At that time the Magdalena River interested me more than the glories of the central character. I began to know it as a child, traveling from the Caribbean coast, where I had the good fortune to be born, to the distant, fogbound city of Bogota, where, from my first visit, I felt more of an outsider than in any other city in the world. As a student I sailed the river eleven times in both directions, traveling on steamboats that came out of the shipyards of the Mississippi already condemned to nostalgia and possessed of a mythic call that no writer could resist.
On the other hand, I was not particularly troubled by the question of historical accuracy, since the last voyage along the river is the least documented period in Bolivar's life. During this time he wrote only three or four letters--a man who must have dictated over ten thousand--and none of his companions left a written memoir of those fourteen calamitous days. Nevertheless, beginning with the first chapter, I had to do occasional research concerning the way he lived, and that research referred me to other sources, and then to more and more until I was overwhelmed. I spent two long years sinking into the quicksands of voluminous, contradictory, and often uncertain documentation, from the thirty-four volumes by Daniel Florencio O'Leary to articles in the most unexpected newspapers. My absolute lack of experience and method in historical research made my days even more arduous.
This book would not have been possible without the help of those who threshed the same ground for a century and a half before me and made my literary audacity easier: I would recount a tyrannically documented life without renouncing the extravagant prerogatives of the novel. But my thanks go in a very special way to a group of friends, old and new, who took as their own affair, and one of the utmost importance, not only my most serious questions, such as the real nature of Bolivar's political thought amid all his flagrant contradictions, but also the most trivial, such as the size of his shoes. Nevertheless, I value most the indulgence of those who, through abominable oversight, do not find themselves included in this grateful accounting.
The Colombian historian Eugenio Gutierrez Celys, in response to many pages of questions, prepared a card file for me that not only provided surprising information--much of it buried in nineteenth-century Colombian newspapers--but also gave me my first inkling of a method for investigating and ordering facts. Furthermore, his book, Bolivar Dia a Dia [Bolivar Day by Day], coauthored with the historian Fabio Puyo, was a navigational chart while I was writing, which allowed me to move with ease through all the periods in the character's life. This same Fabio Puyo had the ability to soothe my distress with analgesic documents, which he read to me on the telephone from Paris or sent to me with all urgency by telex or telefax, as if they were life-or-death medicines. The Colombian historian Gustavo Vargas, a professor at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, stayed within reach of my telephone to clarify major and minor doubts, above all those related to the political ideas of the period. Vinicio Romero Martinez, the biographer of Bolivar, helped me from Caracas with discoveries that seemed incredible regarding Bolivar's private habits--his vulgar language in particular--and the nature and fate of his entourage and, in the final version, with an implacable review of historical data. To him I owe the providential warning that Bolivar could not eat mangos with the childish delight I had attributed to him, for the simple reason that the mango would not reach the Americas for another few years.
Jorge Eduardo Ritter, Ambassador of Panama to Colombia and then Foreign Minister of his country, made several urgent plane trips just to bring me books of his that could not be found elsewhere. Don Francisco de Abrisqueta, of Bogota, was a persevering guide through the intricate and vast Bolivarian bibliography. Ex-President Belisario Betancur clarified doubts throughout an entire year of telephone consultations and established that some verses Bolivar recited from memory were by the Ecuadorian poet Jose Joaquin Olmedo. With Francisco Pividal in Havana I held the long preliminary conversations that permitted me to form a clear idea of the book I should write. Roberto Cadavid (Argos), the most popular and accommodating linguist in Colombia, did me the favor of investigating the significance and age of various localisms. At my request the geographer Gladstone Oliva and the astronomer Jorge Perez Doval, of the Academy of Sciences in Cuba, made an inventory of nights when the moon was full during the first thirty years of the last century.
From his Colombian embassy in Puerto Principe my old friend Anibal Noguera Mendoza sent me copies of his personal papers and his generous permission to use them with absolute liberty, although they were notes and first drafts of a study he is writing on the same subject. Moreover, in the first draft of the manuscript, he discovered half a dozen mortal fallacies and suicidal anachronisms that would have cast doubts on the exactitude of this novel.
