Episode 515: The Liberator

But the important thing to recognize is that between eighteen ten roughly and eighteen thirty independence was not a moment, and it was honestly a never ending, grinding, continent wide civil war followed by an uneasy piece that few truly understood how to keep. And no one's life captures that reality, of course, more than the man who is one hundred percent associated with these independence movements, the Liberator himself, Simon Bolivar.

This is the story of how an empire fell, and honestly also how the men who tore it down struggled mightily to build something lasting from the ruins. Then we'll get to Bolivar and Moore in a second. Don't worry about that, but let's start to set the stage on the eve of the revolution. Spanish America was vast, it

was wealthy, and it was profoundly unequal. I mean, if we're going to count Spanish territory, because we're pre Mexican independence, you're talking about a territory that stretches really from the northern boundaries of California, cutting down diagonally through today what is Utah, parts of Colorado, New Mexico, so on and so forth. We'll throw Texas in there for right now,

for the sake of argument. Then cut down through Mexico, Central America, and then excluding Brazil, of course, which was under the purview of the Portuguese, you're talking about all of South America. So I'm absolutely huge swathen By the way, I'm not counting the islands in the Caribbean, or of course territories in the Asia Pacific, like the Philippines. I'm not counting those. But the Spanish crown governed all of this really with a smash and grab colonial extraction method.

The idea was to govern through viceroys, audiencias and military governor and it was a mismatch of those different ruling styles to extract silver predominantly agricultural wealth kind of and customs revenue a lot less, while tightly controlling political power. Now at the top, as we discussed in our last episode of this social pyramid, you have in all of these territories Spaniards born in Europe. Those are the peninsularees.

They monopolized basically all of the high offices beneath those with the creoles the American and I don't mean United States, I mean born in the Americas. American born Spaniards like Bolivar, wealthy and educated, but politically excluded because of their place of birth. And then, of course, below these two tip points on the pyramid, you have a massive population of indigenous peoples, free people of color, and enslaved Africans, more or less those depending upon where you are. Almost none

in California, quite a few in South America. Now, the system depended on obedience and legitimacy, because this is a centrist rule system. It's all governed ultimately from Madrid, from the Spanish crown and the bureaucrats that surround that crown. But when Napoleon invades Spain in eighteen o eight and deposed King Ferdinand, the seventh, that legitimacy collapsed literally overnight.

Suddenly there was no unquestioned sovereign across the empire. Elites started to ask a dangerous question, if the king is gone, well, then why bother obeying anyone? Huntas quickly emerged across the America's initi claiming loyalty to Ferdinand. But their existence alone was revolutionary. Howard had very rapidly, almost overnight, shifted from obedience to Spain to local administration. So we went really from a centrist system to a federal system without anybody

deciding that that's what we were going to do. And once power shifts locally, it just doesn't go back, at least not easily or quietly. And between the American Revolution and particularly this time period eighteen thirty and then we're going to get to some of the revolutions in Europe

that failed ones. Of course, we're going to be talking about a period of time in which you really feel like the ideals that were planted in the American and French revolutions are driving the boat to a large extent, not for everyone, of course, no, because those indigenous peoples, those enslaved Africans, they're not going to get political power.

But it's very similar to what we see in the United States, where it's not necessarily that we're going to get rid of slavery, but we want our elites to be in charge. And that's so much of what you have going on in South and Central America at the same time. So in a lot of ways, it really is the true ideals of the American Revolution, a transfer of sovereignty and power from the elites back in Spain, I'll just say Europe, so we can capture them all,

and then the elites who are local. But let's talk about Simon Bolivar before we go any further, because he's the George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, He's all those people in Central and South America just kind of like wrapped into one. Although I think you could argue if you wanted to, that he was a significantly better general than George Washington. I'm not going to make that argument, but I've certainly seen it made. Now. Bolivar's early life

mattered enormously. He was orphaned young like Alexander Hamilton, but fabulously wealthy like Alexander Hamilton, and educated by enlightened minded tutors. He had already by mid teens, traveled extensively in Europe. He had witnessed personally Napoleon's rise. He admired him, particularly his energy, but he didn't like his tyranny in Rome. According to later accounts, Bolivar swore an oath at the

