357. Liberator of Latin America: Revolutionary Hero Or Dictator? (Part 4)

10:37Anita:And he loves her and he tries to warn her about the dangers to her honour and reputation and she writes back to him. no no no more man no more for god's sake say no more do you think for a moment that after having been the lover of general bolivar for seven years i would choose to be the wife of the father the son or the holy ghost or all three i love him so he's still got it this your hero your bolivar still can weave his magic yeah i wish you wouldn't call him my hero he is the subject of these

11:09William:podcast you'll get quite carried away i should say that this was a subject you've been pushing for some time i think it's interesting what why why do you not why would you not want to know

11:20Anita:about bolivar with all that's going on my goodness i mean it's it sort of seems kind of pivotal to understand the past to understand why latin america and venezuela in particular is where it is so back in 1822 previously on this conversation manuela as well as becoming a lover becomes bolivar's personal archivist and she's sort of like the only one who has access to all of his private papers and she keeps him in order and you know make sure he is where much like olive your wife making sure he turns up to things in time but it also is somebody he bounces his ideas off as well you know sort of strategies invasions he trusts her with his life and in september 1828 that faith in her pays off.

12:04Anita:It's a brilliant story.

12:06William:So again, this is a very movie scene. And we're in the presidential palace in Bogota. It's night, and there are 150 conspirators massing in the courtyards below, waiting to find their opportunity to do in the dictator who's betrayed the revolution. And Manuela, of course, is with him that night. And he's very sick with the fever. He's got tuberculosis. He's not the man he used to be, but she loves him still.

12:36Anita:There's lovely details. He's spending most of this evening with Manuel Epp. He's completely feverish and he's in a cold bath trying to bring his temperature down. And they're just talking. And she's warning him, you know what, I think there's a weird feeling. And he said, yes, yes, it's been so quiet. You know, obviously I've been made, you know, the president dictator. So it must be time for a palace coup. Ha ha ha ha. He's sort of like this bitter, dark laugh. And she says, well, you know, there could be, you know, 10 coups in the offing for all the attention you pay. And, you know, so she's sort of scolding him that he's saying all this, but he's not really taking it seriously.

13:12William:And then they hear dogs barking and the sound of men breaking doors down. And Bolivar grabs his pistol. It's all set, presumably in his nightgown or his towel, possibly, if he's still in his bath, to confront the intruders. No, he's in bed now.

13:27Anita:Well, he's in bed now, but I can't attest to what he was wearing. He's in bed with her.

13:32William:We can just see the scene, though, with his sitting up in bed with his pistol.

13:36Anita:So he leaps up. He wants to grab a gun and go out and confront them. She says, get back, you bloody idiot, and grabs a sword and then unlatches the door. And they can hear from where they are. Long live liberty and death to the tyrant being shouted up and down the corridors. And instead of letting him charge out, Manuela says, for God's sake, don't be an idiot. get out through the bedroom window. And so he does. He sort of climbs out of the window and runs off into the night. And the conspirators, though, burst through the door and they find Manuela. And they've got daggers drawn. They're after him.

14:11Anita:They want to cut him to pieces. They're crowding around her. And she says, he's not here. I'm alone. Get out. Get out. What are you doing here? And then one of them notices that the bed is still warm and sort of holds a dagger to her throat and says, where is he? Where is he? And then she says, he's in another room at the far end of the palace. Go see for yourself. He is not here. So she holds her calm and they run off, try to look for him. And when they realise that she lied, they come back and they beat her with the side of their swords. And she really has serious injuries from this. But Bolivar has escaped and he manages to meet up with his most faithful unit.

14:51William:Is he knotted his sheets together or what's the bedroom window presumably not the first lord?

14:57Anita:Do you know what? This is your movie so why don't you just imagine what happens, Willie? I think he ties a parachute he gets her scarves and he quickly sews them together puts them on his back and jumps and then like, you know sort of one of those Mission Impossibles fans gracefully in front of his no, he's covered in mud and mire because he has to get to his most faithful unit

15:18William:His faithful eunuch or his faithful unit?

15:20Anita:Unit, unit you know, his military army unit.

15:24William:There's no eunuch in this story.

15:25Anita:It's not the Mughal Empire. Different time, different place.

15:28William:Good palaces need a eunuch or two.

