You're Dead to Me - Simón Bolívar (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Greg Jenner is joined by historian Dr Francisco Eissa-Barroso and comedian Katie Green to learn all about the complicated life and legacy of 19th-century South American revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar. Bolívar liberated six modern countries from Spanish colonial rule, but also had himself appointed president for life, and argued that popular elections had led to the failure of earlier revolutions. Taking in Bolívar’s political philosophy, scandalous personal relationships, and constant military struggles to liberate and unify South America, this episode explores the life, times, and legend of this complex man.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Roxy Moore Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Caitlin Hobbs Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse

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Hello and welcome to your dead to me the radio for comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are gathering our troops and quick marching back to 19th century South America to learn all about revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar and to help us we have two very special comrades in arms in history corner he's a senior lecturer in Latin American history at the University of Manchester specializing in the political social and military history of early modern Spanish America and the broader Spanish world you may have read his book the Spanish monarchy and the creation of the vice royalty of new granada it's dr francisco Acer Barroso. Welcome Frank.

Dr. Francisco Acer Barroso Thanks Greg, great to be here. Dr. Frank Baroso And in Comedy Corner, she's a rising star on both sides of the Atlantic. She's been featured in HBO's Women in Comedy Festival, LaughFest, the San Diego Comedy Festival and she was a funny women finalist in 2020. Maybe you saw her in Edinburgh Fringe last year or caught her on TV's Comedy Central Live. It's the wonderful Katie Green. Welcome to the show Katie. Katie Green Hi, thank you for having me. Katie, your first time on the podcast.

You have a master's degree in Latin American studies, is that right? I do, but I'm not good at retaining knowledge, so that makes history very difficult for me. And what about Simon Bolivar? Does the name ring a bell? Do you know anything about him? I know some things. Good things, bad things? I know some good things, I know some bad things. This feels like gossip now. If anything's framed as gossip, then I know. What do you know about him? Oh, he messed around. He did. The Liberator. So he liberated most countries in South America.

So, what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subjects. And unless you are listening from South America, I'm guessing you probably recognize the name Bolivar. You may even know that there's a country named after him, of course Bolivia, but you might not know why. He's the central character in Gabriel García Márquez's novel The General in his Labyrinth. There are many TV and movie adaptations of him, Spanish language adaptations. There's the 2013 film The Liberator, and yes, spoiler alert, he liberated six countries from Spanish imperial rule. But how did a revolutionary hero end up as a dictator? Let's find out, shall we? Dr. Frank, can we start at the beginning?

What's his family situation? Is he kind of a plucky upstart street urchin or is he pretty comfortable? Simon José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios. That's a name for you. What a name. So he was born in Caracas, Venezuela on the 24th of July 1783 to Juan Vicente Bolivar y Ponte and Maria de la Concepción, Palacios y Blanco. He had two older sisters and an older brother and his parents had been married in 1773 when his mother was 14 and his father 46. Oh no, that's a terrible age gap.

That's pretty gross. Yeah. Okay, so problematic marriage, klaxon honked straight away into the episode. And for listeners, Venezuela is on the northern point of South America, isn't it? It's up on the Caribbean coast. But Venezuela is part of Spain, or at least the Spanish Empire, Frank. Yes, exactly. So the Spanish first came in contact with what we now call Venezuela in the 1490s, and shortly afterwards it became part of the Spanish Empire. By the 18th century,

Venezuela society was highly racialized and split into various groups, including peninsular Spaniards, white people born in Spain, Creoles were white people descended from Spaniards but born in Venezuela, usually upper class and wealthy, Blancos de Orilla, or poor whites, often immigrants from the Canary Islands, mixed race Pardos, black enslaved and free people, and indigenous groups. And the Bolivar family were Creoles

and were very, very wealthy members of the Venezuelan elite. In fact, Bolivar's dad was probably one of the 14 richest men in Venezuela. Okay, so not a street urchin then. How do you imagine his childhood, Simon Bolivar? Well, didn't his dad die when he was really young though? Oh. His dad died when he was really young though. I read a biography but only about 11 pages. So I think I've gotten to that point. You're right, his dad did die young. Born into great wealth but it's a very tragic childhood for Simon Bolivar.

He loses not just one parent but both. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Both his parents had succumbed to tuberculosis by the time Bolivar. He loses not just one parent but both. Yeah, that's absolutely right. Both his parents had succumbed to tuberculosis by the time Bolivar was nine. And then, Katie, he did a classic posh boy thing. What do posh 16-year-old boys do, well, maybe slightly older, do when they leave home, usually here in Britain? They get girls pregnant. No, I don't know. They might do. I don't know.