Finally, Antonio Bolivar Goyanes--a distant relative of the protagonist and perhaps the last old-fashioned typesetter left in Mexico--had the kindness to revise seven different versions of the manuscript with me in a millimeter-by-millimeter hunt for contradictions, repetitions, irrelevancies, mistakes, and typographical errors, and in a pitiless examination of language and spelling. In this way we surprised in flagrante a soldier who won battles before he was born, a widow who went to Europe with her beloved husband, and an intimate luncheon for Bolivar and Sucre in Bogota when one was in Caracas and the other in Quito. Nevertheless, I am not very certain I should give thanks for these two final pieces of assistance, for it seems to me that such absurdities might have added a few drops of involuntary--and perhaps desirable--humor to the horror of this book.
G.G.M.
Mexico City, January 1989
Brief Chronology: Simon Bolivar
(PREPARED BY VINICIO ROMERO MARTINEZ)
1783 July 24: birth of Simon Bolivar.
1786 January 19: death of Juan Vicente Bolivar, Simon's father.
1792 July 6: death of Dona Maria de la Concepcion Palacios y Blanco, Bolivar's mother.
1795 Bolivar leaves his uncle's house. A lengthy lawsuit is begun, and he is moved to the house of his tutor, Simon Rodriguez. In October he returns to the house of his uncle, Carlos.
1797 The Gual and Espana conspiracy in Venezuela. Bolivar joins the militia as a cadet in Valles de Aragua.
1797-1798 Andres Bellos gives him lessons in grammar and geography. At this time he also studies physics and mathematics, both at home and at the academy established by Father Francisco de Andujar.
1799 January 19: he travels to Spain, making stops in Mexico and Cuba. In Veracruz he writes his first letter.
1799-1800 In Madrid he comes into contact with the Marquis de Ustariz, the scholar who was his true intellectual mentor.
1801 Between March and December he studies French in Bilbao.
1802 February 12: in Amiens, France, he admires Napoleon Bonaparte. He is enraptured by Paris.
May 26: he marries Maria Teresa Rodriguez del Toro in Madrid.
July 12: he arrives in Venezuela with his wife. He dedicates himself to caring for his estates.
1803 January 22: Maria Teresa dies in Caracas.
October 23: he returns to Spain.
1804 December 2: he witnesses the coronation of Napoleon in Paris.
1805 August 15: the vow on Monte Sacro, Rome.
December 27: he is initiated as a Mason of the Scottish rite in Paris. In January 1806, he rises to the degree of master.
1807 January 1: he lands in Charleston (U.S.A.). He visits several cities in that country, and in June he returns to Caracas.
1810 April 18: he is confined to his hacienda at Aragua; for this reason he does not participate in the events of April 19, the first day of the Venezuelan revolution.
June 9: he leaves on a diplomatic mission to London. Here he meets Francisco de Miranda.
December 5: he returns from London. Five days later Miranda arrives in Caracas and is a guest in Simon Bolivar's house.
1811 March 2: the first Congress of Venezuela meets.
July 4: Bolivar's speech at the Patriotic Society.
/> July 5: Declaration of Venezuelan Independence.
July 23: Bolivar fights in Valencia under Miranda's command. It is his first experience of war.
1812 March 26: earthquake in Caracas.
July 6: Colonel Simon Bolivar loses the castle at Puerto Cabello as a result of treason.
July 30: together with other officers, he captures Miranda to bring him to military trial, thinking him a traitor for having signed the surrender. Manuel Maria Casas takes the illustrious prisoner from them and turns him over to the Spanish.
September 1: he arrives in Curacao, his first exile.
December 15: the Cartagena Manifesto is published in New Granada.
December 24: with the occupation of Tenerife, Bolivar begins the Magdalena River campaign, which will clear the entire region of royalists.
1813 February 28: the battle of Cucuta.
March 1: he occupies San Antonio del Tachira.
March 12: he is promoted to brigadier general of New Granada.
May 14: he begins the Admirable Campaign in Cucuta.
May 23: he is acclaimed as Liberator in Merida.
June 15: he issues the Proclamation of War to the Death in Trujillo.
August 6: his triumphant entry into Caracas. End of the Admirable Campaign.
October 14: the Municipal Council of Caracas, in public assembly, acclaims Bolivar as Captain General and Liberator.
December 5: the battle of Araure.
1814 February 8: he orders the execution of prisoners in La Guayra.
February 12: the battle of La Victoria.
February 28: the battle of San Mateo.
May 28: the first battle of Carabobo.
July 7: some twenty thousand Caracans, with The Liberator at their head, begin the migration to Oriente.
September 4: Ribas and Piar, who have proscribed Bolivar and Marino, order their arrest in Carupano.
September 7: Bolivar issues his Carupano Manifesto and, ignoring the arrest order, sails the next day for Cartagena.
November 27: the government of New Granada promotes him to General in Chief, with the responsibility for reconquering the State of Cundinamarca. He undertakes the campaign that ends with the fall of Bogota.
December 12: he establishes a government in Bogota.
1815 May 10: in his attempt to liberate Venezuela, invading through Cartagena, he encounters serious opposition from the city's authorities and decides to sail for Jamaica in voluntary exile.
September 6: he publishes the celebrated Jamaica Letter.
December 24: he lands in Los Cayos, Haiti, where he meets with his friend Luis Brion, a mariner from Curacao. In Haiti he has an interview with President Petion, who will offer him invaluable cooperation.
1816 March 31: the so-called Los Cayos expedition leaves Haiti. Luis Brion is with them.
June 2: he decrees the emancipation of the slaves in Carupano.
1817 February 9: Bolivar and Bermudez are reconciled and embrace on the bridge over the Neveri River (Barcelona).
April 11: the battle of San Felix, which is liberated by Piar. The liberation of Angostura, the control of the Orinoco River, and the definitive stabilization of the (Third) Republic are achieved.
May 8: a congress convened by Canon Jose Cortes Madariaga meets in Cariaco. This insignificant Cariaco Congress ends in failure, although two of its decrees are still in effect: the seven stars in the national flag and the name Estado Nueva Esparta [State of New Sparta] for the island of Margarita.
May 12: he promotes Piar to General in Chief.
June 19: he writes to Piar in a conciliatory tone: "General, I prefer combat with the Spanish to these disagreements between patriots."
July 4: in Casacoima Lagoon, hiding in water up to his neck to escape a royalist ambush, he begins a discourse to his astonished officers in which he predicts what he will do from the conquest of Angostura to the liberation of Peru.
October 16: the execution by firing squad of General Piar in Angostura. Luis Brion presides over the court-martial.
1818 January 30: his first meeting with Paez, the leader of Los Llanos, in the hut at Canafistula, Apure.
February 12: Bolivar defeats Morillo at Calabozo.
June 27: he founds the Orinoco mail service in Angostura.
1819 February 15: he installs the Congress of Angostura and gives the celebrated speech of that name. He is elected President of Venezuela. He immediately begins the campaign for the liberation of New Granada.
August 7: the battle of Boyaca.
December 17: Bolivar creates the Republic of Colombia, divided into three departments: Venezuela, Cundinamarca, and Quito. The Congress elects him President of Colombia.
1820 January 11: in San Juan de Payara, Apure.
March 5: in Bogota.
April 19: in San Cristobal he celebrates the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the revolution.
November 27: he meets with Pablo Morillo in Santa Ana, Trujillo. The previous day he ratifies the armistice and the treaty regularizing the war.
1821 January 5: in Bogota, planning the campaign of the south, which he will entrust to Sucre.
February 14: he congratulates Rafael Urdaneta for having declared the independence of Maracaibo, although he expresses the fear that Spain may consider it an act of bad faith, to the detriment of the armistice.
April 17: in a proclamation, he announces the breaking of the armistice and the beginning of a "holy war": "The battle will be to disarm the adversary, not to destroy him."
April 28: hostilities break out again.
June 27: Bolivar defeats La Torre at Carabobo. Although it is not the final battle, at Carabobo he assures the independence of Venezuela.
1822 April 7: the battle of Bombona.
May 24: the battle of Pichincha.
