 Section 25 of the South American Republics, vol. 2 by Thomas Clelland Dawson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Piotr Natter, Part 5, Venezuela, Chapter 3, Modern Venezuela. In 1822 Bolivar departed, bent on the conquest of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, leaving a new Granadan vice president as ruler of the great Colombian Republic, of which Venezuela was merely one division. The massacres and suckings of ten bloody years had depopulated and impoverished Venezuela, and the cost of maintaining the army and aiding Bolivar in his foreign contests drained its exhausted resources. The educated creals, especially powerful in the agricultural regions near the coast, saw no place for themselves in Bolivar's centralizing system. They wanted to control the offices in their own localities, and did not relish the establishment of a bureaucracy in which appointments and promotions would be settled at Bohotá. The predominant radical French ideas added force to the sentiment of local independence. The theorists were offended by Bolivar's manifest predilection toward aristocratic forms and the favors which he granted the clergy. Most dangerous of all, jealousy of the liberator was rife among the generals. Paev had indeed been left at the head of military affairs in Venezuela, and soon after the capture of Puerto Cabello he became involved in quarrels with the municipal authorities. The Llanero general wrecked little of the arguments of the lawyers, and carried things with a high hand. In 1826, when the Bohotá government sent an order for the organization of militia, he filled the measure to overflowing, and the municipality of Caracas made a formal complaint to the central government. A decree for his suspension was issued, but a riot in the streets terrorized the Cabildo, and he was replaced in power as a sort of dictator. This amounted to a destruction of the influence of the central Colombian government in Venezuelan affairs. Many cities raised the standard of rebellion and made themselves virtually independent. Bolivar hastened back from Peru to reduce his old companion in arms to obedience. He cajoled Paev into temporary cooperation, subdued most of the revolted cities, and seeing that his system could not be sustained without coercion, assumed a dictatorship. But the news that Peru had revolted, destroyed his dream of a continent-wide dominion, and the demand for local autonomy continued so strong throughout Venezuela and New Granada that he was forced to call a national assembly to amend the constitution on the basis of a compromise. In spite of Bolivar's intrigues, nearly half the elected delegates stayed away, and a majority of those who presented themselves at Ocana in March 1828, though chosen under the pressure of his influence, opposed his measures. The minority who favored him withdrew at his suggestion, leaving the Congress without a quorum. It dissolved, and the liberator visited Caracas, Cartagena and Bohota, calling people assemblies whose deliberations were directed by bayonets, and which obediently besought him to save the country from anarchy in his own way. He issued a decree, virtually abolishing the Cucuta constitution, but a conspiracy to assassinate him was formed at Bohota in the fall of 1828, and he was saved only by the devotion of his mistress, who stood in the way of the midnight assassins, giving him time to jump from a window and escape. He took a fearful vengeance on the conspirators and punished his worst political enemies, but the incident failed to turn public sentiment in his favor, and it was in vain that he exhibited himself as a martyr. His old friend, General Cordoba, had it an unsuccessful insurrection in the province of Antioquia. Insurgents rose in Papayan and Rio Negro, and towards the end of 1829, in Bolivar's native city, Caracas, an assembly of 1,000 generals, public functionaries and prominent citizens announced that Venezuela would shortly separate from Colombia, and called upon Paes to assume a dictatorship. The liberator struggled vainly against the rising tide of federalism. The country was at heart opposed to caesarism and union. He had been unable to convince the creals of the advisability of providing a strong centralized government, and his only supporters were personal ones. Bitterly protesting that he was falsely charged with aspiring to mount a throne, and insisting that his real ambition had been only to secure the perpetuity of the Colombian Union and establish an ordered government, he offered his resignation. Congress, however, contained many of his friends, and hesitated at coming to an open breach. He was re-elected and made one last effort to enforce the obedience of Venezuela. But the troops he raised in New Granada did not dare to attack Paeth, who, with superior force, was waiting in an impregnable position near the frontier. Sick and discouraged, the liberator renewed his resignation, this time in earnest, and retired to the sea coast, where a few months later he died of a wasting sickness at the early age of 47. Though his courage, energy, and sublime persistence and self-confidence had been the chief factors in securing South American independence, those qualities proved utterly inadequate to hold in check the unruly ambitions of the creals. He died clearly foreseeing the decades of anarchy which lay before the northern countries of the continent. Quote, I blush to admit it, he said to Congress on the eve of his fall, but independence is the only benefit we have achieved, and that has been at the cost of all others. On his deathbed, he wrote, quote, our constitutions are books, our laws, papers, our elections, combats, and life itself as a torment. We shall arrive at such a state that no foreign nation will come to send to conquer us, and we shall be governed by petty tyrants. The Venezuelan Federalists had not waited for Bolivar's death to complete the formal separation from Colombia. In May 1830, a constituent Congress assembled, which named Payeth dictator and notified Bohota that the country regarded itself as absolutely independent. But Bolivar had partisans and the ruling clique enemies. The eastern provinces refused to recognize Payeth's authority, and the whole country was soon under arms. But Bolivar's death and the virtual recognition of Venezuela's independence by New Granada brought about a treaty between Payeth and Monagas, the chief of the insurrection. The Creole aristocracy came to a working understanding with the generals, and little cliques in each city supported the central government as long as they were recognized as dominant in their own localities. Naturally, the ignored outsiders were dissatisfied and plotted to overthrow these oligarchies. In May 1831 a revolution broke out in Caracas, which managed nothing less than the extermination of the property-holding classes. But it was suppressed and its leaders executed. On paper the form of government was most liberal, Congress abolishing the tobacco monopoly and many odious taxes inherited from Spanish times, proclaiming religious freedom, and adopting a constitution very similar to that of the United States. But in practice the conservative cliques had things their own way. Though ambitious chiefs had insurrections from time to time, they were all bought off or defeated, and Payeth continued president until 1835, leaving the country in a condition of comparative order and prosperity. Dr. Vargas, a civilian, succeeded him, but against him the generals revolted, declaring Marinho dictator. Carujo, the soul of the insurrection, said in the act of making the president and his ministers prisoners, Dr. Vargas, the world belongs to the strongest, and the latter nobly replied, No, the world belongs to the just, resuming in a word the conflict between force and law, between unbridled ambition and the necessity for order, which has desolated Venezuela to this day, and which will last until the selfish elements learn that their own true interests would best be served by promoting the prosperity of the whole people, by relying upon their own industry rather than on the chance to despoil the producing classes. The government party appealed to Payeth, and the Llanero general accepted the command. His prestige with the common people and the army enabled him to gather forces with which he overcame the revolted generals after eight months of bloody civil war. Vargas was recalled from exile, but after a short time refused to continue in the presidency, and his place was taken by the vice president, Dr. Narvarte. In 1839 Payeth was again made president and was succeeded in 1842 by General Soublette, another of the heroes of the wars of independence. Until 1846 there was comparative tranquility in Venezuela. The population had decreased by a fifth during the Spanish wars, being estimated at 650,000 in 1825, but within the succeeding twenty years it grew to a million and a quarter. Cacao, coffee, and sugar became important articles of export and made the landed proprietor switch. With the cessation of warlike operations on the plains, cattle rapidly multiplied, the first wagon roads were built, and a bank was established. In 1846 an anti-creol insurrection broke out among the men of color, and Payeth was again invested with dictatorial powers. When he had completed his work he installed Monagas as president. Popular irritation against the ruling conservative