I was looking into including a surviving Gran Colombia to the present day, and I was wondering how I could get that to reasonably come about, as a federal, relatively free and liberal country, roughly analogous to the US/Canada in protections for citizens and the level of security its citizens enjoy.
Would it be possible that Simon Bolivar, instead of going to Spain, instead travels to the USA and is influenced by the Americans' constitution, marries an American woman, then moves back to New Granada, then leads his 'country' to independence with a more federal constitution? I know there were weaknesses in the country that led it to falling apart, but is there a way he could keep it together without having to declare himself dictator? And how might this theoretical country evolve to the present (assuming the rest of the world remains the same)?
Thanks!
James
The american liberalism was not the only liberalism in the world at the time, nor the only federalism. Bolivar don't need to go to America to become more "liberal" or to learn the basics of democacy and federalism because the same ideas were being developed and "exchanged" all around the Atlantic World since the Enlightment. So, there was an hipanic liberalism, and the iberoamiercan constitutions, as the spanish constitution of 1812, are its result. Also, the federalism was not alien to the iberoamerican independentism, nor to the iberoamerican royalists.
That said, Bolivar, as other latin american
libertadores and thinkers, was influenced by the american revolution, although the main influence in the new republics was, obviously, the hispanic liberal movement and the hispanic juridical tradition (the later itself very confederalist in the given circumstances of the time, so also a source of conflicts after the turmoil). But the problem with Bolivar isnot only ndeologic, but also, and I think more important, personal and circumstantial. His interpretation of the sutiation after the independence was deficient, and pobably too affected by his personal ambitions. He tried to become a republican monarch, but he lacked the "divine" legitimation of the old monarchs, nothing functional the laws were liberal inspired (he was very nervous facing the possibility of a successful Treaty of Cordoba). He also understated the regional and local groups of power and its importance in a country with a very light integration, without a national indentity and suffering a logic of violence and
caudillismo inherited from the war of independence (Santander and Flores are good example of that)
You can use the searcher, there was recently another thread about the question: In my opinion, the better way to keep alive Gran Colombia is butterflying Bolivar away and changing him with someone more sensitive. Another option, more dificult without a POD not after 1808, I think, is having a monarchy (preferibly from the spanish royal family) in Nueva Granada, but that would be another story (and another history). In sum, if you manage to get something like the Mexican pact you can have a more or less united Gran Colombia lasting in the time. An stable one is more dificult. Bear in mind, the iberian colonization was very different to the british colonization. Also, the environmental conditions in North America and in Nueva Granada were, and are, very different, pushing different realities. And if you let me say it, it would be a complete failure try to apply north american models in South america (as has been all the similar experiments)
On the oter hand, Bolivar could have a been an excelent AHcommer. We are speaking about a guy who wrote a constitution for a nonexistent country (except in his head) during his later exile.
Cheers.