Bolivar: American Liberator (85 page)

the patriots had made heartening advances:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 484–94.

Arismendi openly hated Mariño, etc.:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 444–45, for all details on these hatreds.

eventually met Javier Mina:
O’LN, I, 356.

who had limped into Haiti:
Yanes, 311; also Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 444–45.

he issued a proclamation:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 497; also SB,
Proclamas y Discursos
, 151.

“Our arms will have destroyed”:
SB to Cortés Madariaga and Roscio, Port-au-Prince, 1816, SBC, 1799–1822, 256.

“General, I am the best friend”:
SB to Mariño, Villa del Norte, Dec. 29, 1816, Archivo General de Indias, BANH, No. 62, 185.

impossible without their cooperation:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 13–14.

he set about recruiting Indians:
O’Leary, 370.

an army ten times the size:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 456.

Urdaneta, who had fought with Páez:
Rafael Urdaneta,
Memorias
, 101–7.

“I hardly know you!” etc.:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 456.

On the afternoon of February 9:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 527.

“I’ve come to embrace the liberator,” etc.:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 458.

“Small divisions cannot”:
SB to Piar, Barcelona, Jan. 10, 1817, in Azpurúa, III, 378.

Páez had left the royalist camp:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 56–57.

consistently overestimated their numbers:
Vásconez,
Cartas de Bolívar
, 8.

outnumbered three times by Morillo’s:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 118.

“We had hardly advanced”:
Vásconez,
Cartas
, 8.

they abandoned horses, swords, guns:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 126.

fully outfitted in Madrid finery:
Ibid., 130.

“Fourteen consecutive attacks”:
Ibid.

Bolívar was thrilled:
Vásconez, 9.

He understood:
SB to Piar, Azpurúa, III, 378.

“We’ve just had the best news”:
SB to Leandro Palacios, Barcelona, Jan. 2, 1817, SBO, I, 226.

“Destiny is calling us”:
SB to Briceño Méndez, Jan. 1, 1817, in O’L, XXVII, 365.

On March 25, when Bolívar set out:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, I, 537.

arrived there in early May:
Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 18.

handsome, blue-eyed, ruddy-skinned:
Guzmán Blanco, “El Capitán Juan José Conde, subalterno del General Piar y testigo presencial de su ejecución, hace una relación minuciosa,” DOC, VI, 105.

in poor health:
SB, “Manifiesto del Jefe Supremo a los pueblos de Venezuela,” Cuartel general de Guayana, Aug. 5, 1817, SB,
Doctrina
, 68–73.

“The nation needs you”:
SB to Piar, San Félix, June 19, 1817, SBO, I, 244.

“I rose to General in Chief”:
The witness, J. F. Sánchez, is quoted in Liévano Aguirre, 187.

the black governor, Andrés Rojas, scoffed:
Ibid.

“If I have been the essence of moderation”:
SB to Briceño Méndez, June 19, 1817, O’L, XXIX, 113–14.

accountable for the death:
Piar and Bernardo Bermúdez were bitter rivals. Lecuna implies that Piar led Bernardo into the trap that ended in his execution in 1813. Lecuna,
Crónica
, II, 37.

“I want to denounce openly”:
SB, “Manifiesto,” SB,
Doctrina
, 68–73.

“The accused is the same General Piar”:
O’L, “Proceso de Piar,” XV, 351–424.

it is said he wept:
Testimony of Briceño Mendez, in O’L, XXVII, 427.

At five o’clock on the following afternoon, etc.:
J. J. Conde, in Guzmán Blanco, “El Capitán,” DOC, VI, 106–9.

the citizens of Angostura, etc.:
Rourke, 167.

Tears welled in his eyes:
O’L, XXVII, 427.

“The death of General Piar”:
Perú de Lacroix, 116–7.

But, as Bolívar told them now:
O’L, XXVII, 428–9.