coterie was however profound, and Monagas quarreled with the congress and sent his soldiers to break up its meetings. Payeth took up arms again and tried to expel his nominee, but was defeated, and for the next nine years Monagas and his brother alternated in the presidency. Though raised to power by the conservative party, they abandoned it, and before 1850 had thrown themselves into the arms of the liberals or federalists. Extravagant powers were granted to the states. The provincial cotteries rendered localities to suit themselves. The ties binding the different parts of the country together were weakened. An elaborate and confused set of taxes, national, provincial, and municipal, well nigh choked commerce out of existence. More and more liberty was conceded to the states and municipalities, and on paper to the individual also slavery was abolished in 1854. Revolutions broke out from time to time, and finally in 1858 the so-called conservatives overthrew the Monagas regime, but they immediately divided into warring groups and their new constitution proved too centralizing to suit the Creole politicians. The liberals hoisted the banner of federalism, and several provinces rose in revolt. Under the leadership of Pedro Gual, the conservatives were, however, victorious, but they again split to pieces, and Gual himself went over to the liberals. A revolution in Caracas brought back old general Páez, who assumed a dictatorship, and tried to re-establish the power of the central government. But it was impossible. Many disappointed conservatives had turned federalist. No politician seemed willing to submit to any administration unless he was a member of it. The struggle had degenerated into a mere selfish contest for power, and the terms liberal and conservative, federalist and unitarian had ceased to have any real relation to the opinions of the persons who bore those appellations. General Falcon, with Guzmán Blanco as lieutenant, led a successful insurrection in Coro and made himself undisputed master of a considerable portion of the country. The province of Maracaíbo formally declared itself separated from all connection with Caracas. For three years civil war raged, when finally Páez gave up, and Falcon assumed direction of the exhausted country. On only one thing had the rapid succession of dictators, provincial and national, been agreed. The increase of taxes. Import duties had been raised to such a point that commerce could stand no more. But in spite of the enormous sums wronged from merchants, producer and consumer, the treasury was empty, for the local chiefs openly took possession of the receipts of the custom houses in their respective districts, and diversions of public funds to private use were the rule among all ranks of officials. Falcon's success meant the definite triumph of unrestrained federalism. The twenty states into which the seven old provinces had been divided, in the effort to provide enough offices to go around, became in law sovereign. The presidential term was reduced to two years, absolute liberty of the press was permitted, and the right of meeting for any purpose guaranteed. Imprisonment for debts, the death penalty, and religious instruction in the schools were all abolished. During the five years that Falcon was the chief political figure, affairs in Venezuela grew worse and worse. State after state burst into revolution. Falcon sometimes whipped the insurrectionists and sometimes bought them off, but more often was unable to secure even a semblance of obedience, except by conceding everything. National penury reached the limit. The states collected and pocketed the dues in most of the custom houses. Officials were in regular partnership with smugglers, and finally the feeble ghost of a federal administration simply flickered out of existence, because it could pay nobody. A chief of the so-called Unitarian Party was declared president in 1868, but Guzman Blanco, now the undisputed head of the Federalists, retook Caracas in 1870 and installed himself as dictator. He proved the strongest and most tenacious man who had yet come to the front. With a terrific insurrection raging against him, he concentrated all powers in his own hands, suppressed the speculations of his agents, and relentlessly dragged the half-breeds and negros into his armies. He finally put down all his enemies, and in 1873 was installed as constitutional president. Until 1889 he virtually reigned over Venezuela, though occasionally he might allow someone else to be elected president, after a short interval he would find a pretext for intervention and oust his nominee. Though the constitution was left substantially unamended, he interpreted it as he pleased. He organized a regular machine through which he governed the quote-unquote sovereign states, taking care that none but his creatures should become governors and that the members returned to Congress should be docile. To all intents and purposes, his will was the law of the land, for the legislative and judicial departments were his instruments, and his executive decrees covered nearly in every imaginable subject. The minutest details of commercial and social life were regulated, the clergy owed their positions to the dictator, and even private property was not safe if Blanco took a fancy to it. But in the main his tyranny was intelligent. The country escaped the desolating outbreaks of local chiefs, with forced loans wrung from property owners and merchants, the seizure of cattle and coffee for war purposes, and the lassoing of peons to serve in the armed bands. Though the taxes imposed by Blanco were enormously heavy, the marvels' productive forces of the soil could stand almost any burden provided its amounts were certain and its collection regular. Though the dictator withdrew millions for his private use, depositing them in Paris against the evil day of his expulsion, indiscriminate executions by subordinates were suppressed. Large sums were spent on public works and buildings, and the beautification of the city of Caracas, one of the handsomest and best-built cities in America, dates back from Guzmán Blanco's time. Nearly 500 miles of railroad were constructed, the country was given and has retained the inestimable blessing of a stable currency, and the coffee and cacao businesses increased enormously. The number of cattle which the civil wars prior to 1870 had reduced to 1,400,000 increased sevenfold in 15 years. But Blanco's system was anomalous and rested on no secure foundation. The commercial and property-holding classes abstained from politics, and people became tired of his busy-body tyranny. The peons were still an inert and ignorant mass, harmless by themselves, but furnishing attempting recruiting ground for ambitious revolutionists. Nor had the Creole politicians changed their nature. There were plenty of talented adventurers, whose mouths fairly watered, seeing the immense fortune Blanco was accumulating, and who only waited a favorable opportunity to conquer a share in the spoils. The successful outbreak came in 1889, headed by Rojas Paul. His success was a signal for other chiefs to imitate his example. Resolute leaders hastily organized bands of peons, and the old story of pronunciamentos, kidnappings of peaceful peasants, attacks, surprises, forced loans, and all the demoralizing and disintegrating horrors of civil war were repeated. Paul was overthrown by Andoetha, and in 1892 Crespo got to the head of affairs, and held power long enough to accumulate a respectable fortune. Andrade succeeded Crespo, but had to divide the spoils with his predecessor. The disturbances did not become of a character to endure seriously Venezuela's commerce and production until 1896, but there then began a rapid decline in the value of her exports. The government's revenues diminished a third, and amounted to less than half the expenditures. The debt grew to alarming figures, and the guaranteed interest on foreign capital employed in building railroads was allowed to fall into arrears. In 1899 Castro, a man hitherto unknown in politics, started an insurrection against Andrade in the western state of Los Andes. Marching from one town to another, his army grew like a rolling snowball by forced enlistments, and though the sturdy hillmen did not know what they were fighting for, and would gladly have been at home, they showed all this solid bravery that seems inborn in their race. The government troops could not stand against them, and Castro finally entered Caracas in triumph. Though insurrection after insurrection has broken out against him, the downless courage with which he leads his men has enabled him to maintain himself. The successful South American revolutionist must be willing to risk losing his own life, for so long as he leads he will be followed, but his cowardice or death means a rapid dissolution of his forces. Though the solidity acquired by the Venezuelan commercial and financial structure during the long years of Blanco's reign has prevented the country from reverting into the anarchy which prevailed before 1873, and though the spirit of federalism is not so rampant and the chieftains aspire rather to a control of the whole country than to power confined to their own localities, the recent civil wars have disorganized the finances. Internal production has been hampered and external obligations have been deferred, the latter with serious