15:30Anita:Not in this story. Although in your movie version, eunuch it up, my friend. You can do what you like. The army is still with him and they go back and they try and round up conspirators. A lot of them escape into the night. But it is after this incident that he looks deep into Manuela's eyes and gives her the title that she will be known as for the rest of her life. Do you want to say what it is?

15:55William:Libertadora del Libertador.

15:57Anita:That's it, which translates as the liberator of the liberator. There is another sort of really amazing aspect to this story because people in South America know the story about Manuela saving his life, but not all of them know that she actually hid some of the conspirators afterwards and lied to protect them because she thought they were misled. You know, and she didn't believe in this sort of wholesale execution and killing. She sounds quite a woman. I love her. Anyway, she was asked, you know, why she saved them later on. And she said, I want Bolivar to be loved by all the people of Bogota. I don't want him to be feared as a tyrant.

16:34Anita:And she always believed that mercy was an important quality in a leader. She's a key character. Despite all of this, Bolivar still remains Bolivar. Okay, he's not good enough for us. I don't think so either, actually. He escapes with his life, but he's never the same after this, because it's illness, it's fear, it's having come so close to death, it's the weight of all these ideals.

17:03William:And he's not an old man at this point. He's ill, but he's only in his late 40s.

17:06Anita:Yeah, he's not old. Yeah, you're right. It's the 1830s. But it really feels like he's had enough by this. And he makes this final bitter decision that he's going to step away from power and he's going to go into exile. But even that, Willie, he basically knows he's dying. He hasn't got much time left. and it is only a matter of months later that the end of the Liberator occurs. And the date is December the 17th, 1830. And you can tell us a little more about his death.

17:41William:So on the 17th of December, 1830, in the coastal town of Santa Marta, Colombia, a favourite of our producer, Anushka, Simon Bolivar dies. He's only 47 years old. He's politically disgraced, impoverished, far from his homeland, and he's given an incredibly modest burial. But within a decade, within about 12 years, the whole world has turned around and he's realized posthumously as the founding hero of not one, but several South American nations, which of course he is. and people soon forget his many flaws and his remains are exhumed and transferred to Caracas, Venezuela, where they're interred in the National Pantheon, which is like a sort of les invalides for Venezuela, a site reserved for the country's most revered figures.

18:36William:And Bolivar, controversial today. Let's discuss in a second how we should look at this man and the cross currents in historiography. really people the different attitudes people take it to him today but he is nonetheless you know a basic object of national veneration he's on the banknotes also importantly the subject of one of the great gabriel garcia marquez novels the general in his labyrinth is a fictionalized version of

19:06Anita:bolivar manuela yes i mean sweetly uh marquez has manuela reading to a dying bolivar you know like Like this, you know, the final act of somebody who loves him and is faithful to him in a world that has turned completely against him. But shall I tell you the truth? Manuela wasn't with him when he died. She was forced to stay in Bogota. They kept apart. Kept apart. And they're watching her every move. And when she received the news of his death, she completely has a breakdown. Her political, social life, everything was intertwined with Bolivar's. You know, his death effectively kind of ended her life, as it were.

19:41Anita:She'd lost her love. She'd lost her reason to carry on. And in the years after Bolivar's death, Manuela gets expelled from both Colombia and Ecuador. The new government of Colombia see her as an enemy. She's too closely associated with the Bolivar stink. Ecuador, the leader there, Juan José Flores, bans her from the country and makes really explicitly misogynistic references to her masculine character and her vices. And so she's completely driven out of every place that she has known and fought for. She settles down in Peru, in Paida, a small coastal town in Peru, and tries to rebuild her life, running this small retail business.

20:22Anita:She's importing embroidered cloth. She becomes his godmother to local children. But, could have ended there, but you cannae keep a feisty woman down because she never stops working for the cause. So, you know, remember Flores, who's just being appalling about her when he's in power in Ecuador. She foils plots to spread insurgent propaganda against him. So she's still loyal to the cause and that, you know, these projects post-Spain must succeed. Money is a constant problem for her. She has this, you know, hacienda outside Quito, but she can't trust the caretaker to send her any income. She's the landed elite without any money.

21:05Anita:And at one point, you look in her records and she's forced to call in an informe de Probeza, a declaration of poverty, which means that she's impoverished and the state has to do something for her or she's going to die. And then her health is going down the toilet. She's been badly beaten trying to save Bolivar. So this hip injury recurs. She spends her final years in a wheelchair, unable to walk. And in 1586, Manuela falls desperately ill with diphtheria and she dies at the age of 59. Her death is bad and sad. And her burial is also sad because she had diphtheria. There are all these fears of contagion.

