The French Revolutionary Wars in the Spanish-American Imagination, 1789–1830

Abstract

On 19 August 1808 a minor military official and small-scale trader in the Colombian city of Bogota made an interesting entry in his diary. The diarist, José Maria Caballero, had since the 1780s maintained a sporadic record of important events in the city and its environs, in which he noted such occurrences as the inauguration of the cathedral’s new sacristy, the arrival of a new viceroy, earthquakes, heavy rainstorms and, especially, homicides. His entry for 23 May 1808, for example, reads ‘someone slit the throat of a maidservant named Inés who worked in the house of Don Pantaleon Gutierrez’.¹ Since the late eighteenth century, in other words, his diary had reflected the occasionally dramatic but extremely local goings-on in this colonial Spanish-American city. His chronicle was quintessentially provincial. Events in the summer of 1808 however transformed the nature of Caballero’s diary. The first indications of this transformation appeared in June. On 11 June 1808 Caballero noted that ‘news arrived of the coronation of Ferdinand VII as King of Spain’. He was careful to detail the celebrations that accompanied this happy event: the ringing of church bells, prayers and masses, and three days of public illuminations enlivened by music and fireworks. This entry is notable in that it was one of very few mentions in the diary up to that point of an event that occurred outside the confines of the Spanish colony of New Granada, and it hints at the overwhelming importance that events in Europe would soon have for Caballero and his fellow New Granadans.