They go to Spain? They do. He went on a gap year to Spain. He went to Madrid in 1799, spent a lot of money there, lived very decadently. I'm not sure if there's a pregnancy. I think there's a holiday romance though, Frank, isn't there? Yes, there is, although it all ended in tragedy. So in 1800, at the age of 17, Bolívar first laid eyes on Maria Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaiza, and it was love at first sight. They were married in San Sebastián, in the Basque Country, on the 26th of May, 1802, and three weeks later, they set sail for Caracas. But their happiness was actually quite short-lived.

On the 22nd of January, 1803, just six months after their arrival in South America, Maria Teresa died from yellow fever. He's lost both his parents by nine. He moves on, finds a beautiful young woman, marries her and loses her at 20. Also he's still, is it true that he never married again, but he's still, he's still got with lots of girls. It's the heartbreak, you know. All right, well the heartbreak.

Okay. I don't know. I'm taking the sympathetic route. You're clearly going on a slightly more cynical route, but that's okay. I don't trust him. Okay. All right. Already we've got a point of view on him.

He goes on another gap here, Frank. In his early 20s, he comes this time to Paris and France, which of course, at this point in history, there's just been the French Revolution, Katie, there's been political violence, there's been guillotinings. He's suddenly in amongst a real moment in time, Frank. Yes. And at least later on, Bolibar claimed that during this time in Paris, he had a kind of political awakening and quickly came to believe in the need for independence, for liberty, equality, republicanism and centralised government. He's reading a lot. He's reading philosophers, he's reading writers, he's getting deep into the kind of political tension of the day. But he's also in France during the rise of a superstar. Do you know who the political superstar is in 1804, Katie? Napoleon?

Yeah, it is Napoleon, very good. I think that was on page 11. Now I think I'm done with all my knowledge. Yeah, so on the 2nd of December 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor of France. Young Bolivar, age 21, 22, do you think he's a fan of Napoleon? Wasn't he a fan and then he didn't like him anymore because he wasn't good? You do know stuff. I mean, Frank, Simon Bolivar, he's seeing Napoleon come to power, but is

he impressed by this former army man who's taken power? To me, no. What we know from Bolivar's own writing, to what extent this is written ex post factor to build an image, we don't know. But what he says is that he's both impressed and repelled by Napoleon, that he's quite impressed by his achievements, especially as a military commander. But at the same time, he claims to be repelled by his compromises and his method of ruling. And having left Paris, Katie, do you want to guess where he goes next, Simon Bolivar?

It's another European destination. Is it a new place? It's a new place. Okay, so he's doing a little Euro trip now. He is. Italy? Yes, very good. Look at you.

Oh wow, I was just thinking what I would do. You're getting in his mindset. Yeah, he goes to Rome, where he meets none other than the Pope. How old is he now? About 22, 23 I think. He's pretty young. He's not impressed. What Pope is this? This is Pope Pius VII. Oh, not impressive.

Not even in your top 20. No, No. Frank, I'm quite surprised that Simon Bolivar not impressed by the Pope. Why is this? So Bolivar, by this point, is more or less an atheist, or at least very critical of the role of the Catholic Church in Spanish control of Spanish America. But Rome, however, had a transformative impact in Bolivar's life in another way. Inspired by the ancient city and its glorious history, Bolivar apparently made a vow. He said more or less these, right?

I swear before you, I swear before the God of my fathers, I swear by my fathers, I swear by my honor, I swear by my country that I will not rest body or soul until I have broken the chains with which Spanish power oppresses us." Well, Simon Bolivar, he makes his vow in 1805 in Rome, decides that he's going to commit himself to independence. And so they sailed back to Venezuela in 1806. But sounds like his revolutionary fervour doesn't really go anywhere initially. Yeah. So initially there's very little anti-Spanish support in Venezuela. However, everything changed

when Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1808, forcing the abdication of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty. Shocked by the news, both colonial authorities and leading local elites in Venezuela reject the new French rulers. They create a temporary loyalist ruling union of officials and leading local citizens, which very much parallels the Junta movement in Spain, which witnessed the emergence of local committees to control local government in the name of the Spanish king and to organize the resistance against French rule.

