Simon Bolivar vs American System

7/31/2019 Simon Bolivar vs American System

1/12

NEW SOLIDARITY April 23, 1982 Page 4

Simn Bolvar:

Britain's Agent Against The American System

by Cynthia Rush

British liberator Simn Bolvar: "Only in

England's shadow can South America

assert its freedom," he tried to convince

his people.

The British Crown in the early 1800s had a fundamental problem, which was

created largely by the success of the American Revolution. How could

Britain break away South America from Spain without running the risk of

the colonies following the success of the North American model? Britaincould not simply invade, because the battles of the American Revolution had

discredited such a strategy.

The solution: an "independence" movement whose leadership the British

would control, and other supposed opposition to this leadership which they

would also control It was a tactic they would later perfect and use in various


2/12


3/12

intimate associate of British East India Company founder Jeremy Bentham

and his cohort James Mill. A deserter from the Spanish army and student of

Rousseau, Miranda had petitioned William Pitt the Younger as early as 1790

to financially and militarily support a plan to liberate Venezuela, in which he

suggested that exiled Jesuits living in Europe play a major role. "The Jesuits

have done more good to South America than any other set of men or

religious order that ever went to the continent," Miranda wrote, and their

suffering in exile "had caused them to decide to fight for Latin American

independence influenced by the liberal ideas of the French revolutionaries."

Thus they would be of particular use to the British Crown.

Bentham and Mill aided Miranda by publishing the tracts of such radical,

pro-independence Jesuits as the Peruvian Vizcardo y Guzmn in the

Edinburgh Review and the Statesman magazines. Pitt personally set up many

exiled Jesuits with generous pensions in London in exchange for intelligenceon political developments in South America.

While waiting for Pitt to commit troops and financial resources to liberate

Venezuela, Miranda lived comfortably on his own pension and ran the

"Lautaro Lodge," the first of many British-financed secret societies operated

out of London and in South America to teach the "laws of liberty" to many

would-be liberators. Bolvar, Jos de San Martn of Argentina, and

Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile passed through the lodge to be schooled in the

anti-humanist doctrines of Bentham, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Voltaire.

Here, Miranda explained his conception of government for South America:it should include a House of Nobles and House of CommonsBritish style

and an Inca or hereditary sovereign. He modestly proposed himself for

the latter post.

Simn Bolvar's psychological profile qualified him well for service to the

British crown. The son of a wealthy and aristocratic Caracas family, he

lacked any serious intellectual capacity or military competence, as his

cowardly performance on the battlefield would later demonstrate. While his

childhood studies included large doses of Montesquieu and Voltaire,

according to one reliable chronicler, the young Bolvar had difficultyconcentrating on even these works. He preferred "light French novels." A

visitor to Bolvar's camp some years later would note:

He cannot attend with assiduity to business for more than two

or three hours in a day, during the greater part of which he is

sitting or laying down upon his hammock talking about


4/12


5/12

indifferent matters with his favorites and flatterers . . . he is

greatly inclined to adulation and is very vain.

The idea of leading an independence movement,as it was presented to

Bolvar by Miranda, fed the young man's vanity and delusions of grandeur.

Having witnessed Napoleon's coronations in Paris and Rome during anearlier trip to Europe, the future Liberator envisioned himself an Emperor

who, after achieving glory in South America would spend his final days in

retirement in Europe. Napoleon's coronation in 1804 "thrilled me," Bolvar

later wrote, "less by its glamour than by the love accorded the hero by this

great people. . . . This universal expression of all hearts . . . seemed to me to

be the pinnacle of man's desires. . . . What glory would descend on me if I

could become the Liberator of Venezuela!" In December of 1810, Bolvar

returned to Caracas with Miranda, with assurances of British political

support and discreet military aid and financing, for the purpose of"liberating" Venezuela from the Spanish and for the British.

How to Win South America

Great Britain had its sights trained on South America long before the

independence movement was launched in the early 19th century. During the

preceding 150 years it had attempted to break Spain's commercial monopoly

with South America, and particularly during the mid to late 18th century,

worked with the Society of Jesus to foment Jacobin uprisings against the

Spanish Crown. The famous 1781 Comunero Revolt in Nueva Granada(Colombia) and the 1784 Tupac Amaru rebellion in Peru were products of

this work.