Vatican to liberate his homeland. Now what the Pope would have thought of that at the time is probably something we will never know, but my guess is they wouldn't have been particularly favorable. But Bolivar, of course, wasn't a pure democrat. He distrusted mass politics, he feared social upheaval, and he believed that strong leadership was essential, especially in a society emerging from colonial rule. I don't think he's

necessarily wrong about that. By the way, if you're trying to transition out of a period of direct colonial rule into home rule, you really do need someone Anna Mtill who has that power, who has that authority, and who has that legitimacy, and I guess critically isn't afraid necessarily to use it. I mean, George Washington put down revolts in western Massachusetts quite successfully, and they needed his legitimacy

in the United States. Of course, there's a huge difference in the economy and the society of the thirteen original colonies that become the Young Republic and what we're dealing with in Mexico and what's going to become Columbia, Bolivia and Venezuela, so on and so forth, And that's worth noting, and we can get into all of that, but the principle is the same, so that it's really, really, really hard to go from colonial rule directly to a democracy,

particularly a peer one, and this tension between liberty and authority would come to define every single constitution that Bolivar later wrote. Now, Bolivar really gets into the game in the year eighteen ten, which is why we start this episode talking about eighteen ten, because that's when Caracas, which is one of the provincial capitals at the time of Venezuela today we all know because it's in the news

a lot is the capital of Venezuela. When Caracas announces that it will form a junta, it's going to essentially separate at least its ruling elite from Spain Spanish domination.

Bolivar announced that he would join the movement with enthusiasm, and it didn't take long for officials in Caracas to realize that you can't go halfway on this stuff, right if you're going to declare that you are ruling elite and that you're separating yourself from Spain, I mean, honestly, what is the difference between that and a declaration of independence? And recognizing that there really wasn't a difference in dependence

in Venezuela was declared in eighteen eleven. But to be clear, the experiment, like it had been in the United States, like it had been in Mexico, was a bit fragile from the very beginning. The First Venezuelan Republic was destroyed not only by Spanish arms but by internal weakness. Federalism quickly fragmented authority the economy such that it was collapsed, and then there was an unfortunate circumstance. In eighteen twelve,

a massive earthquake hit Caracas. It killed thousands of people and was widely interpreted by a population that was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic as divine punishment for the rebellion. Royalist forces surged throughout Venezuela, and Bolivar was forced to flee. An exile to a large extent radicalized him. Moving to Cartagena in modern day Columbia, he wrote with brutal clarity. He wrote that Venezuela had failed because it mistook theory for reality.

Liberty without discipline, he argued, invited disaster. Yes, there needed to be some sort of representation in government, but the republic also needed above all, unity, authority, and force. Returning in eighteen thirteen, Bolivar launched the admirable campaign reclaiming western Venezuela and briefly restoring Republican rule. But this second Republic

collapsed even more violently than the first. The royalist leader Jose Tomas Boyes mobilized the rural poor, especially Janeros and formally enslaved men, against creole elites and turned the war from something that was political and this thing that was social, and as a consequence, he turned it into a literal bloodbath. Independence itself now meant survival. By eighteen fifteen, Simon Bolivar

was again in exile, this time in Jamaica. His famous letter from Kingston is one of the greatest documents of Atlantic revolutionary thought. He predicted that Spanish America would fragment, suffer civil wars, and struggle with Republican government, and he was right on basically every single count. Salvation came from an unlikely place. Haiti, the world's first black republic born of a successful slave revolution, offered Bolivar, arms, ships and sanctuary.

President Alexandre Petien asked only one thing in return, the abolition of slavery. Bulivar was only too quick to agree, and this decision transformed the war for independence in Central and South America. Independence was no longer merely a creole political project. It was no longer just about switching who the political elites were going to be. This was now a social revolution, drawing thousands of enslaved and marginalized men into patriot armies. It also deepened elite fears of chaos,

contradiction that Bolivar will never fully resolve. Between eighteen sixteen and eighteen twenty four, Bolivar didn't fight for a country. He fought for a continant. His most audacious gamble came in eighteen nineteen, when he led an army across the flooded plains and frozen andes into New Grenada. Men died of cold disease and exhaustion. But as we have seen so many times throughout history, whether we're talking about Hannibal or where we're talking about Napoleon, the element of speed

and surprise was decisive. Bolivar crossed into what is today Colombia and fought really the largest pitched battle of the entire war for independence at a place called Boyaca. Bolivar scored an enormous victory at Boyaca and marched triumphantly into the capital city of Bogota in a moment that shattered Spanish power in the northern part of Central and South America.

By eighteen twenty one, after another battle, Venezuela was effectively independent and Bolivar found himself hailed as a liberator the liberator, but the war, of course, wasn't finished. While Bolivar pushed into Ecuador and Peru, one of his subordinates, Jose de

San Martin Kin, liberated all of southern South America. They had a brief meeting in Guyaquiel in eighteen twenty two and then ended with Bolivar assuming overall command of the final phase of liberation, and the decisive blow finally came in eighteen twenty four when Patriot forces crushed Spanish armies at Juien and Ajuco. Three centuries of imperial rule ended, in this case, not with negotiation, but with pure annihilation.

Now the reality is is that Spain and the Spanish Empire was coming to an end of its own accord. Spain had never really moved away from the model that it established after Columbus's expedition to the New World. That is sort of a wealth extrapolation model. Spain had never done an effective job of establishing an independent industry for

all of its colonies. All of them were still run on essentially the old mercantile model, and that was a model that just didn't work anymore in the nineteenth century. As a consequence, and as a consequence of European affairs, Spain found itself weak, disorganized, and unable, frankly, to respond to these attacks. Now, Bolivar's victory did create nations, but it didn't create states. The Spanish Empire had centralized authority

in Madrid. When it vanished, local institutions were weak, economies were shattered, and armies accustomed to power. Bolivar attempted to impose order through a new country that he called Grand Columbia a vast republic, stretching from Panama all the way to Ecuador, and it failed almost immediately. Regional elites resisted in central authority. Federalists clashed with centralists, elections bread factionalism. Bolivar increasingly relied on emergency powers, convinced that democracy without

discipline would destroy independence itself. Elsewhere, the pattern found itself repeating. Central America fractured into rival states within a decade, Peru oscillated between military strongmen, and Argentina descended into Koidillo warfare. Chile, of course, achieved stability, but at the cost of restricted political participation. Yes, the war for independence had removed Spain, but it had not removed or resolved inequality, racial hierarchy,

or economic dependency. Power flowed through armies and not through ballots. By the late eighteen twenties, Simon Bolivar was exhausted and he was ill. Grand Columbia had long ago disintegrated. Former allies now denounced him as a dictator. Assassination attempts stalked him, and in despair, he resigned power and prepared for an exile that he ever made it to. And eighteen thirty Bolivar died poor, bitter, and convinced that his life work

had failed America. He wrote, is ungovernable, and yet without him there would have been no independence. Between eighteen ten and eighteen thirty, Central and South America achieved political freedom, but they inherited instability. Their revolutions destroyed empire, but they couldn't instantly create citizenship. Bolivar understood this better than anyone, and it haunted him until the end of his life. And honestly, his life reminds us that independence and this

is key, is not an ending. It's a beginning and is often violent, uncertain, and unfinished. When Simon Bolivar died in December eighteen thirty, he did not leave behind a continent at peace. He left behind a power vacuum. Bolivar had dreamed of unity, a single strong republic stretching from the Caribbean to the Andes, looking a lot like the United States, capable of resisting European imperialism and internal decay. But by the time that his body was carried from

Santa Marta, his dream was already in ruins. The great experiment of Grand Colombia had collapsed, and South America entered a turbulent decade defined not my liberation but my fragmentation. The continent was newly freed, but deeply divided and struggled

to govern itself. Between eighteen thirty and eighteen forty, the Grand Colombia, comprising modern day Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, had been Bolivar's greatest political project, but it collapsed under the weight of regional rivalries, weak institutions, and bitter disputes over

federalism versus central authority. By eighteen thirty, Venezuela had seceded under Jose Antonio Paez, E declared independence under Juan Jose Flores, and Bolivar had resigned, exiled from the political system that he had created. He wrote, those who served the revolution plow the sea, and his death marked not an ending, but a beginning, a new era dominated by strongmen who ruled through political loyalty called cadillos. They ruled through military

power and fear. The rump state of Colombia, oftentimes called New Granada, struggled to define itself after Bolivar. The eighteen thirties were consumed by constitutional experiments and civil unrests. Liberals and Conservatives in Colombia fought over the power of the Catholic Church, federalism versus central authority, and the role of military and politics. Presidents often came and went ruling weekly from Bogata, while regional elites governed their own territories as

they saw fit. Elections existed, but violence was never far behind. The state survived, but barely. Now Colombia did not collapse like Grand Colombia had, but it entered a long pattern that would define much of South American politics. Formal republicanism layered over informal oligarchy. In Venezuela, independence brought not unity but exhaustion. Years of brutal warfare had devastated the countryside.