The power of the warlord, etc.:
Trend, 122.

almost thirteen thousand now:
Díaz, 214.

confirmed as the supreme chief:
Gil Fortoul,
Historia
, I, 247.

a pay structure written into law:
SB, “La ley de Repartición de Bienes Nacionales entre los Militares del Ejército Republicano,” Oct. 10, 1817, SB,
Doctrina
, p. 73.

when Bolívar had set out for Guayana, etc.:
Gil Fortoul, I, 246.

four hundred soldiers garrisoned in the convent:
Casa Fuerte was in the convent of San Francisco, which SB left under the leadership of Gen. P. M. Freites, Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 460.

English captain named Chamberlain, etc.:
Ibid., 463; also Azpurúa, 225.

possibly avoidable moment:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 463–64.

began spreading the rumor:
Gil Fortoul, I, 246; Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 464.

a regional warlord could not hope:
Lynch,
Simón Bolívar
, 104.

as easy to dissolve as cassava:
SB to Tovar, Guayana, Aug. 6, 1817, SBO, I, 256.

“I’ve resisted writing a single word,” etc.:
Ibid.

“if he submits voluntarily”:
SB to Sucre, Angostura, Nov. 11, 1817, SBO, I, 277–78.

two of the most capable generals:
SB to Mariño, Maturín, Nov. 5, 1818, SBO, I, 368–69.

Epigraph:
“A lightning bolt doesn’t fall from the sky,” etc.:
Santander, “El General Simón Bolívar en la campaña de la Nueva Granada de 1819. Relación escrito por un Granadino,”
Gazeta de Santa Fé
, Oct. 4, 1819, JCBL.

Bolívar had dreamed of so often:
SB to Leandro Palacios, Barcelona, Jan. 2, 1817, SBO, I, 228.

a seamless, unified America:
SB to Pueyrredón, June 12, 1818, SBO, I, 295–97. This letter was in answer to a letter from Pueyrredón to SB dated Nov. 19, 1816, which was full of congratulations for SB, although by then he had had to flee Ocumare and return to Haiti.

Páez could neither read nor write:
Cunninghame Graham, 108.

eat with a knife and fork, etc.:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 144.

child of indigent Canary Islanders:
Ibid., 1.

a paltry few cents a week, etc.:
Ibid., 5–11, for subsequent details about this job.

one officer commanded him to give up his horse, etc.:
Ibid., 57–58.

regiment of more than a thousand men, etc.:
Ibid., for subsequent details about this army.

They sat on skulls of bulls:
Ibid., 6.

making lightning incursions into his camp, etc.:
Recollections of a Service
, 179.

as Morillo later admitted:
Morillo, “Cuenta al Rey,” Ministerio de Guerra, Madrid, Oct. 26, 1818, JCBL.

When Bolívar sent two colonels:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 136.

He explained to his army:
Ibid., 153. As for the size of Páez’s army, it’s difficult to put numbers on his troops. He counts, at one point, no fewer than 40,000 horses. Ibid., 136.

a company of Cunaviche Indians:
Ibid., 138 fn.

stormed the Spanish encampment fearlessly:
My great-great-great grandfather, Joaquín Rubín de Celis, was a young soldier for Morillo, one of the thousands brought from the peninsula to fight in the wars of pacification. He was present at this battle in San Fernando, fighting against Páez and the Cunaviche Indians. He would go on to become a brigadier and die in the decisive battle of Ayacucho, fighting against another of my ancestors, the man who would marry his daughter, Gen. Pedro Cisneros Torres of the republican forces.

Páez finally met the supreme chief, etc.:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 172–73.

He was given to epileptic fits, etc.:
Recollections of a Service
, 185–86; also Cunninghame Graham, 92–93; Slatta and Lucas de Grummond, 147.