21:46Anita:So she's just thrown into a common grave and her possessions are burned. And she drifts into obscurity.

21:54William:So she dies in obscurity and poverty. Many of her possessions were burnt. she drifts off into obscurity. But she is remembered by my favorite poet, Pablo Neruda, who writes an elegy for her titled The Unburied Woman of Paita, which sums up her story. Oh, the traveler will not find Paita, a sleeping lady. There is no tongue for an obelisk. There's no barrier for the flower. There is no sepulcher for the sacred beauty. Her name is not preserved in wood or under brutal temple storm, she went away. Her essence spread out among the hard core of the desert, and she was lost among sand and boulders. But, Anita, you tell me that in the 21st century, or the late 20th century, she is rehabilitated.

22:43Anita:Well, she is, and it is the Venezuelan government of Hugo or Hugo Chavez that does this, because they exhume what they believe are Manuela's remains from Paita and they take them to Caracas and then rebury them, inter her next to Bolivar's grand tomb in the National Pantheon with great pomp and ceremony. And also sort of Chavez claiming, you know, to be the new Bolivar, if you like, you know, Chavez's new Bolivarian project is very much identified with him. So of course, all honours to both Bolivar and everybody associated with him. By the way, feminists across Latin America come and respect her remains.

23:23Anita:You know, they'd regard her as a founding mother, a freedom fighter in her own right.

23:28William:As well they should.

23:29Anita:Yeah, I know she was pretty damn cool. Let's take a break now. And after the break, let's talk about Bolivar's legacy.

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24:51William:welcome back so anita and i and i'm going to debate bolivar because we're not there's not a huge distance between us but i think we do have slightly different positions you have a much more romanticized view of this young man no i don't very realistic realistic assessment would you ever go for handsome latin fabio from the revolution no it isn't that it's much he's a

25:13Anita:paradox. I mean, all the way along, this man is a complete paradox. So, I'll state my case before you romanticize it beyond any recognition. He is a young, idealistic man who sees that actually the kind of corrupt involvement of Spain in his country and then his entire continent is not good. It is a one-way stream of wealth. Yes, he is like every young man. He has horizons which are quite narrow. He hasn't had very much life experience. And so, it is very much all couched in all of our wealth. Creel, like himself, is going one way. But then to have this vision of actually uniting an entire number of countries in South America and having power and having some heft, we've heard that before.

26:04Anita:But he is also corrupted along the way. He is small-minded. He is paranoid. He's ruthless. And is he a racist? That's the question. Is he a racist?

26:15William:Okay, so let me make the counter case. I would argue that he is full of windy sort of manifestos. And he's on record declaring that the blood of our citizens is varied. Let it be mixed for the sake of unity. But when you actually look at what happened, he keeps the structures of Spanish colonialism completely intact. And your wonderful Marie Arana and also John Lynch, another historian who studied this, very much make the case that this is a revolution for the Creole elite. It's getting rid of the Spanish, but only to replace them by his own people. Born into one of the wealthiest families. And there's a lot of talk about liberating slaves, but it isn't completely done.

26:59William:It's something he could easily have done. He doesn't actually complete this case.

27:02Anita:But he does emancipate any enslaved people who join the cause. And he does do that. From 1816 onwards, he does do that. But you're right. He doesn't dismantle the situation.

27:16William:And he has this dodgy record of executing mulattas. We talked about Padilla earlier. But there's another example, which we haven't discussed yet, which is General Manuel Piar, 1817, this other brilliant general, mixed race. His mother was Afro-Venezuelan and Dutch, who'd won crucial victories that essentially saved Bolivar's campaign. But because he represented something dangerous to the Creole elite, advocated genuine social transformation for power sharing with Mestidos and dismantling the racial hierarchies inherited from Spain, Bolivar has him executed. It's not a good look at all.

28:01Anita:It isn't. But he is quite a cast iron shit to a lot of people. I mean, remember, he hands Miranda over, who is his number two and his brother in arms.

28:10William:He promises himself passage and then hands him over.

28:12Anita:And then hands him over. He also, you know, betrays Santander, his actual, you know, brothers in the revolution. He also, you know, throws him out and alienates him. They were meant to have this shared vision.

28:24William:I think you're coming over to my position there.