Slavery remained in place, the economy had been shattered. Juan Antonio Paiez ruled as a president and strong man, representing only the interest of landowners and cattle elites. Venezuela became nominally constitutional, but in practice power flowed through personal patron client networks, and military loyalty. The irony, of course, was bitter. Venezuela had been liberated predominantly by mass mobilization of enslaved people and rural fighters, yet the republic that emerge entrenched

inequality rather than dismantling it. Ecuador entered the eighteen thirties as a state with little national cohesion. The coastal elites of Guadalakielle and the highland elites of Quito mistrusted each other completely. President Juan Jose Flores governed through force patronage. Indigenous populations, who formed the majority, remained excluded from citizenship in any meaningful sense. Ecuador survived the decade, but as a fragile creation, held together less by institutions than by

exhaustion and fear of chaos. And further south, the world of the Andes descended into rivalry. In Peru, the military totally dominated politics. Governments came and went through coups rather than elections. Economic instability and debt haunted the republic. In Bolivia, named after all, after Bolivar himself, the instability was even worse. Bolivia went through multiple presidents in rapid succession, many of

the military generals. In eighteen thirty six, the two countries were actually briefly united in the Peru Bolivian Confederation, an ambitious attempt to restore power throughout the Andes, but the experiment alarmed neighboring Chile, which feared regional domination, and so Chile invaded, and by eighteen thirty nine Chilean armies had destroyed the confederation. The message was now clear. Unity in

South America would be punished, not rewarded. And nowhere in post Believiar politics take a darker turn than in Argentina. The country was torn between unitarians who wanted centralized authority in Buenos Aires and federalists who defended provincial autonomy. And out of this chaos rose Juan Manuel. They were by the late eighteen thirties. The euros us ruled Buenos Aires and effectively the country through censorship, secret police, and political violence.

His regime enforced loyalty through fear, while claiming to defend tradition, order and national sovereignty. Argentina did not stabilize. Instead, it hardened amid the chaos of Spanish America. Brazil followed a strikingly different course. Brazil had achieved its independence in eighteen twenty two, but actually, interestingly enough, remained a monarchy. When Emperor Pedro the First abdicated in eighteen thirty one, Brazil entered a regency period marked by revolts, but the imperial

framework endured. Brazil's actually the only South American country to continue to try to work on monarchy after independence. Brazil's monarchy paradoxically provided, interestingly enough, more continuity than republicanism did. Throughout the rest of South and Central America. Slavery continued in Brazil. Elites remained powerful, but there was no fragmentation in the Brazilian state. It was a reminder, though, that

independence didn't dictate political reform at all. Change had to come from within, and normally it had to come from the bottom. The elites were only interested in securing their own power, and so by eighteen forty, which is where we're going to leave South America for now, the continent was free from Spanish domination, but it was really unsettled.

Bolivar's dream of unity lay shattered, and in its place were weak republics with strong men, constitutions overshadowed by the power of bayonets and social hierarchies inherited from empire and never erased by revolution. Independence had ended colonial rule, but it had never those deeper questions who should rule, who counted as a citizen, and how could power be restrained once gained by force? Those questions would haunt South America

for the rest of the nineteenth century and beyond. And in that sense, Bolivar's death didn't close a chapter, it opened a long and uncertain aftermath. Now that's a lot, but it sets the stage for where we're going from here to understand how Central and South America are now free from Spanish domination and how eventually the Spanish Empire will come to its final denouncement in the Spanish American War.

But that's a little bit away for now. We do now need to rotate back to Europe and begin to talk about really what the post Napoleonic world looked like in Europe and how the economic and social changes that are moving through your predominantly economic and industrial changes are going to now catapult this post Napoleonic Europe out of chaos, out of constant warfare, and into a position where Europeans, for a period of time up until World War One, are going to completely dominate the globe.