The success of the American Revolution confronted Britain with a

fundamental problem, however. British troops could not simply invade

South America and establish the Empire's "benevolent" rule. The battles in

North America had discredited such a strategy. As Spain's ally following

Napoleon's 1808 invasion of that country, England could not publicly

support an invading force in South Americaalthough the duplicity it later

practiced in this matter is notorious.

While more direct military intervention was delayed until 1816 and 1817,

Viscount Castlereagh and his successor George Canning directed surrogate

warfare from the War and Colonial Office. They approached the South

American independence movement as the British have historically run all

their counterinsurgency operations; covering all sides.


6/12

There was little difficulty in getting the suggestible Bolvar to mouth off

whichever formulas suited the Crown's needswhether of the "left" or of

the "right." The Liberator's every utterance was a regurgitation of the

retrograde philosophies which guided the Empire's colonial policy. In his

famed "Jamaica Letter" of September 1815, Bolvar wrote, "I cannot

persuade myself that the New World can at the moment, be organized as a

great republic . . . institutions which are wholly representative are not suited

to our character, customs, and present knowledge."

In the constitution he proposed at Angostura in 1819, and in his later

"Bolivian" constitution of 1822, Bolvar outlined a feudal-monarchical form

of government for South America not unlike Miranda's earlier proposals.

This included a lifetime president, in his own words "the most sublime

inspiration amongst republican regimes," and a hereditary Senate or House

of Lords which "can interpose itself between the violent demands of thepeople and the great powers of the government during periods of political

unrest."

What apologists for Bolvar have described as his efforts to avoid "mob

democracy" was in fact a police state capable of enforcing a British

economic policy of free trade and raw materials looting, while maintaining

the population in a state of cultural and economic backwardness.

Bolvar glorified the "enormous and strictly warlike government" which

characterized the Roman Empire because it demonstrated "what politicalvirtues can accomplish and the relative unimportance of institutions."

(emphasis added) He explained that the North American constitution or

political system was inappropriate for a population whose cultural and ethnic

diversity "made it impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy

where we belong in the human family." Yet he hastened to add that "no

matter how closely we study the composition of the English executive

power, we can find nothing to prevent its being judged the most perfect

model for a kingdom, for an aristocracy, or for a democracy. Give

Venezuela such an executive power . . . and you will have taken a great step

toward national happiness." The Liberator also stressed that such a form ofgovernment, and a strong alliance with Britain, would permit greater control

over the "numerical preponderance of the aborigines."

The more difficult task Britain faced was how to subvert and control those

honest republican forces repulsed by Bolvar, and sympathetic to the


7/12

American Revolution. For this task, the Crown relied on its arch-agent and

founder of the British East India Company, Jeremy Bentham.

Through his own efforts and those of paid agents, Bentham seeded his

proposals for constitutional law, political economy, educational and prison

reform within the South American independence movement as an enlight-ened, "liberal" alternative to Bolvar's more overt tyranny. Hardly an

alternative, Bentham's charlatanry was a direct attack on the conceptions of

natural law, Neoplatonic humanism, and commitment to scientific and

technological progress which had developed on the continent in the late 18th

century with the encouragement of the Bourbon King Charles III and his

ministers.

Primitive agriculture in Brazil. Bolvar told his people they need not aspire to

a future other than agriculture and raw materials extraction, and should not

seek to use the United States as a model.

Bentham's tactic was to focus on the constitutions of the newly independent

statesto prevent them from modeling their governments or constitutions

on those of the United States. Confident that the continent's economic and

cultural backwardness would facilitate its manipulation, Bentham boasted in1810 that countries like Venezuela were "disposed to receive instructions

from England in general, and from your humble servant in particular.

Whatever I give them for laws, they will be prepared to receive as oracles. .

. ."


8/12

Although Bolvar made much of his "disagreements" with Bentham, he

nonetheless found the agent's constitutional proposals quite attractive. At

the 1819 Angostura Convention, Bolvar announced that the constitutions of

the South American nations should incorporate the Benthamite principle of

an external "moral power." Based on the premise that man is inherently evil,

the proposed Chamber of Morals was designed to have jurisdiction over

"youth, the hearts of men, public spirit, good customs and republican ethics,"

A totally independent body with jurisdiction over the government itself, the

so-called Areopagus would act at the first signs "of selfishness . . . idleness,

corruption and evil example" on the part of the citizenry. Its responsibilities

also included control over the national debt, foreign treaties, and school and

university curricula.