And the group gradually gathered more and more support from the Creole elite, so that on 5th July, 1811, Caracas proclaimed its independence. But it doesn't really last very long, Frank, does it? No, not quite. So Venezuela's first Republican constitution split society into two classes. On the one hand, you had the property-owning voters,

and then you had everybody else. Racial segregation and slavery also remained as part of this first Venezuelan Republic, although the slave trade was technically abolished. So in response to this segregation the Pardos and black population rose up against the Creole elite. And then on 26 March 1812, as people gathered in the churches for Monday to Thursday, a massive earthquake hit Venezuela. The clergy proclaimed that this was God's way of punishing Venezuelan society for the revolution. And the proclamation was actually strengthened when a second earthquake struck the city on the 4th of April.

So in the aftermath of these earthquakes, the Republic itself collapsed with Bolívar fleeing to Cartagena de Indias in what is now Colombia, but was at the time the kingdom of New Granada. And here he spent his time writing a manifesto addressed to the government of New Granada explaining all the reasons why he thought the revolution in Venezuela had failed. His four reasons are religious fanaticism, popular elections, federalism and factional fighting and financial mismanagement.

What did he think caused the earthquake? Was it not God? He's an atheist, I guess. I feel like if I was an atheist and there was two earthquakes, I'd go back to the Pope. I'd be like, sorry, I was rude before. He has not abandoned his principles, or at least not abandoned his vow that he made in Rome. In May 1813, he recruited several hundred soldiers. He returned to Venezuela, Katie. He tries again.

So, Bolívar advanced quite quickly through his homeland, first taking Merida, Trujillo, Barquisimento and Valencia in short succession. And in fact, it's this quick series of victories that earned him the nickname of the Liberator, a name which followed him until, or follows him until today. But the war at this stage was absolutely brutal, with atrocities carried out by both sides. The military campaign only lasts for about three months and on the 6th of August of 1813 he rides into Caracas bathed in glory. In fact, he was greeted by a group of young women all dressed in white who crowned him with laurels and gave him flowers as he's

dismounting from his horse. Katie, you were shaking your head for much of that. Women. We just love a hero. My God. Wow, that's just all these women. I can't imagine his ego. All these ladies in white greeting him with laurels and flowers. And it's at this point when he becomes a dictator, Simon Bolivar. What is his justification for saying, right, I'm the new boss, but I'm not a king, I'm not an emperor, I'm something else. So Bolivar at this point kind of envisages Venezuela or starts to envisage Venezuela as part of a larger country, which would also incorporate new Granada. And this is the beginning of what he would later on call the Gran Colombia, an independent,

unified South American state, which would all have independent militaries, but which in Bolivar's view should have a unified central government. So on the 2nd of January 1814, a representative assembly gathered in Caracas and granted him supreme power with the title of dictator, but it wasn't meant to be a permanent thing. At that time, he also wrote that wholly representative institutions were not suited to the character, customs and present knowledge of the people of Venezuela. So he wanted to concentrate power in himself until people learned how to be free. You can't be trusted to have a political system. I'll do it. It's slightly cynical.

I'm wondering about this guy. So the Gran Colombia, he wants a unified South America, but each region having its own army is quite surprising to me. It had a lot also to do with the vast expanse of northern South America and the time it would take to send commands from one place to another. I think that sounds smart. I think I might be one of those girls in white now. I might get some flowers. Get the Laurel crown, you're back on board. Yeah, this is innovative stuff going on over here. He's a dictator, he's established himself, he's got this big grand vision.

Is it going to hold? Does it last? Well, sadly, no. Within about a month, he has to execute 800 rebels in Caracas. And this pretty much triggers a counterrevolution led by José Tomás Boves, a violent, white, pro-Spanish royalist. Bóvez actually promised his black and Pardo followers that they would get white Creole property if they ousted Bolívar.

So by August, it's clear that Bóvez was unstoppable, and on the 26th, Bolívar sailed to the island of Margarita, taking with him silver and jewels from the churches of Caracas, in an attempt to raise capital for what would be a counter-attack. While he's in Margarita, however, Bolívar is declared an outlaw and he's forced to flee again, this time going to Jamaica in May 1815. Meanwhile, in Spain, King Ferdinand VII has been returned to power, and in February 1815, he dispatched an army to reestablish his South American colonies. These expeditions were mostly successful, and so by October 1816, the Spanish have basically reconquered Venezuela

entirely. Whoa! We had independence for about one month and then a civil war and now suddenly the Spanish are back. They come back in such a short amount of time. So we're halfway through the podcast already. We've had one revolution failed. The second one fails when the Spanish show up again, the empire strikes back.

So we're now onto the threequel, Third Time Lucky. He's gonna try again, again, but this story nearly begins in disaster because an assassin comes to kill him, Katie, and he escapes with his life. Do you know how he escapes? He's getting more attractive, I'm so sorry. Wow, this is becoming.