Start the march, he said animatedly, etc.:
The exchange between SB and Páez that follows is taken from accounts in Páez’s
Autobiografía
(141) and O’L (XXVII, 444). Lecuna’s account (
Crónica
, II, 135) is quite different. In it, Bolívar shouts, “Is there a guy among us who would dare take one of those boats himself?” and Páez shouts back, “Yes, there is!” Apparently, Lecuna’s account was taken from General A. Wavell,
Campagnes et croisières
(
sic
for Vowell,
Campaigns and Cruises
) (Paris, 1837), 70. The action in all versions, however, is the same.

the men slid their saddles, etc.:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 142.

thought they would be blown to bits:
Mosquera, 252.

they had captured fourteen boats:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 142; also Mosquera. O’Leary says it was seven all together, O’L, XXVII, 444.

“It may appear inconceivable”:
From
Recollections of a Service
, 178.

one can easily imagine their initial suspicions:
Liévano Aguirre, 185.

On a dare, he had leapt into a lake, etc.:
Perú de Lacroix, 39, 169.

“I confess it was crazy of me”:
Ibid., 169.

left Páez and his horsemen behind to lay siege:
Morillo, report to King Ferdinand VII, Ministerio de Guerra, Madrid, Oct. 26, 1818, JCBL. As Morillo reported, during Páez’s siege of San Fernando, a company of 650 men was forced to subsist on a small daily ration of toasted corn, which soon ran out. The soldiers continued to be in virtual imprisonment from Feb. 6 to March 7, subsisting “on horses, donkeys, cats, dogs, and leather.”

descending on his post:
O’L, XXVII, 445.

“Fly, fly, join me now!”:
SB to Páez, Calabozo, Feb. 24, 28, 1818; O’L, XV, 600–601.

a string of loud arguments:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 154.

losses on the patriot island of Margarita:
Yanes, II, 22.

had been reduced to seven hundred:
Ibid., 298–99.

asked to be relieved:
Polanco Alcántara, 469.

Páez wanted to continue to pressure:
Páez,
Autobiografía
, 154.

keep pushing toward the capital:
Soublette,
Boletín del Ejercito Libertador
, Feb. 17, 1818, O’L, XXVII, 580.

“In a few hours”:
Feliciano Palacios, quoted in Madariaga, 307.

more than a thousand infantrymen, etc.:
Morillo to J. Barreiro, Valencia, May 5, 1818, in O’L, XI, 478; also O’Leary,
Detached Recollections
, 39–40.

a band of eight royalists came upon, etc.:
Larrazábal,
Vida
, I, 344–46.

by the light of a waxing moon:
NASA, Moon Phases, 1801–1900, Sec. 1816–1820.

a painful case of anthrax pustules:
SB to Gen. M. Cedeño, San Fernando, May 5, 1818, SBO, I, 286. Bolívar refers to his “
carbuncos
,” which are lesions from anthrax, a painful condition of the flesh that is transmitted from diseased or dead horses and other animals.

“My lesions are getting better”:
Ibid.

an unruly English colonel:
Wilson, who together with Col. G. Hippisley was among the first British recruits to join SB’s wars of independence. See Páez,
Autobiografía
, 170.

he had been cleverly planted:
Hippisley,
Narrative of the Expedition
, 515.

“They say the Machados”:
SB to L. Palacios, Angostura, July 11, 1818, SBO, I, 308.

Bolívar
was
the revolution:
Morillo to King Ferdinand VII, quoted in Aristide Rojas,
El elemento Vasco en la historia de Venezuela
(Caracas: Imprenta Federal, 1874), 33.

outpost Humboldt had visited:
Humboldt, 6.

Orange, lemon, and fig trees:
Hippisley, 334–35, for much of this description.

ample, low, made of adobe, etc.:
The chaplain of the
John Adams
(Commodore Perry’s ship), described Angostura in the
National Intelligencer
, Oct. 2, 1819, quoted in Polanco Alcántara, 474.

Splendid mansions overlooked the river, etc.:
Hippisley, 332–35, for subsequent descriptions.