This is my entry for the 3rd Timeline Contest. [see thread here]. The POD is a defeat for Simon Bolivar at the Battle of Boyaca. OTL this was the key victory in Bolivar's creation of the Republic of Colombia and in ejecting the Spanish from New Granada. As Maverick has noted in his TL, though, undoing that single victory will not resuscitate the Spanish Empire. It may, however, cause some distinct differences in the manner of its decay and in what will rise from its ashes.
I have to work out a lot of just what happens so the following is just as much me getting my bearings as it is introduction (especially so since this is my first formal TL). My ideas are at the moment quite fluid so I welcome any and all input -- including pointing out that something I propose is utterly ridiculous.
In the interest of time, the form of this TL may meander severely. I'll try to keep things intriguing, nonetheless. Without further ado, I give you...
______________________________________________________________
Part I: For Want of a Cold, a Charge, and a Comrade
From A Dictionary of Warfare in the New World
London: Macmillan-Spencer Ltd, 1935.
“Boyaca, Battle of” 7 August 1819. General Simon Bolivar with some 3,250 men against 2,995 from the forces of General (then Colonel) Berreiro.
One of a series of battles fought by Simon Bolivar during the collapse of the Spanish Empire in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, this battle marked the beginning of the end of Simon Bolivar’s ill-fated crossing of the Andes during his attempt to liberate the Viceroyalty of New Granada from Spanish rule, even though it is often overlooked as a prelude to the later conflagration at the Battle of Trunja (SEE: TRUNJA, FIRST BATTLE OF).
After a desperate battle with the army of General Berreiro at the Vargas Swamp, Bolivar’s forces had successfully out-maneuvered the royalist army to arrive at the town of Trunja on 5 August, allowing them the advantage of re-supply and rest. That the Patriot forces were allowed such an advantage and yet still succumbed in the later battle is a testament both to the seasoned veterans of the royalists and to the disease that plagued Bolivar’s forces after his crossing of the Andes. [1] This disease robbed Bolivar of some of his choicest soldiers, the volunteers of the British Legion. [2] Nevertheless, Bolivar’s forces were still numerically superior and most assuredly possessed greater morale, given the zeal of their commander and the justice of their cause.
…
When Berreiro’s troops approached around midday, Bolivar sent out a certain Brigadier Francisco Santander to secure a vital bridge over the Teatinos River. A charge meant to dislodge the Spanish from the bridge and so allow Bolivar to surround the royalists resulted in utter disaster. Santander himself was killed and his men fled. Bolivar managed to fend off the Spanish attack but the casualties from the battle decimated the remainder of his troops. Though he managed to withdraw, avoid disaster, and prolong the campaign for some weeks, he could not reverse the results of this day nor could he undo the work of Spanish guns. Hence, when he finally met Berreiro at Trunja, Bolivar’s forces were decidedly the weaker.
*******************************************
From A Pocket Guide to Kingston
Frommers. 1992 edition.
What to do on a rainy day:
If you’ve already been to the famous Pirates Hall of Fame, then a rainy day in Jamaica can look pretty gloomy. However, it’s important to remember the city’s history extends to more than buccaneers and sugar plantations. A journey to the Museo de los Hermanos can be just the thing to enlighten your excursion. The museum occupies the restored inn where famous Simon Bolivar made his home in Jamaica during his two periods of residence in the city. The first was in 1815 was the occasion for the composition of the Jamaica Letter, a copy of which the museum has on permanent loan from a private collector. More fascinating, though, is the permanent exhibition on Bolivar’s second stay in the city. Though brief, it was during those winter months of 1819-1820 that an extraordinary partnership formed—or so says the curator.