consequences. Anti-foreign sentiment, already raised to a threatening hide by the boundary dispute with British Guyana, a long-standing matter which was happily settled by arbitration after menacing a serious rapture between the United States and Great Britain, was further exacerbated by the blockade of Venezuelan ports and destruction of the Venezuelan navy by the joint fleets of Germany, England and Italy in 1902, measures to which the European governments had been incited by the failure of Venezuela to settle claims of their citizens. In the face of their foreign war the civil conflicts were interrupted and President Castro empowered the American minister to negotiate for the submission of the claims to arbitration. To the weight of the sentiment that international money claims should not be enforced by war-like measures was added the existence of a current of opinion in the United States which favored arbitration, as in this instance certainly the best method of adjustment. The temporary occupation of ports on American soil by European powers might give the latter a military hold in the western continent which would embarrass and complicate more important relations. The submission was quickly and amicably arranged, the claims of the citizens of other countries are to be ascertained at the same time, and the matter is now before the Hague International Tribunal. By a resolution of Congress, General Castro is empowered to hold the office of president for six years from 1902. Bitter and costly as have been the experiences through which Venezuela has passed during the last 12 years, the vast majority of the intelligent and property holding classes realize more clearly than outsiders possibly can, that internal stability will alone ensure the commercial development of the country, that Venezuela united is far more likely to prosper than if separated into always jealous and often warring provinces. The mass of the people are industrious and peaceable, real progress has been made, since the time of Bolivar, in the almost impossible task of adjusting the republican forms and procedure to a people who by inheritance and tradition knew nothing of the difficult art of self-government. It cannot fairly be said that Venezuela as yet sees her way clear to a solution of the problem, but her commercial statistics for the last 30 years prove that her people have acquired industrial capacity, and the history of other Spanish-American countries shows that the powerful evil of the turbulent military class may perish once for all with startling suddenness when the right stage in the national development is reached. End of section 25. Section 26 of the South American Republics, volume 2 by Thomas Clelland Dawson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Piotr Natter. Part 6. Columbia. Chapter 1. Conquest and settlement. When Alonso de Ojeda coasted along the Venezuelan shore in the spring of 1499, he stopped short just west of the Gulf of Maracaibo, near the present boundary between Venezuela and Columbia. The following year, Rodrigo Batista doubled the Guaira Peninsula and pursued his voyage to the west, catching sight of the giant snow-clad mountains of Santa Marta and of the lowland which lies between them and the sea. Coming to the mouth of a great river, on the day sacred to Saint Magdalene, he named it the Magdalena, and further to the southwest found the fine harbor where the city of Cartagena now stands. At the head of the Gulf of Darien, he came to another great river, the Atrato, and here his explorations stopped. More than a year later, the great Columbus himself, on his fourth and last voyage, sighted the Central American coast at Cape Gracia Sadiós, near the present boundary between Nicaragua and Honduras. Hence he sailed southeast along a pestilential shore, for 800 miles, finally arriving near the point where Batista had left off his explorations. It is said that part of the Columbus founded a settlement on the Atlantic shore of the Isthmus, but it was soon destroyed by the neighboring Indians. The long stretch of coast was unfit for the abode of Europeans, but the Indians had galled in abundance, and the Spaniards were satisfied that the interior was full of mines. Hundreds of fortunate adventurers had accumulated fortunes in the placers of Haiti, and with a view of repeating their successes on the mainland, Alonso de Ojeda solicited and obtained from the Spanish crown the grant of the territory from Guaira to the Atrato, while Diego de Niquesa was given the coast from the Atrato to Cape Gracia Sadiós. In 1510 one of Ojeda's lieutenants founded a city called Sebastian, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Darien. The Indians soon destroyed it, but Antigua was established across the Gulf. This place was in fact on the Isthmus of Panama, and not much more than 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean, of which the Spaniards then knew nothing. Among the military adventurers who had followed Ojeda to Darien were Nunes de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro. In 1511 the former went a short distance into the interior looking for gold, and fell in with an Indian chief, who told him that only a few leagues south lay a great sea, whose shores were inhabited by numerous rich and civilized nations. Two years later he headed an expedition from Antigua, which resulted in the epoch-making discovery which has immortalized his name. As the band of Spaniards approached the line of hills from which the natives told them they could see the mysterious ocean, Balboa hastened ahead of his men and was the first to catch a glimpse. But in the headlong rush for the honor of first touching its waters he was beaten by Alonso Martin and that lean and tireless soldier who was afterwards to conquer Peru, Francisco Pizarro. The Pacific side of the Isthmus proved to be more healthful and habitable than the marshy shores of the Atlantic, and the settlers at Antigua were soon driven by fevers and disinteries, torrential rains and sweltering heat to the more healthful region of Panama. Niquesa likewise had been able to do nothing with his long stretch of Isthmian and Central American coast. Nombre de Dios, not far from the present side of Cologne, was the only town which he succeeded in establishing, and that maintained itself only as landing place on the way to Panama. To this day the Caribbean coast from the Atrato Delta, as far as Gracia Sadios, is practically uninhabited by white men. On the side of Antigua there is left not a trace. The Indians in its neighborhood are still independent savages, and the north shore of the Isthmus has been a hospital and a grave for successive generations of white men during 400 years. Only its position at the Strategical Gate to the Great South Sea has induced men to go to its noisome shores. The Isthmian settlements were, as they remain, separated from the continent of South America by the deep and broad valley of the Atrato, where the rainfall is the greatest known, and whose dense tropical forests are uninhabitable and practically impossible. No land communication exists between Panama and Columbia proper. However, the coast east of the Atrato Delta is drier, and at Santa Marta, beyond the mouth of the Magdalena, and at the foot of the great outlying mountain mass of Columbia's northeastern peninsula, was founded in 1525 the first permanent settlement in Columbia proper. It was nothing more than a kidnapping station, whence expeditions scoured the interior for slaves to be sold to the Haitian gold mines. Meanwhile, from Coro, established two years later, on the eastern side of Maracaibo Gulf, murdering and slaughtering expeditions were sent across the Gulf, returning to Venezuela after making a circuit among the mountains lying south of Maracaibo Bay. Later, these expeditions from Coro penetrated over these mountains, reaching the Llanos of the Apure, and finally the plains of Casanare, lying east of Bogota, which now belong to Columbia. The exploring parties from Santa Marta and Coro, and information picked up along the coast, gave the Spaniards a pretty fair idea of the geography of the interior, and the existence of immense quantities of gold, and of civilized nations living on the high plateaus, was verified from many sources. The conquest of the fertile and salubrious interior of Columbia was effected from three distinct centers, Cartagena and Santa Marta on the Caribbean coast, and Quito on the Ecuador table land. Serious colonization began with Eredia's foundation of Cartagena in 1533. The new leader said vigorously to work to establish himself firmly on the magnificent harbor and seek for gold. Cortezes and Pizarro's marvelous successes had brought a multitude of adventurers to the New World, all of whom were eager for a share in the spoils of the yet independent Indian kingdoms. Eredia found the rocky hills which rose not far south of Cartagena full of profitable gold washings, and the Indians reported that only a short distance in the interior where the mountains rose higher there was a region called Zenufana, which produced the precious metal far more abundantly. Their story was true, and Zenufana was none other than the present state of Antioquia, which has produced hundreds of millions of dollars of gold. No time was lost in starting on the search. Eredia's first expedition penetrated to the headwaters of the river Sinu, which flows into