June 16: he meets Manuelita Saenz in Quito when he makes his triumphal entry into the city at the side of Sucre.
July 11: Bolivar arrives in Guayaquil. Two days later he declares its incorporation into Colombia.
July 26-27: Bolivar and San Martin meet in Guayaquil.
October 13: he writes "Mi delirio sobre el Chimborazo" [My Rapture at El Chimborazo] in Loja, near Cuenca, Ecuador.
1823 March 1: Riva Aguero, the President of Peru, asks The Liberator for four thousand soldiers and the assistance of Colombia to achieve independence. Bolivar sends the first contingent of three thousand men on March 17 and another three thousand on April 12.
May 14: the Congress of Peru issues a decree in which it calls on The Liberator to end the civil war.
September 1: Bolivar arrives in Lima, Peru. The Congress authorizes him to subdue Riva Aguero, who has rebelled in favor of the Spanish.
1824 January 1: he is ill when he arrives in Pativilca.
January 12: he decrees the death penalty for anyone robbing the public treasury of more than ten pesos.
January 19: a beautiful letter to his tutor, Simon Rodriguez: "You educated my heart to liberty, to justice, to greatness, to beauty."
February 10: the Congress of Peru names him dictator so he can save the Republic, which is in ruins.
August 6: the battle of Junin.
December 5: Bolivar liberates Lima.
December 7: he convokes the Congress of Panama.
December 9: Sucre's victory at Ayacucho. All of Spanish America is free.
1825 England recognizes the independence of the new American states.
February 12: the Congress of Peru, in gratitude, decrees honors for The Liberator: a medal, an equestrian statue, a million pesos for him and another million for the liberating army. Bolivar refuses the money offered him by the Congress but accepts the sum intended for his soldiers.
February 18: the Congress of Peru does not accept his renunciation of the presidency with unlimited powers.
August 6: an assembly, meeting in Chuquisaca, Alto Peru, decides to create the Republic of Bolivia.
October 26: in Cerro de Potosi.
December 25:
in Chuquisaca he decrees the planting of a million trees, "wherever there is greatest need for them."
1826 May 25: from Lima he informs Sucre that Peru has recognized the Republic of Bolivia. At the same time he sends him his plan for the Bolivian Constitution.
June 22: the Congress of Panama is installed.
December 16: he arrives in Maracaibo, where he makes the offer to Venezuela to convoke the great convention.
December 31: he arrives in Puerto Cabello in search of Paez.
1827 January 1: he decrees amnesty for those responsible for La Cosiata. He ratifies Paez as supreme commander of Venezuela.
January 1: he writes to Paez from Puerto Cabello: "I cannot divide the Republic; but I want you for the good of Venezuela, and it will be done in the general assembly if that is Venezuela's desire."
January 4: in Naguanagua, near Valencia, he meets with Paez and offers his support. Previously he had told the Congress of Bogota that it had "the right to resist injustice with justice, and the abuse of power with disobedience." This angers Santander, who nurtures his dissatisfaction with The Liberator.
January 12: he arrives in Caracas with Paez, to the cheers of the people.
February 5: from Caracas he sends the Congress of Bogota another renunciation of the presidency, with a dramatic exposition of his reasons, which ends: "With these feelings I renounce the presidency of the republic once, a thousand, a million times ..."
March 16: he breaks definitively with Santander: "Do not write to me again, because I do not wish to answer you or call you friend."
June 6: the Congress of Colombia rejects Bolivar's renunciation and demands that he go to Bogota to take the oath of office.
July 5: he leaves Caracas for Bogota. He will not visit his native city again.
September 10: he arrives in Bogota and takes the oath of office as President of the Republic, facing fierce political opposition.
September 11: letter to Tomas de Heres: "Yesterday I entered this capital and am now in possession of the presidency. This was necessary: many evils are avoided in exchange for infinite difficulties."
1828 April 10: in Bucaramanga during the Ocana Convention, where the Bolivarist and Santanderist parties are clearly defined. Bolivar registers his protest to the convention at the "expression of gratitude directed to General Padilla for his assassination attempts in Cartagena."