28:26Anita:No, it's not a question of coming over to your position. I think you're completely in my position, which is it is a complicated story that you can start off from a position of idealism. And you think he started off completely venal from the start. I'm not sure about that.

28:40William:I'm not saying he's completely venal, but I do think there's a lot of wind and air and windy speeches. In the end, he just looks after his own. And an example of that is his attitude, particularly his attitude to the indigenous and the mixed races. We started the last episode with those wonderful letters from Jamaica and Haiti. And the only free black republic in America gives him crucial help, which gets his whole career going again. But he's terrified by it. And one of his mixed race officers tries to rally black and indigenous support. and Bolivar complains that what they wanted was absolute equality.

29:21William:Next, they will want a padrocracia.

29:24Anita:Or counterfactual. Okay, so I think John Lynch might be the one. And forgive me, John Lynch, if this wasn't you, but it is one historian I respect who says, actually, you know what, there are quieter ways to live a life. So if his wife hadn't have died in his youth, the woman that he loved completely until he meets Manuela, if he had been happily ever after supplying Spain, making money, lots of money, not thinking anything broader about colonialism or about the rights and wrongs of having a master race in your own. He wouldn't have done anything. He was really wealthy. He was well off, but he chooses not to stay in that cushion, but to do something else.

30:06Anita:Now, does he have a blind spot with people of colour? Inexpicably, he absolutely does, even though he's had this Haitian awakening. Because if you are trying to do something on such a grand scale, you know, with the size and landmass and number of people, you know that you are going to need those who hold power in those regions not to stab you in the back and break away. And that is his utter paranoia. That's his paranoia with federation and possibly to give him a little bit of slack. And unless you're saying he's an out and out racist and is therefore deplorable, which is funny. We're all arguing on these sides.

30:41Anita:But if he is thinking that, then can he afford to alienate them in that way when you are building a new nation, Grand Columbia? I don't know. It's just a thought is what I'm saying. I don't think it's as simple.

30:55William:I think the thing we also got to focus in is his complete lack of interest in the indigenous culture and the indigenous people. Yeah, well, that's true.

31:02Anita:I'm not arguing with you about that. That's true.

31:04William:And he writes things like the Indian is of so tranquil a character that all he desires is repose and solitude. He abolished something we didn't discuss. He abolished something called the Indian Tribute, which sounds progressive, but paradoxically it worked against the indigenous because Tribute had at least conferred some claim to communal land.

31:20Anita:Well, it's like the American Revolution in that respect, isn't it? Really, for indigenous people. You know, you have sort of, you know, the indigenous people fighting for the British because they think they'll be better off rather than having Washington and others shrinking their lands and taking their lands and giving them fewer rights.

31:37William:You're absolutely right. And there's similarities, but there's also differences in that sense. So just as Washington and the American founding fathers created a republic based on liberty while maintaining slavery and dispossessing on a massive grand scale Native Americans, we saw that Washington was one of the worst culprits in that. Bolivar, in contrast, creates new nations based on Enlightenment ideals, but preserves the colonial hierarchies. And both revolutions really, I'd argue, were for the propertied elites.

32:10Anita:But I've not and have never argued anything other than that. Your contention was that from the start, he was rapacious and only for his kind.

32:20William:My contention was that you were giving him a very easy pass to begin with.

32:24Anita:Well, I don't know. I don't know. I still think that there is something extraordinary. And we have to remember that all major events, whether they are horrific or decent, are started by people who certainly in their heads think that they can do something better for their people.

32:43William:To argue your case.

32:44Anita:What? You're changing? Are you coming here now? I thought just one thing.

32:48William:It is true. So if we're actually comparing Washington and Bolivar, the US enshrines slavery in its constitution. It's there in the constitution. While Bolivar at least makes an effort towards moving towards the sort of gradual abolition, even if it doesn't get very far. So it's slightly better.

33:08Anita:Okay. Well, I think we're sort of meeting in the fudgy middle.

33:10William:We're meeting in a fudgy way in the middle. In the fudgy middle.

33:14Anita:And also, I think you can get a real look into what a man can do as well because you know man is not a a miracle worker he has to work with what he's got and what he's got is a patchwork of countries that have done things certain way in South America and are pretty unwilling to change them he writes to uh General Flores remember him president of Ecuador who his his paramour Manuela ends up saving even though he is horrifically awful about her he writes a letter, Bolívar, to Flores just a month before he dies. And he summarises his 20 years of leadership with six points of disillusionment. Okay, so this is what he's saying almost on his deathbed.