The Museum has an extraordinary collection of letters between Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin, letters which chronicle a tale of high-stakes intrigue more fit for the silver screen than for a history book. Though frequently discredited by historians who point to Bolivar’s decision to join San Martin in Peru as entirely self-motivated, the letters are an intriguing artifact of history. Thankfully, though, the Museum does not rely on parchment alone—they dramatize the entire affair and include guests in the experience. In an interactive theatrical display that runs throughout the museum, guests follow actors portraying Bolivar, Antonio Sucre, and San Martin’s envoys as they elude Spanish agents and avoid arousing the ire of the British governor. If you happen to catch the Museum on any Thursday in the off-season, you can sign up for the extended version of this “immersion experience” which is staged through Kingston and its environs. Cost: $20 (Jamaican) per person, $10 for students, free for children under age 12.
*******************************************
From A History of the Peoples of Southern America: A Classroom Companion, Second Edition.
New York: McGraw-Houghton Publishing, 1968. [3]
Unlike the American Revolutionary War that inspired them, the Wars of Latin American Independence were chaotic, fraught with internal political disagreement and outright civil war, and interlaced with European politic. While America’s Founding Fathers were lawyers, bankers, and farmers driven to seek independence because of the offense given by the British Imperial government, the men who led these revolts were for the most part aristocrats and professional soldiers. Despite their background, their intentions, or their later actions, the Founding Fathers of the Latin American revolts were as important to the outcome of those revolutions as Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson were to ours.
Indeed, some scholars view the partnership between Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin, Bernardo O’Higgins and Antonio de Sucre as more instrumental, since it had to create a viable political tradition from scratch, overcome immense opposition from at home and abroad, and surmount immense sweeps of geography. Nevertheless, no amount of cooperation could simply wipe away the vast chorus of problems endemic to the Southern American continent: a culture of ease, rather than of work; an uneducated population; and, a legacy of absolute rule. Thus it is not to the detriment of these men that they appear to have made mistakes that our American Founders avoided, but rather to their credit that they nonetheless managed an accomplishment worthy of their predecessors’ example.
********************************************
Simon Bolivar’s Second Jamaica Letter
Translated by Ian McCormick, University of Texas at Houston. 1978.
Translator’s Introduction
While some historians have of late tried to superimpose a complicated narrative of international espionage around the publication of the Second Jamaica Letter, these notions are theories grounded in what is unfortunately wafer-thin evidence (to which we shall return later). The proper historical context for this letter is nonetheless dramatic. Bolivar had arrived in Kingston in mid November, 1819, after the dramatic events of the Andean Campaign.
Those efforts themselves marked the third time Bolivar had attempted to establish a republican stronghold in New Granada: the fall of the First Venezuelan Republic was intertwined with the treachery (according to Bolivar) of Francisco de Miranda; the second marked the beginning of savagery and atrocity as José Boves’ army of llanos pillaged their way across the countryside and as Bolivar himself responded with the Declaration of War to the Death. Now, Bolivar arrived with his hopes dashed yet again. While Spanish rule was little more than a veneer perpetuated by conflicting ambitions of the local elites (and that only in the urban centers and the coastal regions) it was a veneer protected by the dank odor of black powder and brave men’s blood. Now, yet again Bolivar had to prowl the international stage, looking for men, money, and another opportunity. After three failures, the prospects for more backing—particularly in the shadow of the Congress of Verona—looked grim. To add to Bolivar’s troubles, his aide and young friend Antonio de Sucre was deathly ill, still fighting the fever that erupted the previous summer and under the care of a British naval surgeon. [4]
Just as Bolivar’s previous failures elicited his written reflection on their causes, epitomized in the first Jamaica Letter and the Cartagena Manifesto, so too did his current debacle. As previously, his current endeavor was an attempt to solicit support for future efforts. His previous works had had specific audiences in mind: the Manifesto was directed at the interim government of New Granada (styled the United Provinces of New Granada) then struggling to unify along Republican principles; the first Letter was addressed to Henry Cullen and through him to the British political establishment. This letter was directed, however, at the population of then Spanish America at large. Its calls for unity and examination of the plight of Spanish Americans—though narrowly directed at the literate Creole classes—mark an important step in the evolution in his fight for his country’s freedom.