the Caribbean not far south-west of Cartagena, and though successful in finding gold, he was unable to force his way over the high Sierra of Abiue, the most northern bulwark of the great maritime Cordillera, which barred his way into Antioquia and the valley of the Cauca. In 1535 the town of Tolu was founded between the mouth of the Sinu and Cartagena, and the expeditions skirted the northern end of the Andes until they reached the river Cauca, where it debouched into the Magdalena. In 1537 Spanish expeditions succeeded in crossing the formidable Abiue Mountains and penetrated east into the coveted mining country. After the Cauca they followed for 200 miles, passing the rapids which place an almost inexpagnable barrier between the upper and lower river. Not far from the present city of Cartago they found traces of white men and learned that while they themselves had been pushing south, the indomitable companions of Pitharro had extended their explorations and conquests more than a thousand miles north from their landing place on the Peruvian coast. The men from Cartagena went on to Cali, where the conquerors of Papayan had their headquarters, and there an expedition was fitted out which, under the leadership of Jorge Robledo, returned down the Cauca and conquered Antioquia after much bloody fighting with the Indians. It is said that each of Heredia's men received a larger amount than the conquerors of Mexico and Peru. Certain it is that the founding of Cartagena resulted in putting the Spaniards in possession of the Valley of the Cauca and the wonderful gold mines of Antioquia as far south as the fifth degree. Benalcazar, one of Pitharro's lieutenants, after conquering Quito in 1533 had proceeded north along the Andean Plateau between the two Cordilleras. A hundred miles from Quito he entered the high region of Pasto, inhabited by vigorous, semi-civilized Indians much resembling those of Ecuador. Near this point the Andes, here to form us in one great chain, split into three parallel ranges. The western and central chains are separated from each other by the Valley of the Cauca and near the Caribbean, dipped down to sea level. The eastern range bears off a little to the right, with the Magdalena Valley between it and the central mountains, and 600 miles north turns northeast and enters Venezuela just south of Maracaibo Bay. Benalcazar went straight north from Pasto and entered the region where the Cauca gathers its headwaters. This was Papayan, a lower country than Pasto, but still high enough to be healthful, pleasant and densely populated. In rapid succession the tribes inhabiting the whole Upper Cauca Valley were conquered, and Benalcazar's officers only stopped when they met their countrymen coming up from Cartagena. The city of Cali was founded in 1536, Papayan in 1538, Pasto and Ancerma in 1539 and Cartago in 1540. This beautiful valley is one of the most isolated regions on the globe. To the east and west the high walls of the Quindio, or central, and of the western Cordillera shattered off from the Magdalena Valley and from the Pacific, and the rapids near Cartago make communication with the Caribbean almost impossible. Benalcazar himself had returned to Quito, and it was not until 1538 that he was able to undertake the conquest of the Upper Magdalena and those lovely plateaus and rich kingdoms which nestled on the broad top of the eastern Cordillera. In the meantime he had been forestalled by an expedition coming from the Caribbean. In 1536 he maneth Tequesada, solid forth from Santa Marta with 800 men and 100 horses. Avoiding the swampy delta of the Magdalena he passed through the Cimilas Mountains, which lie east of it, and reached the solid ground of the foothills that approached the river banks some 300 miles above its mouth. Along these he made his way through incredible difficulties and hardships, months being consumed in the journey, and his men perishing by scores from fatigue, starvation, and continual fights with the savage natives. When he reached the river upon he determined to climb to the plateau near the site of Veles where he was told that the mountain top was inhabited by a civilized race. After fighting his way through the unconquerable savages of the Opon Valley he found himself in the center of a series of lovely table lands. Many of them the beds of ancient mountain lakes whose alluvial bottoms were inexhaustibly fertile, where the climate was perfect and all the products of the temperate zone grew luxuriously. The plateaus, interrupted by valleys and ridges, stretched from Pamblona to beyond Borotá, a distance of more than 200 miles. This region was then, and remains to this day, the populous heart of Colombia, the principal seat of power, wealth and national civilization. However, it is so isolated that it has never constituted a nucleus around which the widely separated provinces of Colombia could unite into a well organized nation. To reach Tolima, Bogota's nearest neighbor in the Upper Magdalena Valley it is necessary to descend thousands of feet of steep mountainside along which the sure-footed mule can hardly climb. To reach Cauca not only must the Magdalena valley be crossed but the enormously high kinder range must be climbed and before getting to the Pacific still another mountain chain intervenes while the populous galt regions of Antioquia can only be reached by following down the Magdalena and up the Cauca. Weeks of the most difficult journeying are required to get to the sea coast or any of the other states and Panama might as well be on the other side of the globe so far as practical communication goes. Quezada had lost three-fourths of his men in reaching the promised land but once there he encountered fewer difficulties than any of the other great Spanish conquerors. The numerous nations of the Chipchas inhabited the Southern Plateaus who acknowledged allegiance to the Sipa of Mequeta but their so-called empire possessed no military force or cohesion although they had carried agriculture to a high degree of perfection. They manufactured cotton cloths, mind gold and emeralds, worked artistic ornaments, had a circulating medium and a calendar, lived in houses, built splendid temples and had tools hard enough to carve stones into elaborate sculptures. Their government was absolute. Crimes were severely and relentlessly punished. The case of priests wielded great power. All together they appeared to have reached a stage of material civilization not much inferior to the Aztecs of Mexico, the Caras of Ecuador or the Incas of Peru but in efficiency of governmental and military organization they fell far below those great peoples. Spanish chroniclers have amused themselves with recording traditions of great wars in which the Chipchas had assembled armies of hundreds of thousands not long before the conquest but the fact remains that less than 200 Spaniards overcame them and reduced them to unquestioning obedience within a few months and without serious loss. Indeed, Quezada's successors had more difficulty with the smaller nations who inhabited the northern plateaus of Tunja, Socorro and Tundama and the most serious resistance was made by the semi-savage tribes of the Upper Magdalena who fought nearly as desperately as the Indians of Antioquia and the Caribbean coast. Quezada chose the side of the ancient Chipcha capital for his city and there Bogota was founded on the 7th of August 1538. It lies on the eastern border of a magnificent level plain the bed of the largest of the prehistoric lakes 30 miles broad and 60 long and nearly 9,000 feet above sea level. 150,000 people live on that plain today and the population in Chipcha times was probably even larger. The same year Benalcazar reached the neighborhood of Bogota having calmed down the valley of the Magdalena from Quito and Pasto and at the very same moment arrived an expedition from Coro in Venezuela which had crossed the mountains south of Maracaibo and followed south along the Llanos lying at the eastern base of the Colombian Andes then climbing the Sierra de Bogota. Remarkable as it may seem these three bands of indomitable spaniards starting from widely separated points on the coast met each other in the remote interior of the continent brought to the same place by the fame of the fertility and riches of the Chipcha kingdom. The Venezuelans under Federman and the Ecuadorians under Benalcazar accepted the bribe which Casada offered them not to interfere with his conquest and the three chiefs laden with gold returned to Spain in the same ship. Casada left his brother in nominal command of the colony but each of the conquerors was a law unto himself. When the governor of Santa Marta came up to Bogota they refused to recognize his authority. Tunja and Veles were founded in 1539 on the plateaus north of the capital and a year or two later Casada's brother wasted a great part of his forces in a fruitless expedition to the mountains of Pasto in search of the Eldorado. Meanwhile in 1538 the Portuguese Geronimo Mello had succeeded in entering the mouth of the Magdalena making his way for a considerable distance upstream. The great river proved to be perfectly navigable from the sea to a point nearly as far south as Bogota and the Spaniards immediately utilized it as a route to Santa Marta and Cartagena far preferable to the track through swamps and foothills which Casada had followed. Each of the plateau provinces lying