33:56Anita:America is ungovernable. He who serves a revolution ploughs the sea. All one can do in America is leave it. The country is bound to fall into unimaginable chaos after which it shall pass into the hands of an undistinguishable string of tyrants of every colour. And when he says America, he's talking about South America. Once we are devoured by all manner of crime and reduced to a frenzy of violence, no one, not even the Europeans will want to subjugate us. And finally, if mankind could revert to its primitive state, it would be here in South America in her final hour. So it's a really devastating assessment of what one man can do.

34:36Anita:And it's actually quite prophetic. I mean, it's not wrong, is he? Because the countries that Bolivar liberated, many of them did fall into chaos, ruled by a string of tyrants and military strongmen and populist demagogues and corrupt oligarchs and with people suffering beneath them. I did a little thing of sums here. So there have been 60 military dictatorships in various Latin American countries during the 20th century alone.

35:07William:Can you say that Bolivar is the kind of prototype of all these South American strongmen?

35:14Anita:I think you can a bit, actually, because there is this very Latin American concept of caudismo, which is like a string of militaristic strongmen who govern these parts of Latin America since independence, that they will not be questioned. They will not be argued with. And democracy is a bit of a hindrance to that. Marquez says as much in his novel. And look at all of the people who followed, right? They emulate that idea of you need to be a strong man. President, liberator, not just liberator, you know? And like I said, 60 military dictatorships in Latin America during the 20th century. That number tells you as much as you need to know.

36:01William:And Chavez is absolutely in this mold, isn't he? He himself is a military officer, highly centered around that personal macho brand. And he renames Venezuela the Bolivarian Republic. That's right. He's absolutely consciously invoking the name of Bolivar to do what he wants to do.

36:23Anita:Absolutely right. You know, and the fact that, you know, he wants the tomb to be cleaned and Manuela to be put by his side. And he talks about Bolivar a lot during his autocracy in Venezuela. All of that lends itself. It is a strange and it's a checkered legacy, I think.

36:47William:Have you been following, Anita, closely what's going on in Venezuela now? How far can we blame or not Bolivar for the mess at the moment?

36:56Anita:Well, I mean, you could say that actually a lack of accountability and democracy is the death knell eventually of any civilization. I certainly think so. Maduro also, you know, more recently, Maduro, he's gone missing, oh, America's got him fame. He claimed to follow Bolivarian principles. You know, he says, actually, that's what we are. We are Bolivar, sons of Bolivar. And hyperinflation under Chavez rendered the currency worthless. You know, you saw contraction of GDP, you saw malnutrition, hospitals, you know, struggling.

37:31William:Seven million Venezuelans fleeing, yeah.

37:34Anita:I was just going to say, fleeing the country since 2014. A quarter of the population, William.

37:39William:Despite this absolutely massive oil reserves, one of the very, very largest oil reserves in the world.

37:45Anita:What he wrote actually was interesting is Bolivar said, you know, we will be such a disaster zone that no European is going to want us. What he didn't reckon on was the oil reserves and the fact that America wants those very, very much. You know, here we are right now. You know, we've sort of got a new imperialism. Of a new imperialism because actually what happened was not great. so if you don't have a strong country with a strong sense of itself and you have these you know dictators who are in charge it is easier for somebody like trump to say look at me i am the liberator i'm the liberator also you've got oil i'm quite interested in but i'm liberating you but also you've got the oil that you're not using and i'm the liberate you know all of that and and

38:29William:the kind of naked way in which the u.s has just said it's going to take over the oil reserves in Venezuela and use it. I mean, that's the return of the Spanish and everything that Bolivar fought against is back again. So it's a sad ending to the story. But anyway, history goes on.

38:50Anita:Very, very, very sad. I mean, you've got, you know, not even sort of hiding it. You know, you've got sort of US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, in Venezuela talking about how they're going to extract all this oil and use it.

39:03William:An extraordinary naked, naked way. turning our podcast, which we always thought of as a history podcast, into sort of current affairs podcast now. Colonialism empires are back.

39:15Anita:Well, it's an ongoing story. As we said to lovely Daniel Imavar, who talked about America's hidden empire. Ain't so hidden anymore. Maybe you need to retitle and add a few chapters. It's a little out of date. Until the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me, William Derimple.

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