Such an external, controlling power was necessary, Bolvar explained

because the population or "mass" as he called it:

is unaware of their best interests . . . they constantly endeavor to

assail them in the hands of the custodiansthe individual

clashes with the mass, and the mass with authority. Honest

patriots recognized these proposals for what they were. Juan

Germn Roscio, author of Venezuela's 1810 constitution and the

man whose writings later inspired Mexico's Benito Juarez,

characterized the Chamber of Morals as a "moral inquisition . . .

no less sinister nor less horrible than the religious one." Repub-

lican leader Francisco de Paula Santander in 1829 characterizedBolvar's entire constitutional package as a monster that must

disturb public order . . . so complicated and absurd a system had

to keep the state in continual agitation and engender the spirit of

insurrection as the only remedy for containing the President or

driving him from his post. . . .

An Unsuccessful Beginning

As Miranda and Bolvar had determined in London, Venezuela was to be the

first real test of whether Britain could successfully "liberate" the SouthAmerican colonies, and crush any troublesome republican forces.

Venezuela was a particularly important target. When the colony declared its

independence on July 5, 1811, Juan German Roscio presented the new

constitution, modeled on that of the United States. The document was

translated and circulated in Washington as evidence of the republican nature


9/12

of the new government. Venezuelan patriots looked toward the United

States for sympathy and financial and military aid. Moreover, they deeply

distrusted Great Britain's motives in offering aid to the pro-independence

forces.

It was this republican sentiment that Miranda and Bolvar were expected toquash upon their return to Caracas in December of 1810. In order to do so

Miranda finagled himself into the post of Supreme Dictator after July of

1811. As it turned out however, neither Great Britain's backing nor its

colonialist theory aided Miranda in carrying out his assigned task. His cruel

and oafish behavior provoked strong opposition among political circles.

This, together with a series of military defeats and the instability created by

his incompetence to rule brought his career to an ignominious close in

March of 1812, when he formally capitulated to the Spanish commander

Monteverde.

Alexander Scott, then U.S. envoy to the Venezuelan port city of La Guaira

wrote to Secretary of State James Monroe in November of 1812:

By men of discernment, his [Miranda's] ambition and

cowardicequalities seldom unitedwere discovered and they

anticipated the fate of their unhappy country . . . whether he

was an agent of the British government, as he now states, or

whether his conduct resulted from a base and cowardly heart, I

cannot decide . . . [he is] a brutal, capricious tyrant, destitute ofcourage, honor and abilities. Thus has terminated this unfortun-

ate revolution.

Bolvar, who was still serving his apprenticeship under Miranda during this

early period, bought his own freedom by delivering his mentor into the

hands of the Spanish, and saw him carted off to Spain where he died in

prison in 1816. The Spanish commander had issued Bolvar a passport as a

reward for delivering Miranda, and the would-be liberator made plans to

travel to Spain to enlist in the Duke of Wellington's army. He only changed

his mind when he learned that his family's property had been confiscated bythe Spanish, and traveled instead to the port city of Cartagena in neighboring

Nueva Granada from where he safely "analyzed" why the First Venezuelan

Republic had failed.


10/12

Perfecting a Strategy

Miranda's clumsy escapade in Venezuela from 1810-12 proved to Great

Britain that it would require a more sophisticated strategy if it were to ensure

the outcome of the Independence Movement. Bolvar was to be the tool of

that strategy.

Bolvar's "Cartagena Manifesto," issued in December 1812, struck the first

ideological blows at the influence of the American Revolution in Venezuela.

Manipulating the acute problems independence had posed for an

economically and culturally backward, largely mestizo population, Bolvar

claimed:

What weakened the Venezuelan government was the federal

form it adopted in keeping with the exaggerated precepts of the

rights of man; this form, by authorizing self-government,disrupts social contracts, and reduces nations to anarchy. . . .

(emphasis added)

Six months later, in June of 1813, Bolvar issued his declaration of a "War to

the Death" shortly before retaking Caracas from the Spanish with the aid of

a newly reconstituted army. The policy was ostensibly aimed at native-born

Spaniards. "Though you be neutral," he told them, "you will die . . . unless

you actively espouse the cause of America's liberation." Americans, "you

will live even if you have trespassed."