… It is striking that part and parcel of Bolivar’s clarion call is an examination not of his own revolution but of that fought by the former British colonies four decades prior. Previously, Bolivar had shrugged off much comparison between the two, eschewing the American example as out of context in Latin America. Nonetheless, a shrewd analysis of the cohesion of the US Patriots forms an important part of Bolivar’s text. More interesting still, to an American reader, is that Bolivar includes many tactics—appropriation of land, public and social pressure to conform along with religious condemnation—that escape the notice of most American students of the American Revolutionary War…
Author’s Note: Though some evidence (referred to above) indicates direct contact between Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin before and during the publication of the Second Letter, it is insubstantial. It does not explain the two men’s later denials of any such contact (though such denials would diminish the quasi-cult image of later events which make them suspect as well). The author has determined the best course to be one of cautious skepticism and deference to epistolary experts, whose debates on the subject have raged since at least the late 19th century. Nonetheless, the fact that within two months of the publication of the Second Letter Bolivar undertook a risky journey to rendezvous with San Martin in Chile should not go unnoticed. Perhaps despite all the pretense of unity amongst all Spanish Americans, the only unity that mattered was that between a few men at the center of unfolding events.
…
{Text of Bolivar’s Second Letter}
We are not Europeans; we are not Indians; we are but a mixed species of aborigines and Spaniards. Americans by birth and Europeans by law, we find ourselves engaged in a dual conflict: we are disputing with the natives for titles of ownership, and at the same time we are struggling to maintain ourselves in the country that gave us birth against the opposition of the invaders. Thus our position is most extraordinary and complicated. But there is more. As our role has always been strictly passive and political existence nil, we find that our quest for liberty is now even more difficult of accomplishment; for we, having been placed in a state lower than slavery, had been robbed not only of our freedom but also of the right to exercise an active domestic tyranny. . .We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty.
Although those people [North Americans], so lacking in many respects, are unique in the history of mankind, it is a marvel, I repeat, that so weak and complicated a government as the federal system has managed to govern them in the difficult and trying circumstances of their past. But, regardless of the effectiveness of this form of government with respect to North America, I must say that it has never for a moment entered my mind to compare the position and character of two states as dissimilar as the English-American and the Spanish-American. Would it not be most difficult to apply to Spain the English system of political, civil, and religious liberty: Hence, it would be even more difficult to adapt to Venezuela the laws of North America. [5]
Nevertheless, the subject of laws must follow a successful revolution, not begin it. In the course of the present struggle, it is victory that must be achieved. To achieve victory, the unity of the people must bear testament to the righteousness of their cause. Our struggle—our dual conflict—must become one. We must become one.
…Indeed, perhaps the only way in which the experience of our struggle will mirror the experience of our Northern neighbors is in the necessity of unity and also in the path necessary to achieve such cohesion of force and of the body politic…
_________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] This is how I explain the POD. One might quibble and say that I’ve introduced some prior points—poorer weather on the crossing of the Andes and an outbreak of disease in Bolivar’s army—to explain the results, rather than have exactly the same battle conclude with a different role of the dice. Nevertheless, the net result is the same as those prior differences explain how Bolivar manages to lose the Battle of Boyaca.
[2] OTL, Bolivar praised the British Legion who fought with him and their valor for helping him to win the battle. If they had succumbed to a tropical disease en route, surely things might have gone differently, but it is important to point out that this is a British source.
[3] This is supposed to be a middle school textbook. It is very simplistic and hence very biased.
[4] In the Aubrey - Maturin Series of TTL, this surgeon is undoubtedly Stephen Maturin.
[5] The text given to this point is the text of Bolivar’s OTL Message to the Congress of Angostura. That message dealt largely with the manner of governance in what became for a time the Republic of [Gran] Colombia. Bolivar spends some time contrasting his views with that of the American federal system. His views on this subject may be subject to some change in service to his overall goal.
***************************
Comments, criticism and outright castigation are most welcome.
I have to work out a lot of just what happens so the following is just as much me getting my bearings as it is introduction (especially so since this is my first formal TL). My ideas are at the moment quite fluid so I welcome any and all input -- including pointing out that something I propose is utterly ridiculous.
In the interest of time, the form of this TL may meander severely. I'll try to keep things intriguing, nonetheless. Without further ado, I give you...
______________________________________________________________
Part I: For Want of a Cold, a Charge, and a Comrade
From A Dictionary of Warfare in the New World
London: Macmillan-Spencer Ltd, 1935.
“Boyaca, Battle of” 7 August 1819. General Simon Bolivar with some 3,250 men against 2,995 from the forces of General (then Colonel) Berreiro.
One of a series of battles fought by Simon Bolivar during the collapse of the Spanish Empire in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, this battle marked the beginning of the end of Simon Bolivar’s ill-fated crossing of the Andes during his attempt to liberate the Viceroyalty of New Granada from Spanish rule, even though it is often overlooked as a prelude to the later conflagration at the Battle of Trunja (SEE: TRUNJA, FIRST BATTLE OF).
After a desperate battle with the army of General Berreiro at the Vargas Swamp, Bolivar’s forces had successfully out-maneuvered the royalist army to arrive at the town of Trunja on 5 August, allowing them the advantage of re-supply and rest. That the Patriot forces were allowed such an advantage and yet still succumbed in the later battle is a testament both to the seasoned veterans of the royalists and to the disease that plagued Bolivar’s forces after his crossing of the Andes. [1] This disease robbed Bolivar of some of his choicest soldiers, the volunteers of the British Legion. [2] Nevertheless, Bolivar’s forces were still numerically superior and most assuredly possessed greater morale, given the zeal of their commander and the justice of their cause.
…
When Berreiro’s troops approached around midday, Bolivar sent out a certain Brigadier Francisco Santander to secure a vital bridge over the Teatinos River. A charge meant to dislodge the Spanish from the bridge and so allow Bolivar to surround the royalists resulted in utter disaster. Santander himself was killed and his men fled. Bolivar managed to fend off the Spanish attack but the casualties from the battle decimated the remainder of his troops. Though he managed to withdraw, avoid disaster, and prolong the campaign for some weeks, he could not reverse the results of this day nor could he undo the work of Spanish guns. Hence, when he finally met Berreiro at Trunja, Bolivar’s forces were decidedly the weaker.
*******************************************
From A Pocket Guide to Kingston
Frommers. 1992 edition.
What to do on a rainy day:
If you’ve already been to the famous Pirates Hall of Fame, then a rainy day in Jamaica can look pretty gloomy. However, it’s important to remember the city’s history extends to more than buccaneers and sugar plantations. A journey to the Museo de los Hermanos can be just the thing to enlighten your excursion. The museum occupies the restored inn where famous Simon Bolivar made his home in Jamaica during his two periods of residence in the city. The first was in 1815 was the occasion for the composition of the Jamaica Letter, a copy of which the museum has on permanent loan from a private collector. More fascinating, though, is the permanent exhibition on Bolivar’s second stay in the city. Though brief, it was during those winter months of 1819-1820 that an extraordinary partnership formed—or so says the curator.
The Museum has an extraordinary collection of letters between Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin, letters which chronicle a tale of high-stakes intrigue more fit for the silver screen than for a history book. Though frequently discredited by historians who point to Bolivar’s decision to join San Martin in Peru as entirely self-motivated, the letters are an intriguing artifact of history. Thankfully, though, the Museum does not rely on parchment alone—they dramatize the entire affair and include guests in the experience. In an interactive theatrical display that runs throughout the museum, guests follow actors portraying Bolivar, Antonio Sucre, and San Martin’s envoys as they elude Spanish agents and avoid arousing the ire of the British governor. If you happen to catch the Museum on any Thursday in the off-season, you can sign up for the extended version of this “immersion experience” which is staged through Kingston and its environs. Cost: $20 (Jamaican) per person, $10 for students, free for children under age 12.