on the mountains which follow its eastern bank had its own paths down the slopes of the river and the practicable, though tedious and expensive communication with the Caribbean was developed. In 1542 Lugo, an adventurer who had successfully intrigued against Casada arrived with a commission as Adelantaro and considerable reinforcements. New cities were founded among the gold mines of the Upper Magdalena at Tokaima, Ibague and Naiva as well as at Pamplona at the northern end of the plateaus. The tribes of Bogota, Tunja, Veles, Socorro and Pamplona submitted without appreciable resistance and their fertile fields were divided into great estates among the Spaniards. But the more savage tribes in the gold-bearing valleys of the Upper Magdalena and Cauca and in Antioquia struggled hard to escape impression into the mines and war almost exterminated them. The same thing happened on the plains of the Caribbean coast, although in that region some tribes maintained their independence. To work the mines and plantations, Negro slaves had to be imported with the result that black blood predominates in the lower regions of Colombia while the descendants of the Aborigines are in the majority on the eastern plateaus. Within 25 years after the establishment of the first permanent post at Santa Marta the whites were in undisputed control of practically all Colombia which is now inhabited by civilized people. Three great territorial divisions corresponded to the three directions in which the conquest had been effected. From Cartagena, Antioquia and the lower Cauca had been settled. From Quito, Popayan, Pasto and the Upper Cauca and Bogota was the center of the region extending from Pamplona south along the plateaus and into the valley of the Upper Magdalena. This division of the country soon brought on disputes as to preeminence and jurisdiction between the authorities foreshadowing the demand for local independence which desolated Colombia with civil war during so many years of the last century. Lugo, the new Adalantaro who had displaced Quezada deprived many of the original conquerors of their grants of land and Indians and the old and newcomers fell to fighting among themselves. But their numbers were too small to make their disagreements really threatening to the interests of the Spanish crown. In 1545 the Spanish government sent out a commissioner to reduce the country to order. The first royal commissioner was replaced by a second in 1553 who carried things with a high hand depriving proprietors of their grants nominating members of his own family to the lucrative posts and finally even exiling Quezada himself and executing some of the most famous of the original conquerors. Under instructions from Madrid he promulgated many laws for the protection of the Indians from the executions and tyrannies of the encomenderos. Regulations which, as in Peru, excited great dissatisfaction among the colonists were easily evaded. It was forbidden for any encomendero to be military governor of his district and the original conquerors were replaced in all positions of authority by officials newly brought out from Spain. However, the office of commissioner was an irregular and extraordinary one and his powers ill-defined. Even at Bogota his authority was defied by the Audiencia and the municipal councils over the remote provinces of Antioquia and Papayan, Cartagena and Panama. His power was a mere shadow. The Spanish government resolved to erect Quito and Bogota into presidencies whose governors would be responsible directly to Madrid and have greater authority over subordinate officials. End of section 26. Section 27 of the South American Republics Volume 2 by Thomas Glelland Dawson. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Piotr Natter. Part 6. Colombia. Chapter 2. Colonial Times. In 1564 the president arrived in state with all the trappings appropriate to his high rank. His powers were most ample. He was practically vice-region of the Castilian King. His jurisdiction extended not only over the Bogota Pamplona Plateaus and Tolima on the Upper Magdalena but also over Santa Marta, Cartagena and Yoquia and even to Panama and the Mosquito Coast. The name of New Granada which Casada had given to his conquests in honor of his native province in Spain was extended to the whole presidency. To it were also attached though loosely the provinces that now make up the Republic of Venezuela. The access to the Venezuelan coast from Bogota was so difficult as to prevent that region from ever being really a part of the New Granada presidency and it became an independent captaincy general in 1731. The eastern boundary of the president's immediate jurisdiction included the provinces which naturally communicated with the Colombian Plateaus. But the extension of the Andes northeast from Pamplona along the Venezuelan coast was left to be settled from Coro. For similar reasons the expansion of the Upper Cauca, Cali and Papayan as well as Pasto was attached to the presidency of Quito and the subordination of its governor to Bogota was only incidental and gave rise to many disputes and conflicts. The administrative entity of New Granada may be said to have included the territory which the Spaniards had reached by the line of the Magdalena and in addition the Cartagena region and the Isthmus. The ancient province was a source of constant trouble because the difficulties of communication and the diversities of interests really made it separate from the rest of New Granada. Panama's governor and independent Audiencia frequently defied the commands received from Bogota. The disorders near Bogota ceased after the arrival of the first president, Neiva. He actively engaged in promoting new colonization in the Maracaibo watershed northwest of Pamplona as well as Leiva and several other towns. He opened a road down from Bogota to Onda at the head of navigation on the Magdalena and in his time great floodboats were introduced. These were polled against the river's rapid current and they continued the sole means of river freight transportation for nearly three centuries. The cornerstone of the Bogota Cathedral was laid and schools established which soon counted among the most successful and famous in Spanish America. The country prospered after a fashion. The fertile plateaus from Bogota to the north were admirably adapted to the residents of Europeans and the rich soil soon produced large crops of wheat and fed great herds of cattle. This region was so attractive that the Spaniards became attached to the country and contentedly established themselves as semi-feudal proprietors of the states cultivated by the docile and industrious Indians. A considerable proportion of the successive generations of office holders sent out from Spain applied for land grants and remained in the country founding new Creole families. Mixture with the aborigines occurred on a large scale and the process of caucasianizing the population made greater progress in many other parts of Spanish America. The region was too far from the seacoast to attract haphazard adventurers or to serve as a botany bay for convicts. The Spanish settlers belonged as a rule to good families and the standard of living, education and manners was exceptionally high. Bogota became one of the principal centers of Spanish American culture and Colombian authors are celebrated for their excellence throughout the Spanish-speaking world. In the invigorating climate the Creoles retained their physical vigor and the concentration of population on these densely inhabited plateaus increased their mental alertness. Living, however, as a superior class in the midst of a subject population they acquired no taste or capacity for commerce or industry. A Creole was by birth a gentleman and exempt from manual labor. The Colombian plateaus made little material progress and settled down into an eventless patriarchal existence. Conditions were entirely different in the deep, hot valleys of the Magdalena and Cauca and on the sweltering seacoast plain. The semi-savage Indians did not make good laborers and were massacred or driven into the fastnesses on the mountain sides while their places were taken by slave slaves. The white population fell into much the same position as it occupies in the West Indian islands. In the mining regions the Indians were pretty nearly exterminated. Antioquia, the great mineral province has always contained a larger proportion of white blood than any other part of Colombia and with the decline of its mines it became a center when white emigration poured into the other departments. Still different conditions prevailed in the extreme south where the highlands of Papayan and the dry, cold table lands of Pasto offered the same aspect as adjoining Ecuador. In those utterly isolated and comparatively unattractive regions the Indian population remained predominant. In Colombia, as in all the other Andean countries, the impulse toward conquest, expansion and colonization seems to have died out completely with the disappearance of the first generation of conquistadors. We read of the foundation of new cities from time to time but it usually means that previously existing villages were given municipal charters. After one brief spurt the Spaniards settled down to enjoy the fruits of their ancestors' heroic marches and battles. Except near Panama the rainy Pacific coast was left and the forests of the Amazon in the southeast could not be penetrated. The open paleris of the Orinoco northeast of Bohota could be occupied and the province of Casanare at the foot of the eastern Andean range became a stock region inhabited by the same hard-riding semi-civilized Llaneros as the adjoining Venezuelan plains. The Spanish government applied its restrictive colonial system with the utmost rigor. The obnoxious market tax was imposed as early as 1690. Tobacco and salt were made monopolies. The exportation of agricultural products was discouraged and the production of gold, emeralds, platinum and silver was jealously watched and heavily taxed. In the early history of the colony the profits of mining were prodigious but during the 17th century after the cream of the surface placers had been skimmed progress was slow. The unhealthful climate of the mining regions almost exterminated the settlers. The native population diminished so rapidly that soon the miners were shorthanded and the importation of Negro slaves was so costly that the smaller proprietors could not operate on their own account and even the great mine owners had to be content with moderate profits. One-fifth of the gross product was repaid to the government and there were other fiscal executions. The efforts of the authorities to prevent the smuggling of gold introduced a swarm of soldiers, collectors and guards with whom the miners were in a constant turmoil. The influence of the church was very powerful and the population became devotedly Catholic. Great tracts of the best lands were given to the bishoprics and the religious orders. Many disposed persons left property in trust, charged with the payment of so many dollars a year for the saying of so many masses and the stewardship or rights to administer these estates were the subject of sale or descended from father to son. In 1630 a daring president, Hieron, presumed to arrest and banish the Archbishop of Borotá but fifty years later one of his successors wrote back in that, quote, in New Granada there is much church and little king, end quote. The poor Indians were decimated not only by war, massacre and forced labor in the mines but the white man's diseases played havoc with them. The smallpox was introduced on the plateaus within a few years after the conquest and continued to ravage the country throughout the early part of the 17th century. The third president died of the leprosy within a few months after his arrival in 1579 and the first case of Elephantiasis, which has proved a curse to Columbia, occurred in 1646. The quarrels and disagreements between the president and the governors and audiencias of the associated provinces, especially Panama, to say nothing of the disputes with the presidents of Quito and the governor of Venezuela on account of conflicting contradictions, became so acute early in the 17th century that the Spanish government determined to erect New Granada into a viceroyalty, extending the power of the Bohota Central authorities over Ecuador and Venezuela. The first viceroy was inaugurated in 1719, but he recommended a return to the old system. In the year 1740 the viceroyalty was re-established and all connection with Peru ceased. Although in the meantime Caracas had been made a captaincy general, it was placed nominally under the viceroy's jurisdiction and Ecuador was again detached from Lima. Within a few years, the attempt to govern Maracaibo, Cumaná, Margarita Island and Guyana from Bogota was abandoned and these provinces transferred to the Venezuelan captaincy general. But the high rank and royal powers of viceroy's did not save them from troubles. They were engaged in an almost continual struggle against the encroachments of the clergy, while the laity protested vigorously at the constantly increasing taxation. A special royal commissioner came out in 1774 to perfect the Tabaco Monopoly and five years later another agent arrived with instructions still more irritating. The creoles of Santander arose in the quote-unquote rebellion of the communes and so formidable was the insurrection that the authorities were compelled to make a faint of yielding to the people's demands. They promised to expel the obnoxious commissioner to abolish not only the Tabaco Monopoly but the market tax on the sale of domestic products the requirement that every shipment be accompanied by a high-priced official invoice and the poll tax. To lower the stamp duties, these tithes and the Indian tribute to seize burdening commerce with unreasonable highway, bridge and ferrid use and to require the priests to give up the practice of forcing the Indians to pay for masses. The viceroy also promised to open public employments to creoles to permit the establishment of a militia and to concede to the people the right to confirm the governors nominated by the crown or viceroy. But no sooner had the insurgents dispersed than the government repudiated all these pledges and dragged the popular leaders to the scaffold. The foreign commerce of the viceroyalty had diminished until only one small fleet came each year to Cartagena and Porto Beio and though during the latter part of the colonial period certain viceroys did something to open up roads by which wheat sugar, cacao and hides could be exported at a profit No measures could prove effective while the enormous fiscal executions of the Spanish government continued During the last few years of the 18th century commerce was made nominally free but this meant simply that the old prohibitions on private shipments by sea were abolished and the ports opened for trade with Spain and the other colonies These wise measures were however accompanied by such an increase in taxes that their effect was neugatory Meanwhile new Granada had also had her external troubles In 1586 Sir Francis Drake reached Cartagena and 40 years after the Spanish government fortified the place at great expense Nevertheless Ducas took it in 1695 though Admiral Vernon with a great fleet and army unsuccessfully besieged the place in 1741 after having captured Porto Beio The unsettled Central American coast north from the Isthmus was nominally a part of the vice-royalty but had been completely neglected by the Bohota authorities and in 1698 a colony of 12,000 Scotchmen with authority from parliament and packed by a vast popular subscription landed on the north shore of the Isthmus They purposed the establishment of a general imporium for all nations on the spot which the great financier William Patterson who originated the scheme regarded as the key of the commerce of the world There was to be free trade the Indians were to be protected religious liberty was to be established and the Spanish monopoly of south and central America destroyed The far-sighted Patterson hoped to found a colonial empire and to enrich his own country by the resulting trade but the enterprise was wrecked by the fatal climate and the supineness of the British government Provisions fell short and within a year the survivors re-embarked in a miserable plight Two small supplementary expeditions arrived in 1699 to find assembled a Spanish fleet and army against which no serious resistance could be made After a little half-hearted fighting the Scotchmen capitulated and the colony was definitely abandoned The Bogota government continued to neglect that coast It was placed under the jurisdiction of the Captain General of Cuba and the claim that Columbia set up after she became an independent nation has never held good against the Central American Republics End of section 27 Section 27 of the South American Republics Volume 2 by Thomas Clelland Dawson This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Piotr Natter Part 6 Columbia, Chapter 3 The War Against Spain The staring events of the year 1808 in Spain and the disorganization of the monarchy produced great excitement in the new granada cities When the news of the establishment of a junta at Quito came in September of the following year Amar, the Bogotas viceroy summoned an assembly of the authorities and leading citizens for consultation The Creoles favored an independent junta but the prestige of the Spaniards and Amar's popularity prevailed and it was resolved to recognize the home revolutionary government and to send an expedition to crush the Quito junta Meanwhile the Ecuador patriots had dispatched troops to Pasto but the sturdy conservative mountaineers resented the invasion and repulsed the Quitenios Thenceforth to the end of the war Pasto remained a loyalist stronghold Though Quito soon laid down its arms under promise of amnesty the re-established Spanish government massacred the insurgent leaders and reports of these cruelties threw the Creoles of the cities into a fervescence though the Indian and Negro population of the rural districts remained indifferent On May 22 1810 the citizens of Cartagena demanded and obtained an independent revolutionary junta shortly after an insurrection broke out among the Llaneros on the Orinoco Plains northeast of the Bogota On the 4th of July Pamplona followed Cartagena's example and set up its own junta and a little later Socorro did likewise By this time things were ripe in Bogota for an anti-Spanish revolution ambitious Creoles intrigued among the people The natural feeling of a jealousy and hatred between Spaniards and Americans became inflamed A contemptuous remark about Creoles made by a Spaniard in the streets was the signal for the gathering of a great mob which rushed tumultuously to the public square and howled for an open cabildo and the immediate appointment of a junta With 6000 armed men in front of his palace the viceroy had no choice The junta was named and a circular sent to the other cities inviting them to name deputies for a congress to arrange a federal union But local jealousies hardly held in check by the rigid colonial system now flamed forth The people instinctively grouped along geographical lines and divergencies of opinion and ambition among leaders increased the confusion Cartagena and other provinces declined to send delegates to Bohota preferring to act independently until the re-establishment of regular government in Spain When the congress met it represented only a part of the territory and but a small percentage of the population Narinio and other popular young leaders in Bohota intrigued for a centralized system in which Bohota was to be the master province An insurrection against the junta installed him as dictator and congress fled from the capital The royalists had made no effort to oppose the revolution in the centers of population contending themselves with sending expeditions from Quito to occupy Pasto and Papayan with keeping possession of the Isthmus and establishing themselves on the lower Magdalena Cartagena was thereby isolated from the rest of the revolted provinces and Bohota cut off from communication with the sea In March 1811 the patriots marched up the cauca from Cali and defeated the Spaniards in Papayan Quito rose in rebellion a second time and the Ecuadorians advanced north into Pasto only to be beaten once more by the loyalist peasantry The Granadans, who invaded by way of Papayan met with no better success and their forces under the command of the American adventurer Makkoli were annihilated The re-establishment of the royal authority at Quito followed and Bohota again lay open to attack from the south While the royalist reaction was thus closing in around the revolution in central New Granada the mass of the people cooled The patriot leaders fought among themselves and the interior was a prey to anarchy Dictator Narinio had broken completely with the ambulatory congress and was sending his troops into the adjacent provinces Congress protested and a civil war broke out in central Granada Narinio was defeated in an attack on Socorro but the Federalists were in their turn repulsed when they lay siege to the capital and Bohota declared itself an independent state In the midst of these disorders the alarming news was received that General Samano from Quito and Pasto at the head of 2,000 well-equipped men had retaken Papayan and was already menacing Antiochia and the Lower Cauca In the face of this common danger Narinio and Congress came to terms The latter advanced to Midsamano and badly defeated him at the Battle of Calivio January 15, 1814 The re-occupation of Papayan was the only result of this victory Pasto remained faithfully loyalist even they into which many Republican armies were destined to dash in vain The Spaniards brought up reinforcements and when Narinio again advanced his army was overwhelmed and himself captured However, the loyalists were not able to equip an army large enough to justify undertaking the conquest of central Granada so the jarring factions and provinces were left alone for the present to waste their energies in internecine conflicts Cartagena had all the while remained independent and in 1813 Bolivar, flying from his native Venezuela after the suppression of its first insurrection took service with the Granada city With a handful of militia he drove the Spaniards from the Lower Magdalena and retook the important city of Ocana near the Venezuelan border His unexpected success created such enthusiasm that the Cartagena dictator gave him a small body of regulars and with them the daring Venezuelan began that marvelous campaign which for the second time expelled the Spaniards from Venezuela His triumph was short lived and by September 1814 his forces had been dispersed by the loyalist Llaneros and he was back in New Granada He now offered his services to the federated provinces and in spite of his recent defeats the prestige of the 1813 campaign secured him the command of the army which was about to march on Bogota to force that recalcitrant province into the Union At the head of 1800 men Bolivar prosecuted the campaign with all his usual activity The outlying towns of the province surrendered at his approach and the capital itself which had been denuded of troops by Narinio for his ill-fated expedition against Pasto which in fact was tired of the dictatorship could not make much resistance The seat of the federal government was transferred to Bogota and the victorious general though Venezuelan became captain general of its forces and to his title of liberator was added that of illustrious pacificator If the adhesion of Cartagena could be secured the Union of New Granada would be well nigh complete so with 2000 men Bolivar proceeded to the lower Magdalena and established his headquarters just above the delta and within striking distance of the seaport However, his intrigues with its government led to nothing Cartagena refused to cooperate with the confederation on any terms and finally Bolivar made a foolish attempt to besiege the strongest fortress in America without artillery He soon came to his senses raised the siege gave up his command of the Granada army and withdrew to Jamaica to wait a new opportunity to make war on spaniards The revolutionary cause was in a bad way The loyalists of Venezuela Ecuador and southern New Granada had put down the insurgents in their own provinces Bogota was only held back by the military pressure of a few resolute republicans from declaring for the king and the other provinces were disgusted with civil disorder and wavered in their allegiance However, they were destined not to be given the opportunity to return peaceably to obedience on reasonable terms Wellington's peninsular campaigns and Napoleon's fall changed the face of affairs in Spain Ferdinand once more on the throne of his fathers and absolute government re-established all thought of compromising with the American rebels on the basis of autonomy or representation in the Cortes was abandoned In April 1815 Marshal Murillo, Spain's ablest general, arrived on the Venezuelan coast with more than 10,000 veteran regulars Having reinforced himself among the Venezuelan loyalists and leaving a large garrison of spaniards in Venezuela he proceeded to Cartagena at the head of over 8,000 troops The defenders numbered less than 4,000 but behind the strongest fortifications in America, they prepared to make a desperate resistance so formidable were the walls that Murillo did not try to take the place by assault His main body landed at Santa Marta and crossed the Magdalena to blockade the city from the rear while his fleet cut off communication by sea The besiegers suffered terribly in the pestilential swamps but the defenders were reduced to the most horrible extremities The provisions ran out Fevers decimated the people The starving garrison ate rats and hides Sentinels fell dead at their posts The commander drove out of the city 2,000 old men, women and children and of this procession of specters only a few reached the Spanish lines Finally the surviving soldiers escaped by boats in the midst of a storm which dispersed the Spanish squadron and Murillo entered a deserted city where the very air was poisoned by the rotting bodies of famished people It is calculated that 6,000 persons died of hunger and disease The Spaniards hunted down and shot the revolutionary leaders The absolute powers of the governor were revived and even the Inquisition re-established While Cartagena was being besieged a Spanish army advanced along the Venezuelan Andes to the Granadan border and climbed to the Pamplona Plateau There they defeated the local patriots and the latter fled from the province after killing all the Spanish non-combatants on whom they could lay hands Desperately alarmed the Congress at Bohota made Camilo Torres dictator and he resolutely advanced with 2,500 recruits against Pamplona The Spanish general retreated to Ocana with the patriots following the three reinforcements turned upon Torres and on the 22nd of February 1816 utterly defeated him The revolution lay helpless at Morio's feet The royalist forces promptly occupied the great plateau provinces of Pamplona and Socorro as well as Antioquia Bohota had in fact long been disaffected to the insurgent cause and now became openly royalist Torres resigned whom the revolutionary chiefs appointed in his place called for volunteers only six men presented themselves Congress dissolved and the dictator and a few determined leaders with a remnant of the army fled north to Popayán There they joined a band of local patriots under Mejia and gave unsuccessful battle to General Samano who had advanced from Quito This fight of Tambo seemed the revolutionary Cudegrás in New Granada, Ecuador and Venezuela Only on the plains of eastern Venezuela and in the Llanos on the Apure and Casanare headwaters did a few guerilla bands maintained themselves In far away Argentina the town of Buenos Aires and the Gauchos were still defiant but elsewhere in all Spanish South America resistance to the king's generals had ceased Marshal Morio fully appreciated how