The "War to the Death" permitted Bolvar to eliminate any remaining

Spanish persons whose activities threatened British colonial aims. Its real

purpose however was to devastate and plunder the entire region, sowing a

chaos out of which no republican government could ever be erected. At the

head of a Wallenstein's army made up largely of untrained and generally

unpaid peasants and slaves, Bolvar oversaw hideous atrocities, deaths and

pillage of the countryside, inviting similar levels of barbarity from the

Spanish troops.

Two years of marauding by Bolvar's armies reduced Venezuela to ruin. In1816, the consul of Caracas reported that the country had lost between

eighty and one-hundred thousand people in casualties and emigration. The

haciendas of the province were destroyed; livestock was wiped out and the

richest agricultural valleys devastated and emptied of people; peasants and

slaves fled, and merchants sent capital and other valuables out of the

country. Between 1810 and 1815, the population of Caracas decreased from


11/12

32,000 to 11,720. The population of the entire province declined by 50,000

in the same period.

By the middle of 1814, Bolvar's barbarity and incompetence allowed Spain

to retake large portions of Venezuela, and the Liberator and his troops took

refuge in Nueva Granada. Although he sought to repeat his maraudingoperations there, sentiment against him on the part of the population and

military commanders who found his ineptitude and delusions of grandeur

abhorrent, prevented him from applying the War to the Death directly.

In his memoirs, Bolvar's Irish aide de camp Daniel F. O'Leary wrote that "in

Nueva Granada . . . the troops of Venezuela were looked upon with much

envy and not a little aversion. . ." Reports of atrocities Bolvar's troops had

committed in Venezuela "had so deeply offended the constituted authorities,

that the people began to feel justified motives of alarm. . . ."

To try to win military backing and favor for himself, Bolvar entered into the

civil war which had wracked Nueva Granada since 1812. A violent debate

over whether the country should be ruled by a federalist or centralist form of

government manipulated by British agents on both sideshad created

chaos, economic collapse, hatred, and disunity among republican forces.

Bolvar entered the war on the side of the more numerous federalist forces,

which counted among its ranks the outstanding republicans Camilo Torres

and the talented botanist Francisco Jose de Caldas. Torres and other leading

intellectuals had in 1812 declared the independence of the United Provincesof Nueva Granada and had drafted a constitution modeled on that of the

United States.

Insinuating himself into the military leadership of the Federal Union, Bolvar

led its forces against the centralist holdout Santa F de Bogot in December

of 1814. He promised his attack would leave "no royalist alive," but added

"millions of innocent victims will perish. . . . My troops are comparable to,

and even better than the best of Napoleon. Santa Fe shall be a terrifying

sight of desolation and death. I shall bring two thousand firebrands alight to

reduce to embers a city which would be the grave of its liberators."

The Liberator fulfilled his promise. After fierce resistance from Bogota's

population, the federal troops took over the city and looted it savagely for 48

hours. One observer wrote:

The excesses and cruelties committed, particularly against


12/12

females, were horrible, and his troops loaded themselves with

gold, silver, and jewels of every kind . . . when many inhab-

itants of Bogota made him the strongest representation against

such behavior, he replied in an angry tone that he was

authorized by the laws of war to act as he did, because the

inhabitants of the city had resisted his troops, and deserved

punishment.

Flaunting his disdain for scientific and human advancement, the Liberator

sat back while his troops looted and destroyed Bogota's National Observa-

tory, the first of its kind built in South America and a monument to the work

of scientists like Charles III's envoy Celestino Mutis and his protg

Francisco Jos de Caldas. Historian J. M. Restrepo, a contemporary of

Bolvar, commented:

For all the lovers of science, the looting that the invading troops

committed in the Observatory was most painful. The building

suffered very much and the soldiers took away or destroyed the

books, instruments, and invaluable papers contained therein.

On his own behavior, Bolvar pompously reported,

More humane to the people of Cundinamarca [province in

which Bogota is locatedCR] than its own government, I

abstained from what was allowed me by the laws of war on the

major part of the city, occupied by my troops.

(To be continued)

Documents

Simon Bolivar vs American System