*******************************************
From A History of the Peoples of Southern America: A Classroom Companion, Second Edition.
New York: McGraw-Houghton Publishing, 1968. [3]
Unlike the American Revolutionary War that inspired them, the Wars of Latin American Independence were chaotic, fraught with internal political disagreement and outright civil war, and interlaced with European politic. While America’s Founding Fathers were lawyers, bankers, and farmers driven to seek independence because of the offense given by the British Imperial government, the men who led these revolts were for the most part aristocrats and professional soldiers. Despite their background, their intentions, or their later actions, the Founding Fathers of the Latin American revolts were as important to the outcome of those revolutions as Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson were to ours.
Indeed, some scholars view the partnership between Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin, Bernardo O’Higgins and Antonio de Sucre as more instrumental, since it had to create a viable political tradition from scratch, overcome immense opposition from at home and abroad, and surmount immense sweeps of geography. Nevertheless, no amount of cooperation could simply wipe away the vast chorus of problems endemic to the Southern American continent: a culture of ease, rather than of work; an uneducated population; and, a legacy of absolute rule. Thus it is not to the detriment of these men that they appear to have made mistakes that our American Founders avoided, but rather to their credit that they nonetheless managed an accomplishment worthy of their predecessors’ example.
********************************************
Simon Bolivar’s Second Jamaica Letter
Translated by Ian McCormick, University of Texas at Houston. 1978.
Translator’s Introduction
While some historians have of late tried to superimpose a complicated narrative of international espionage around the publication of the Second Jamaica Letter, these notions are theories grounded in what is unfortunately wafer-thin evidence (to which we shall return later). The proper historical context for this letter is nonetheless dramatic. Bolivar had arrived in Kingston in mid November, 1819, after the dramatic events of the Andean Campaign.
Those efforts themselves marked the third time Bolivar had attempted to establish a republican stronghold in New Granada: the fall of the First Venezuelan Republic was intertwined with the treachery (according to Bolivar) of Francisco de Miranda; the second marked the beginning of savagery and atrocity as José Boves’ army of llanos pillaged their way across the countryside and as Bolivar himself responded with the Declaration of War to the Death. Now, Bolivar arrived with his hopes dashed yet again. While Spanish rule was little more than a veneer perpetuated by conflicting ambitions of the local elites (and that only in the urban centers and the coastal regions) it was a veneer protected by the dank odor of black powder and brave men’s blood. Now, yet again Bolivar had to prowl the international stage, looking for men, money, and another opportunity. After three failures, the prospects for more backing—particularly in the shadow of the Congress of Verona—looked grim. To add to Bolivar’s troubles, his aide and young friend Antonio de Sucre was deathly ill, still fighting the fever that erupted the previous summer and under the care of a British naval surgeon. [4]
Just as Bolivar’s previous failures elicited his written reflection on their causes, epitomized in the first Jamaica Letter and the Cartagena Manifesto, so too did his current debacle. As previously, his current endeavor was an attempt to solicit support for future efforts. His previous works had had specific audiences in mind: the Manifesto was directed at the interim government of New Granada (styled the United Provinces of New Granada) then struggling to unify along Republican principles; the first Letter was addressed to Henry Cullen and through him to the British political establishment. This letter was directed, however, at the population of then Spanish America at large. Its calls for unity and examination of the plight of Spanish Americans—though narrowly directed at the literate Creole classes—mark an important step in the evolution in his fight for his country’s freedom.