How does he escape? Now, I think I did try to watch some of the series Bolivar, but I've also started rewatching Doctor Who, and it's all kind of mixing together. And I'd like to say he went in the TARDIS, but I don't think, I think I'm mixing the two. No, he doesn't escape in the TARDIS. He gets lucky.

Basically, the assassin kills the wrong guy. The assassin kills his friend. His friend Felix is sleeping in his hammock. And so the assassin comes and murders who he thinks is Bolivar, but it's actually Felix. Oh, poor Felix. Poor Felix. Bolivar now hits upon a new strategy. He's going to liberate new Granada first. And that involves attacking over the Andes mountains. That sounds hard, Frank. How do you go over the mountains to attack? So between 1817 and 1819, Bolívar gradually made military progress in eastern and southern Venezuela, but he's entirely unable to break the Spanish occupation of the center north

of the province. So he makes a plan to lure the Spanish out by taking Nucronara first. So he set out with an army of about 2,100 men on 27th May 1819, but unfortunately they hit the rainy season. So for weeks his men marched through the Amazon rainforest in waist-deep water. After this, then they faced the mountainous Andes in freezing rain. Then the surviving soldiers met and defeated the royalist forces in battle on the 25th of July at Pantano de Vargas, already in New Granada. Then Victorious Bolivar then intercepted and overwhelmed a retreating enemy at the infamous Battle of Boyacá on the banks of the Boyacá River on the 7th of August, 1819.

On the 10th, Bolivar rode into Bogotá to cheering crowds where once again the young women dressed in white presented him with a crown of laurels. So New Granada, we're talking Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and where else? Modern day Colombia basically. Okay. So he has this great success, the Battle of Boyacá, which is his great win, and returns to Venezuela, Frank, and holds a congress and Bolivar is trying to assert himself now. So what does this now mean?

Has he established his Gran Colombia? Yes, exactly. So at Angostura in Venezuela, he held a congress which on the 17th of December, 1819, announced the creation of the Republic of Gran Colombia, which would include Venezuela, Nogrenara and Quito, what is now Ecuador, which hadn't been liberated yet, but which would soon be freed by Bolivar and his general Sucre. Bolivar was named president of Gran Colombia. He then reentered Caracas on the 29th of June, 1821, after an absence of about seven years.

And in the following months, the last pockets of royalist resistance were defeated and Venezuela was at last independent. And who greeted him on the way in, Katie? Women in white. Women in white, absolutely. Bonivar's life is enormous. But Frank, we have now Peru next on his agenda.

Yes. So after Quito Bolívar turned his attention to Peru, which was kind of already in revolt. He was named dictator of Peru in 1824. He then set his sights on Upper Peru, what we now call Bolivia. And his second-in-command, General Sucre, was quickly victorious against the last remnants of Spanish rule. And Bolívar in turn was named supreme executive leader, basically dictator, and he then drafted the Bolivian constitution of 1826, which in many ways was the apex of his political ideas. But it's now that he meets another beautiful woman, Katie, can you believe it? Yes.

And she's called Manuela Sainz. She's young, she's beautiful. Aren't they all? But she's also clever and talented and educated and already a spy for the revolution and a courier For the revolution she delivers secret messages. Oh So now it's getting spicy. We like this There is a small catch about man. Well, do you want to guess what the catch is? She's 17. No good news. She wasn't horribly underage. She was 25. I don't like it

No No, good news. She wasn't horribly underage. She was 25. I don't like it. No. 25? How old was he? Maybe just sort of hovering around 40ish. That's too much like his father. No, she's married. She's married? Oh, she's married to a British guy. She is married to a British guy. How do you know that? That's good. Good knowledge. Because I like gossip. I could read this in Hello. You could read this in Hello. Well, amazingly, you might be able to read her sort of secret text that might be handed to Hello by one of her friends, because this is what she says in a letter to her husband

when she dumps him. She says, Do you think it lowers my honour that this general is my lover and not my husband? I do not live by social rules invented only to torment. So leave me alone my dear Englishman. You are boring like your nation." Isn't that great? I'm going to quote her forever. Oh my god. I'd love to dump every British guy like that. You are boring like your nation. What a boss. What a woman. Yeah. You've been living in London for three and a half years, Katie. Do you want to defend Englishman's honor?

Absolutely not. I am Team Manuela. So there we go. Simon Bolivar, always with the conquests. So we should probably get back to politics, Frank. We mentioned the Bolivian constitution of 1826, I think it was, distilling his political ideas. So what is in this book? What are his ideas? So the Constitution allows elections for things like the Congress, but includes a president that is appointed for life and who chooses his own successor. So it institutes an element of authoritarian control at the very top. The

constitution did also have a number of liberal elements in it. Equality was enshrined, slavery was outlawed, civil rights were protected. By 1826, Bolivar had liberated, I'm putting those in inverted commas, six countries or at least six modern countries as we know them. To do that, he had ridden 75,000 miles in the saddle, which probably explains why he had terrible hemorrhoids. And it's not just his backside that's giving him trouble, Frank, because the Gran Colombia dream that he has put together,

this sort of united, federalized South America, as soon as he puts it in place, it's starting to wobble. There isn't stability, there soon is growing resentment. Political dissent quite quickly turned to murderous intent. Katie, assassination attempt number two. Here we come. Oh no, what friend was in the hammock? Well, no, no. A large gang of men break into his palace in the dead of night to come and murder him. But Manuela saves his life. She hears them coming. She grabs a sword. God, I love this woman. We should have talked about her life.

What a hero. Wow, and so he escapes. He does. But his utopia of Gran Colombia is doomed, really. On the 6th of May, 1830, Venezuela officially became an independent republic. And then the following week, Ecuador left as well. He loses two countries in a week, which is a bad week

And then a few months later December 1830 the so-called liberator president died of tuberculosis He was only 47 bit of an anticlimax at the end of the life there Katie. What do you feel? Yeah, I feel like it would have been better if he was assassinated That would have been a better story. The Nuance Window! And it's time now for The Nuance Window. This is where Katie and I put on our long white dresses and throw flowers. We give two minutes to Dr. Frank to tell us

something we need to know about Simon Bolivar. You have two minutes, take it away please. Bolivar is perhaps have two minutes, take it away please. Dr Frank Bolivar is perhaps the most famous Latin American person who has ever lived. Although he died bitterly disappointed in his compatriots and on his own achievements, he remains to this day an enormously influential political symbol. Travelling through Colombia or Venezuela, everywhere one comes across commemorative plaques indicating when and how many times Bolívar visited this or that town.

And most significantly, Bolívar continues to be a symbol claimed by multiple political projects. Perhaps most notably, between 1998 and 2013, Hugo Chávez constantly used Bolívar's image and discourse to legitimize his government in Venezuela. Chávez famously changed the country's name to Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, used to leave an empty seat in all government meetings for Bolívar, and famously had the general's remains used to produce a reconstruction of Bolívar's face, which made the Liberator look suspiciously similar to Chávez himself.

However, there was actually not a lot in common between Bolivar's background, plans and ideology and those of Chávez. Perhaps most obviously, the later was an ardent defendant of direct democracy, whereas as we've seen, Bolivar believed that the people of South America were not ready to exercise political power, generally mistrusted elections, and preferred a restricted suffrage. Still, they were perhaps a bit closer to each other in that both Bolivar and Chávez saw government led by a strong man as a way of solving some of their nation's problems, at least in the short run. Nonetheless, Chávez's extensive and often quite successful mobilization of Bolívar to garner support and legitimacy shows how terribly relevant the mythical figure of the libertador remains in South America today.

Wow, thank you so much, Frank. That's fascinating. But all that's left for me to do is say a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We have the amazing Dr Frank Frank Issa, but also from the University of Manchester. Thank you, Frank. Thanks Greg. Pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, we have the fantastic Katie Green. Thank you, Katie. Thank you. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we liberate yet another historical subject from obscurity. But for now, I must go and unify all the other BBC Greggs into one giant BBC Greg, starting with Radio 1's Greg James. You'll never suspect it if I come over the Andes. Bye! I'm Dr Michael Mosley and I want to let you know about my new immersive BBC Radio 4 podcast

series Deep Calm. It's all about how to tap into and activate a remarkable system that we all have hardwired inside of us, our relaxation response. And it's been developed to be listened to at any time you want to really unwind. We'll discover simple, powerful, scientifically proven techniques to activate this relaxation response and encounter incredible mechanisms that work to help you rest, restore and find

stillness. From the breath to the fractal patterns of nature. I hope you'll subscribe on BBC Sounds. Full of merriment, mischief and mistaken identity, enjoy this audiobook collection of eight of Shakespeare's most magical comedies, starring David Tennant, Helena Bonham Carter and Miriam Margulies. Nobody marks you. What, my dear Lady Disdain?

Are you yet living? Start listening to BBC Radio Shakespeare, a collection of eight comedies, available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks.