They say that a traveler arrived in Caracas one day at dusk, and without even shaking the dust off his clothing, without asking where to eat or sleep, he asked where the statue of Bolívar was. They say that the traveler, alone among the plaza's tall, fragrant trees, cried as he faced the statue, and that it appeared to move, like a father when his son approaches. The traveler did well, because all Americans should love Bolívar like a father. They should love Bolívar and all who fought like him because America came from American men. Love all of them: the famous hero and the last soldier, who is an unknown hero. Men that fight to see freedom in their homeland even come to have handsome bodies.
Liberty is the right of all men to be honored, and to think and speak without hypocrisy. In America one used to not be able to be honored, nor could one think nor speak. A man that hides what he thinks, or does not dare say what he thinks, is not an honorable man. A man that obeys a bad government, without working to make the government good, is not an honorable man. A man who resigns himself to obey unjust laws, and permits other men to trample and mistreat his homeland, is not an honorable man. The boy, from the time he can think, must think about everything he sees, must suffer for those that cannot live honorably, must work because all men can be honorable, and must be an honorable man. The boy that does not think about what happens around him, and is content with living without knowing if he is living honorably, is like a man that lives off the work of a rascal, and is on the way to becoming a rascal himself. There are men who are worse than beasts, because beasts need to be free to live happily. The elephant does not want to have babies when it is imprisoned, and the llama of Peru throws itself to the ground and dies when the Indian speaks to it rudely or puts too heavy a load on its back. Men must be at least as respectable as the elephant and llama. In America, before liberty, life was like that of the llama with too heavy a load. It was necessary to remove the load, or die.
There are men who live happily despite living without self-respect. There are others that suffer like they are on their deathbeds when they see men around them living without self-respect. In the world there must be a certain amount of self-respect, as there must be a certain amount of light. When there are many men without self-respect, there are always others that have within them the self-respect of many men. Those are the ones who revolt with terrible strength against those who steal the liberty of the people, which is the same as stealing their self-respect. In those men are thousands of men, an entire people – human dignity itself. Those men are sacred. These three men are sacred: Bolívar, of Venezuela; San Martín, of Argentina; and Hidalgo, of Mexico. They must be forgiven their errors, because the good that they did was greater than their faults. Men cannot be more perfect than the sun. The sun burns with the same light with which it warms. The sun has spots. The ungrateful do not talk about anything but the spots. The grateful talk about the light.
Bolívar was a small man. His eyes flashed, and words sailed off his lips. It seemed as if he was always looking forward to when he could mount his horse. It was his country, his oppressed country, that weighed on his heart and did not let him live in peace. All of America was waking up. A single man is never worth more than an entire people, but there are men that do not tire, when the people tire, and who decide to fight before the people do, because they do not have to consult anyone but themselves, and the people cannot consult with each person so quickly. Those were the merits of Bolívar, that he did not tire of fighting for the liberty of Venezuela, when it seemed that Venezuela was tired. The Spanish had defeated him: they threw him out of the country. He went to an island, to see and think about his land from nearby.
A generous black man helped him when nobody else wanted to. He returned one day to fight, with three hundred heroes, with three hundred liberators. He liberated Venezuela. He liberated New Granada. He liberated Ecuador. He liberated Peru. He founded a new nation, the nation of Bolivia. He won amazing battles with barefoot, half-naked soldiers. Everything around him shuddered and filled with light. Generals fought at his side with supernatural courage. It was an army of young men. Never did anyone fight so much, or so well, in all the world, for liberty. Bolívar did not defend the right of men to govern themselves with as much fire as the right of America to be free. The envious exaggerated his defects. Bolívar died of a heavy heart, more than an ill body, in the house of a Spaniard in Santa Marta. He died poor, and left a family of peoples.
Mexico had valuable women and men that were not many, but were worth much: a half-dozen men and a woman prepared the way of setting their country free. They were a few valiant young people, the husband of a liberal woman, and a sixty-year-old priest of the people who loved the Indians. Ever since he was a child, the priest Hidalgo belonged to the good race: the race of those who want to know. Those that do not want to know are the bad race. Hidalgo spoke French, which at that time was something of merit, since few people spoke it. He read the books of 18th-century philosophers, who explained that the right of mankind is to be honored, and to think and speak without hypocrisy. He saw the black slaves, and this filled him with horror. He saw Indians being mistreated, gentle and generous Indians, and seated himself among them like an older brother, to teach them the fine arts that Indians learn well: music, which consoles; the breeding of silkworms, for silk; and the breeding of bees, for honey. He had a fire in him, and he liked to build: he created ovens to bake bricks. His green eyes shined brightly from time to time. Everyone said that the priest of the people of Dolores spoke well, knew many new things, and gave many alms. They said that he went to the city of Querétaro every now and then, to talk with some brave men and with the husband of a good lady. A traitor told the Spanish commander that the friends of Querétaro were trying to liberate Mexico. The priest mounted his horse, with all his people, who he loved with his whole heart, and they went rounding up the foremen and servants of the ranches to make up the cavalry. The Indians went on foot, with sticks and arrows, or slings and spears. They formed a regiment and took a convoy of gunpowder that was headed for the Spaniards. They triumphantly entered Celaya, with music and cheers. They next day the city council joined them, made him the general, and a people was born. He produced spears and hand grenades. He gave speeches that warmed and threw sparks, as a ranch foreman might say. He declared that blacks were free. He returned the Indians' land to them. He published a periodical called The Awaking American. He won and lost battles. One day seven thousand Indians with arrows joined him, and the next day they left him. Bad people wanted to go with him to rob the peoples and have revenge on the Spanish. He told the Spanish leaders that if he defeated them in the battle he waged against them, he would receive them into his house as friends. That is greatness! He dared to be magnanimous, without fear that the soldiers who wanted him to be cruel would abandon him. His companion Allende was jealous of him, and he transferred command to him. When the Spanish fell upon them, they went together seeking refuge. The Spaniards removed Hidalgo's priestly garments one by one, so as to offend him. They took him behind a wall, and killed him by shooting him in the head. He fell, covered in blood, but only finished dying while lying on the ground. They cut off his head and hung it in a cage, in the same corn exchange of Granaditas, where he had his government. They buried the beheaded bodies. But Mexico is free.
San Martín was the liberator of the South, the father of the Argentinian Republic, and the father of Chile. His parents were Spanish, and they sent him to Spain to become a soldier of the king. When Napoleon entered Spain with his army, to take liberty away from the Spanish, the Spanish all fought against Napoleon: old men, women, children fought, including one little brave Catalan boy, who made an entire company flee one night, firing shots from a crevice in the mountain. They found the boy dead, dead of hunger and cold, but he had a face full of light, and was smiling, as if he was pleased. San Martín fought well in the battle of Bailén, and was made lieutenant colonel. He spoke little – he appeared to be made of steel – and looked like an eagle. Nobody disobeyed him as his horse came and went across the battlefield like lightning in the air. When he heard that America was fighting for its freedom, he came to America: what did it matter to him if he lost his career, if he went to fulfill his obligation? He arrived in Buenos Aires, but did not give speeches – he raised a squadron of cavalry. His first battle was in San Lorenzo: saber in hand, San Martín chased the Spaniards who had come proudly, playing drums. They fled without their drums, without their cannons, and without their flag. Among the other peoples of America the Spanish had been winning. Bolívar had been thrown out of Venezuela by the cruel Pablo Morillo, Hidalgo was dead, and O'Higgins fled Chile – but where San Martín was continued being America the free. There are such men, who cannot bear to see slavery. San Martín could not, and he went to liberate Chile and Peru. In eighteen days he crossed the high and cold Andes with his army: men climbing as if to heaven, hungry and thirsty: below them, far below, the trees looked like grass and torrents roared like lions. San Martín finds the Spanish army and destroys it in the battle of Maipú, and defeats it forever in the battle of Chacabuco. He liberates Chile. He embarks with his troops, and goes to liberate Peru. But Bolívar was in Peru, and San Martín ceded the glory to him. He went to Europe sad, and died in the arms of his daughter Mercedes. He wrote his will on a sheet of paper, as if it was part of a battle. They had given him the banner that the conquistador Pizarro had brought four centuries earlier, and he gave the banner to Peru in his will. A sculptor is admirable, because he pulls a figure out of raw stone, but those men who make peoples are more than men. They sometimes wanted what they should not want, but will the son not pardon his father? One's heart fills with tenderness upon thinking about those gigantic founders. Those are the heroes, those who fight to make people free, or those who suffer in poverty and disgrace for defending a great truth. Those who fight for ambition, to make people their slaves, to increase their power, to remove a people from its lands – they are not heroes, but criminals.