… It is striking that part and parcel of Bolivar’s clarion call is an examination not of his own revolution but of that fought by the former British colonies four decades prior. Previously, Bolivar had shrugged off much comparison between the two, eschewing the American example as out of context in Latin America. Nonetheless, a shrewd analysis of the cohesion of the US Patriots forms an important part of Bolivar’s text. More interesting still, to an American reader, is that Bolivar includes many tactics—appropriation of land, public and social pressure to conform along with religious condemnation—that escape the notice of most American students of the American Revolutionary War…
Author’s Note: Though some evidence (referred to above) indicates direct contact between Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin before and during the publication of the Second Letter, it is insubstantial. It does not explain the two men’s later denials of any such contact (though such denials would diminish the quasi-cult image of later events which make them suspect as well). The author has determined the best course to be one of cautious skepticism and deference to epistolary experts, whose debates on the subject have raged since at least the late 19th century. Nonetheless, the fact that within two months of the publication of the Second Letter Bolivar undertook a risky journey to rendezvous with San Martin in Chile should not go unnoticed. Perhaps despite all the pretense of unity amongst all Spanish Americans, the only unity that mattered was that between a few men at the center of unfolding events.
…
{Text of Bolivar’s Second Letter}
We are not Europeans; we are not Indians; we are but a mixed species of aborigines and Spaniards. Americans by birth and Europeans by law, we find ourselves engaged in a dual conflict: we are disputing with the natives for titles of ownership, and at the same time we are struggling to maintain ourselves in the country that gave us birth against the opposition of the invaders. Thus our position is most extraordinary and complicated. But there is more. As our role has always been strictly passive and political existence nil, we find that our quest for liberty is now even more difficult of accomplishment; for we, having been placed in a state lower than slavery, had been robbed not only of our freedom but also of the right to exercise an active domestic tyranny. . .We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty.
Although those people [North Americans], so lacking in many respects, are unique in the history of mankind, it is a marvel, I repeat, that so weak and complicated a government as the federal system has managed to govern them in the difficult and trying circumstances of their past. But, regardless of the effectiveness of this form of government with respect to North America, I must say that it has never for a moment entered my mind to compare the position and character of two states as dissimilar as the English-American and the Spanish-American. Would it not be most difficult to apply to Spain the English system of political, civil, and religious liberty: Hence, it would be even more difficult to adapt to Venezuela the laws of North America. [5]
Nevertheless, the subject of laws must follow a successful revolution, not begin it. In the course of the present struggle, it is victory that must be achieved. To achieve victory, the unity of the people must bear testament to the righteousness of their cause. Our struggle—our dual conflict—must become one. We must become one.
…Indeed, perhaps the only way in which the experience of our struggle will mirror the experience of our Northern neighbors is in the necessity of unity and also in the path necessary to achieve such cohesion of force and of the body politic…
_________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] This is how I explain the POD. One might quibble and say that I’ve introduced some prior points—poorer weather on the crossing of the Andes and an outbreak of disease in Bolivar’s army—to explain the results, rather than have exactly the same battle conclude with a different role of the dice. Nevertheless, the net result is the same as those prior differences explain how Bolivar manages to lose the Battle of Boyaca.
[2] OTL, Bolivar praised the British Legion who fought with him and their valor for helping him to win the battle. If they had succumbed to a tropical disease en route, surely things might have gone differently, but it is important to point out that this is a British source.
[3] This is supposed to be a middle school textbook. It is very simplistic and hence very biased.
[4] In the Aubrey - Maturin Series of TTL, this surgeon is undoubtedly Stephen Maturin.
[5] The text given to this point is the text of Bolivar’s OTL Message to the Congress of Angostura. That message dealt largely with the manner of governance in what became for a time the Republic of [Gran] Colombia. Bolivar spends some time contrasting his views with that of the American federal system. His views on this subject may be subject to some change in service to his overall goal.
***************************
Comments, criticism and outright castigation are most welcome.
Last edited:
