Nariño, returning with thirteen men to his encampment, found himself without an army. Deserted by his men he wandered alone for some days on the mountains, living on such wild fruits as he could find, then giving himself up he was sent in irons to Spain.
Bolívar, after leaving Caracas, resided for some time at Curaçoa, and then offered his services to the independent Government of Cartagena. He was appointed military commandant of the district of Barrancas, on the Upper Magdalena, and resolved to make a campaign of his own against the Royalists of Santa Marta, who obstructed the navigation of the river. Here the future Liberator first showed his genius for enterprise.
At the head of a small party of militia, he attacked the fortified town of Teneriffe, drove out the garrison, capturing their guns and boats, and then took the town of Mompox. Labatut, who commanded the Patriot flotilla acting against Santa Marta, complained of this to the Dictator as an intrusion upon his sphere of operations; but Torices reinforced Bolívar with some regular troops and fifteen armed boats, with which he ascended the river, and after sundry successful skirmishes entered the city of Ocaña in triumph in January, 1813.
In March, Labatut was driven from Santa Marta, and the coast line was occupied by the Royalists. Torices himself then led an expedition against them by sea, but was defeated with the loss of his artillery on the 13th May, Colonel Chatillon, who commanded the infantry, being killed.
The Royalists, being reinforced from Venezuela, then collected an army of 2,600 men in the Province of Barinas, under command of a naval officer named Tiscar, sent Colonel Correa with 1,000 men against Pamplona, and 700 men by another route to co-operate with him.
Colonel Castillo Rada, an officer of New Granada, who was raising troops in the Province of Pamplona, applied to Bolívar for help. Bolívar then conceived the daring plan of attempting the reconquest of Venezuela, and wrote to Torices and to Dr. Torres, showing them the advisability of carrying the war into the enemy's territory. Without waiting for an answer from either of them, he marched with 400 men by a stony pass across the mountain range in front of Ocaña, drove in the outposts of the enemy, and, spreading the report that he was followed by a large army, crossed the river Zulia in one canoe, and on the 28th February fell upon Correa. After four hours' sharp firing, the fight was decided by a furious charge with the bayonet; the Royalists were totally defeated, with the loss of all their artillery, and Bolívar was soon after joined by Castillo Rada with the troops he had raised in Pamplona.
Bolviar's idea of reconquering Venezuela was looked upon as folly, just as San Martin's idea of reconquering Chile was when he first broached it. Happily, Bolíbar also found a Pueyrredon to believe in him. He had published a memorial which produced a profound sensation in New Granada. In it he disclosed for the first time his peculiar ideas on the organization of a Republican Government, and on the proper mode of conducting the war. Explaining the causes of the fall of the Republic of Venezuela, he said:—
"Our rulers did not consult codes which would teach them the practical science of government, but those drawn up by dreamers who built republics in the air on the basis of the perfectability of human nature. We had philosophers as leaders, philanthropy for legislation, arguments instead of tactics, and sophists for soldiers."
He also denounced the federal form of government as contrary to the interests of young societies in face of a foreign war, and the folly of placing trust in raw levies in place of devoting all their energy to the organization of regular troops, and wound up by insisting that the safety of New Granada lay in the reconquest of Venezuela.
President Torres read this memorial with great attention, and though it clashed with his ideas as a federal, he saw that it was the work of a deep thinker who was also a man of action, and the language used appealed both to his reason and to his heart. The successes achieved by Bolívar in his first daring attempt decided him. He resolved upon the reconquest of Venezuela.