Abstract
Independence imposed many roles upon Simón Bolívar. He was a military planner and a field commander, a political philosopher and a maker of constitutions, a liberator of peoples and a founder of republics. He had to deal not only with royalist enemies but with foreign friends and anarchic followers. He also had to control the caudillos, to tame the guerrillas and their leaders within the revolutionary ranks. The Wars of Independence in northern South America incorporated two processes, the constitutionalism of Bolívar and the caudillism of the regions, and they were fought with two armies, regular forces and local guerrillas. These movements were part allies, part rivals. To compete and rule in such circumstances a soldier had to be a politician. Bolívar sought power as well as freedom; he wanted to rule as well as to liberate.1 But power did not come easily to him.
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Notes
Gerhard Masur, Simón Bolívar (Albuquerque, NM, 1948), p. 184.
Vicente Lecuna, Catalogo de errores y calumnias en la historia de Bolívar, 3 vols (New York, 1956–8), vol. I, pp. 157–9;
Stephen K. Stoan, Pablo Morillo and Venezuela, 1815–1820 (Columbus, 1974), p. 163;
Paul Verna, Las minas del Libertador (Caracas, 1977), pp. 179–81.
Richard Vowell, Campanas y cruceros (Caracas, 1973), pp. 65–6.
Eric R. Wolf and Edward C. Hansen, ‘Caudillo Politics: a Structural Analysis’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 9 (1966–67), pp. 168–79.
Robert L. Gilmore, Caudillism and Militarism in Venezuela, 1810–1910 (Athens, OH, 1964), pp. 47, 69–70, 107.
‘Reflexiones sobre el estado actual de los llanos’, 6 Dec. 1813, cited in Germán Carrera Damas, Boves, aspectos socio-económicos de su acción histórica (Caracas, 1968), p. 158.
Juan Vicente González, La doctrina conservadora, Juan Vicente Gonzalez, El pensamiento politico venezolano del siglo XIX, 2 vols (Caracas, 1961), vol. I, p. 179.
José de Austria, Bosquejo de la historia militar de Venezuela, 2 vols (Madrid, 1960), vol. II, p. 256.
Caracciolo Parra-Pérez, Mariño y la independencia de Venezuela, 5 vols (Madrid, 1954–57), vol. I, pp. 134–8. The same is true of many other caudillos, such as Monagas, Valdés, Rojas and Zaraza.
José Antonio Páez, Autobiografía del General fosé Antonio Páez, 2 vols (Caracas, 1973), vol. I, p. 109.
Daniel Florencio O’Leary, Memorias del General Daniel Florencio O’Leary. Narratión, 3 vols (Caracas, 1952), vol. I, p. 350.
Fernando Rivas Vicuña, Las guerras de Bolívar, 7 vols. (Bogotá, 1934–8; Santiago, 1940), vol. II, pp. 85–95.
For other interpretations, see Masur, Simón Bolívar, p. 253 and Jorge I. Domínguez, Insurrection or Loyalty: the Breakdown of the Spanish American Empire (Cambridge, MA, 1980), pp. 197–8, 226–7.
Bolívar to Richard Wellesley, 14 Jan. 1814, Simón Bolívar, Escritos del Libertador (Caracas, 1964), vol. VI, p. 63.
Bolívar to Marino, 16 Dec. 1813, Simón Bolívar, Cartas del Libertador, edited by Vicente Lecuna, 12 vols, (Caracas, 1929–59), vol. I, p. 88.
José Domingo Díaz, Recuerdos sobre la rebelión de Caracas (Madrid, 1961), p. 336.
L. Peru de Lacroix, Diario de Bucuramanga, edited by N.E. Navarro (Caracas, 1949), p. 108.
Bolívar to Bermúdez, 7 Nov. 1817, Daniel Florencio O’Leary, Memorias, 33 vols (Caracas, 1879–87), vol. XV, pp. 449–50; Rivas Vicuna, Las guerras de Bolívar, vol. III, pp. 63–4.
Ibid., vol. I, pp. 153–4; O’Leary, Narratión, vol. I, pp. 489–91; R.A. Humphreys (ed.), The ‘Detached Recollections’ of General D.F. O’Leary (London, 1969), pp. 19–20.
Santander to Pedro Briceño Méndez, 6 Jan. 1826, Santander to Montilla, 7 Jan. 1826, in Roberto Cortázar (ed.), Cartas y mensa)es del General Francisco de Paula Santander, 1812–1840, 10 vols (Bogotá, 1953–56), vol. VI, pp. 40–4; Páez, Autobiografía, vol. II, p. 297; Laureano Vallenilla Lanz, Cesarismo democrático (Caracas, 1952), pp. 106–7; Federico Brito Figueroa, Historia económica y social de Venezuela, 2 vols (Caracas, 1966), vol. I, pp. 207–20; Miguel Izard, El miedo a la revolución. La lucha por la libertad en Venezuela (1777–1830) (Madrid, 1979), pp. 158–63.
Ricketts to Canning, Lima, 18 Feb. 1826, C.K. Webster (ed.), Britain and the Independence of Latin America, 1812–1830. Select Documents from the Foreign Office Archives, 2 vols (London, 1938), vol. I, p. 530.
Joaquín Posada Gutiérrez, Memorias histórico-políticas, 4 vols (Bogotá, 1929), vol. I, pp. 283–4, 310–25.
José Gil Fortoul, Historia constitutional de Venezuela, 2nd edn, 3 vols (Caracas, 1930), vol. I, pp. 650–63.
Francisco A. Labastida to Páez, 23 Feb. 1830, Secretaría del Interior y Justicia, Tomo V, Boletín del Archivo National (Caracas), vol. 10, no. 37 (1929), pp. 49–50.
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Lynch, J. (2001). Bolívar and the Caudillos. In: Latin America between Colony and Nation. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511729_8
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