dangerous to Spanish formation in New Granada and Venezuela were the fierce hard-riding Llaneros uncatchable and unconquerable in the vast Orinoco plains Fighting on the royal side under guerilla chiefs they had beaten the Republicans and Bolivar but they turned insurrectionists the moment Spanish regular officers assumed command Morio resolved to crush the towns completely and hoped gradually to wear out or exterminate the Llaneros In pursuance of this policy all officers above the rank of captain were denied amnesty and shot wherever found The same fate was reserved for those who had held high civil office during the insurrection The Marshal came to Bogota in person to see that his bloody orders were carried out The city's prisons were filled with unfortunates whose wives and daughters pleaded in vain for mercy The most prominent patriots were shot in the back as traitors and their bodies hung on gibets The great scholar Caldas the pride of Bogota for his worldwide reputation as a scientist suffered and not much better fate In the capital alone 125 of New Granada's brightest and best perished on the scaffold their property was confiscated and their families reduced to abject poverty Because they had not actively resisted the rebellion the entire male population were adjudged to have forfeited all civil rights and the gangs of Granada youth were impressed into the army or were still forced to work on the public roads Even the ladies of Bogota were sent to country towns to remain under police surveillance with women of doubtful character While thus engaged in stamping out the revolutionary embers in New Granada word came to Murillo who had risen against his lieutenants and that Bolivar had landed near Valencia leaving a garrison of Venezuela and past royalists at Bogota under the command of Samano the marshal with 4000 Spanish troops took the plateau road to the frontier carrying with him some prisoners to shoot on the line Samano's first act on assuming the government of Bogota was to erect a gallows in the great square facing the windows of his palace and to set up four execution benches on the public promenade Of the victims who set their own with their backs to the firing squad one of the first was the beautiful Policarpa Salavarieta with seven men also implicated in sending information to the Llanero insurgents She died exhorting her companions to meet their fate like men and under the name of La Pola her memory is preserved in the songs of the Colombian people 60 years after her death the Colombian congress voted a pension to her surviving relatives Murillo never returned to New Granada Before he arrived in Venezuela Bolivar had temporarily retired and the Llaneros retreated to the vast solitudes in which they were unconquerable Though the Spanish regulars won battle after battle their victories were fruitless and Bolivar soon returned to Venezuela to be again placed at the head of the Patriots and to wage unremitting warfare with cavalry from a secure base in the Llanos while he imported British mercenary infantry capable of making headway against the Spanish regulars From 1816 to 1819 New Granada suffered hopelessly and silently the bloody despotism of the Spanish generals while the tide of war rolled to and throw in Venezuela In the early part of the latter year Samano sent a small expedition down the steep Cordillera slope against the guerillas in the Casanare plains northeast of Bogota This gave Bolivar a great strategical idea He knew that the table land of New Granada had been denuded of troops but it was useless to try and attack from the direction of the provinces south of Maracaiba Bay because this well traveled routes and its popular towns were the possession of the enemy Where Spaniards could go he could follow, so he reasoned and determined to assault Bogota directly from the Orinoco plains thus striking the center of the Spanish line With a mixed army of British mercenaries and hardy Venezuelans the liberator mounted the difficult pass which leads from Casanare up to Tunja Samano had only 3000 troops and these he sent under the command to meet Bolivar Though the Patriots were somewhat inferior in numbers and arrived on the plateau fatigued, starving and without horses Barrero not knowing their real numbers hesitated about attacking Bolivar was given time to rest and remount his men and then took a vigorous offensive His rapid movements confused the Spanish commander and the latter allowed the Patriot army to get between him and Bogota Thus cut off from his base Barrero made a desperate dash to reach the capital but ran against the Patriots posted directly across his path at Boyacá on the 7th of August 1819 The loyalists attacked at a disadvantage and without hope After losing a hundred men they fled in disorder and the whole army dispersed or was captured The way to Bogota lay open and Samano had no forces to defend the city Within three days Bolivar had traversed the hundred miles from the battlefield and Samano fled in such precipitous haste that he left behind the government archives and even the money in the treasury A month later the whole of New Granada except the stubbornly loyalist pasto and the fortress of Cartagena was free Bolivar had himself made president and military dictator and their vice president and giving each province two governors one military and the other civil responsible directly to Bogota The municipal governments were preserved and the Spanish system of taxation continued but Patriot republicans displaced loyalists in all the offices Bolivar soon returned to his Venezuelan headquarters on the Orinoco to fight Morillo and organize the Grand Republic for many years Though all of Venezuela except the Orinoco valley all of Ecuador and the seaports and southern provinces of New Granada still remained in the hands of superior Spanish armies and although the Creole ruling class had already proved strongly prejudiced in favor of local autonomy and deterring down of aristocratic forms his imagination voted all obstacles and he planned the new state of Venezuela his idea was a centralized system with himself at its head as life president backed by a hereditary senate and ruling the three grand divisions of his empire through docile vice presidents but his military power and prestige were insufficient to overcome the opposition of jealous generals and ambitious lawyers he spent the year of 1820 in futile intrigues among the politicians and powerful campaigns against the Spaniards in Venezuela while the patriots trembled at the news that a great army was assembling at Hadith which would surely sweep them out of existence a liberal revolution in Spain came opportunity to interrupt military operations Bolivar was obliged to compromise with the advocates of federalism and democracy a congress representing the Granada and Venezuelan provinces and the patriots assembled at Cucuta early in 1821 composed of ambitious civilians it was opposed to centralization or military rule and in spite of the liberators' protests adopted a compromise constitution though Bolivar was conceded the title of president he was required to give up his civil authority whenever he took command of the army and this meant an abolishment of the dictatorship of a life presidency or a hereditary senate was abandoned and the only part of his system which Bolivar managed to retain was the subordination of the provinces to the central government the liberator now devoted himself to the direction of the war leaving that long-headed schemer Santander in power at Bohota as vice president the winning of the battle of Caravova in Venezuela in June 1821 and the surrender of Cartagena in September made necessary the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from the Isthmus Panama immediately declared itself independent in November 1821 and announced its intention of joining the great confederation of Colombia then composed of the provinces of Venezuela and New Granada and later of those of Ecuador Pasto alone remained in the hands of the Spaniards Bolivar determined to expel them from this province and also from Quito and Guayaquil while visions of conquests in Peru and Bolivia and of returning to his dazzled countrymen in Colombia crowned with laurels gathered on southern battlefields floated through his mind Congress gladly gave him leave of absence and Santander promised supplies of money and soldiers in 1822 he advanced against Pasto sending his able lieutenant Sucre around by sea to Guayaquil to take Quito from the south gathering 3,000 men at Papayan he marched into Pasto and on the 7th of April came upon the Royal Army at Bambona a bloody battle followed and Bolivar by inciting his men to reckless charges remained master of the field however he lost three times as many men as the royalists the latter retired in good order and deliberator after encamping eight days on the plateau surrounded by hostile population hampered by the difficulties of the mountain paths with a strong enemy in front was compelled to retreat on Papayan leaving his sick and wounded he remained inactive until the glorious news of Sucre's overwhelming victory at Pichincha arrived the loyalists in Pasto were now completely isolated the Spanish commander made terms with Bolivar and the indomitable mountaineers were induced to submit on the promise that they should be allowed to retain their local laws and customs End of section 28