Bolívar & the Bolívarian: A Textual Comparison of the Writings of Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez
On the 15th of December 1812, a man who had waged his war via the sword picked up his pen to address the citizens of New Granada to convince them that they could only defeat Spain with a united front in what he called A Manifesto from the Venezuelan Colonel Simón Bolívar to the Citizens of New Granada which he followed up by his Letter from Jamaica. Although Simón Bolívar had been no stranger to the pen, these documents were Bolívar’s first and most influential public documents where he reflected on the failures of the revolution and discussed the difficulties of establishing a professional fighting force, expounded on common shared Latin American identity, and ultimately called for a unified central government to fend off the Spanish. Though tailored to Bolívar’s situation, these documents and his later writings would influence many future Latin American leaders, but none so much as the former President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez. This paper attempts a comparison of Bolívar’s writings and the speeches, interviews, and propaganda of the Chávez administration will shed insight into the legacy of the man remembered simply as the Liberator.
As he arrived in Cartagena, the young Bolivar had been honed into an experienced and hardened veteran, molded by several environmental and military setbacks and stymied by relentless political infighting; Simón Bolívar accepted his new command and undertook his Manifesto with reflections on the sorry state of the revolution and its countless failures. Bolívar abandoned the stale and overly high-minded prose of his French and North American counterparts and took a direct and muscular style. As Marie Arana describes in her biography of the liberator Bolivar, “With persuasive logic, he went on to analyze the loss of Venezuela, explaining why the fledgling republic had failed: it had been hopelessly fragmented by federalist divisions; ruined for lack of a strong, unified army; there was, of course, the earthquake, the obstructionist clergy, an overreliance on paper money. In the main, its leaders had grown too tolerant, sloppy, corrupt.”1 The Manifesto was short but offered insights into a blueprint for the nation Bolívar envisioned. Beginning with critiques, the Manifesto pulls no punches. When dealing with the Junta that had run the revolution thus far, Simón saw them as a barrier to success rather than the republican body they fancied themselves. Bolívar mocked their high-minded idealism in favor of a more pragmatic approach. He writes, “So, we ended up with philosophers for generals, philanthropy for legislation, dialectic for tactics, and sophists for soldiers.”2 Unhappy with what was quickly becoming a failed republican experiment, Simón pined for a stronger central government. As conspiracies and treason stymied the revolution’s aims, the new government’s judges sought to make a point of mercy; however, Bolívar considered this a “criminal mercy” that undermined the government’s authority that was still in its infancy.3 Continuing with critiques, Bolivar bemoaned the intransigence of the populations, comparing New Grenada with the likes of Greece, Rome, Venice, and other states that could mobilize their people quickly when under attack. He recognized that the lack of common cause, along with poor, if not outright nonexistent, payment, meant that his dream of a professional army would remain exactly that, a dream.
Confined to the limitations of the militias, Bolívar rallied the citizens of New Grenada, both civilian and military, to mobilize a force to attack the Spanish before they received reinforcements from the old world. Additionally, he advocated for traitors to be flushed out and removed from positions of power, whether within the government or the clergy. He also reflected on the moral rightness of his cause, which made the failures of the revolution more galling to him. In these calls for power centralization, we can glimpse the dictatorial model that Bolivar and many future Latin American leaders would rely on. To end his Manifesto, Bolívar called on South Americans to capitalize on the window of opportunity to defeat the Spanish and finished with a stirring line calling for a united front to liberate Venezuela and free those held captive by the Spanish; “Rush forth to avenge death, to give life to the dying, succor to the oppressed, and freedom to all.”4 A cry that would have its application in many revolutions to come and one that would be co-opted by dictators of the very lands Simón Bolívar struggled to liberate from Spain. Although it is difficult to see any other leaders directly quote the Cartagena Manifesto, Bolívar wrote a response letter explaining the Manifesto but also delivered a more coherent vision, which remains one of the most influential documents among Bolívar’s written portfolio.
While in Jamaica, after failing to gain direct support from the British and the Americans, Bolivar penned a letter in English to an aristocratic Englishman. Although the letter was addressed to a private individual, Bolivar knew that a letter in English would be the best way for the letter to reach a broad base of support abroad; he also knew that the letter would first be shared within small English circles but would quickly be published in newspapers in both England and the States. The Letter from Jamaica was no simple request for support, but as biographer Marie Arana puts it, “the letter served as a blueprint for Bolívar’s political thought, and its ideas would emerge in countless documents during those formative days.”5 The letter firmly articulated the grievances between America and Spain. It declared that the bond between Spain and its former colonies was unquestionably severed and that the only path for his people was to form their own government. A people who were not European nor Indian, but as he saw it, an entirely new race, a Latin American race. This new race or ethnic group could not survive under the European rule of monarchies; these Americans would require a new government. That government Bolívar wished to see founded would be a republic but less democratic than that new republic to the north. Here, Bolívar expressed a similar sentiment he articulated in the Cartagena Manifesto when he writes, “Until our patriots acquire those talents and political virtues which distinguish our North American brethren, I am very much afraid that our popular systems, far from being favorable to us, will cause our ruin.”6 The sentiments expressed here are a recurring theme in this Liberator’s writings; he was fearful that the people whom he sought to liberate were not quite ready for full democracy and believed they would need guidance via a strong centralized executive who served for life before they were to be gradually introduced to a more popular form of government.
While the Letter from Jamaica provided a political vision, it also delivered a nearly prophetic vision of the future. Bolívar foresaw that war-torn Mexico would briefly instill a monarchy. He predicted a loose confederation of nations in Central America, where he imagined a grand canal connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. When the Liberator turned his gaze south, he feared a military dictatorship for Argentina and for Chile; he wrote that they were “to enjoy the blessings which emanate from the just and moderate laws of a republic.”7 Eventually, these blessings would be stripped from the Chilean People by a U.S. military coup.8 As for Peru, he saw racial distinctions as a source of constant conflict that could boil up to rebellion at any moment. And while many of Bolívar’s predictions would indeed come to pass, his predictions for his own country would not be so accurate. He wished to see the former viceroyalty of New Grenada, and Venezuela unite to form a new nation with a government modeled on that of England. “This nation should be called Colombia as a just and grateful tribute to the discoverer of our hemisphere. Its government might follow the English pattern, except that in place of a king, there will be an executive who will be elected, at most, for life, but his office will never be hereditary if a republic is desired. There will be a hereditary legislative chamber or senate.”9 Bolívar chose the name Colombia to honor the discoverer of the hemisphere, much like how Washington is the district of Columbia. While the Liberator would help establish Gran Colombia with a government very similar to the one he had envisioned, it would be but a fleeting experiment only to be torn apart by the bitterly divided factions he had touched upon in the Cartagena Manifesto. Though Bolívar would live to see his dream come and go, as he succumbed to consumption while in exile on the island of Santa Marta, however, the goal of a union of Latin American states would be dreamt of in future generations, where future leaders will leverage the image and vision of Bolívar for new ends.
No Latin American leader leveraged the persona of Bolívar more than the former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Calling for a new socialist government, he called his movement the Bolívarian Revolution. Utilizing his nation’s hero and Liberator, Chávez tied himself to the image of Simón Bolívar as the person who would finish what the Liberator had started. In a 2009 introduction to a collection of Bolívar’s writings, Chávez wrote, “But Bolívar’s project did not die with him… The Venezuelan people have once again taken up that project, and with them, the peoples of Latin America and of the world. They are waging a new struggle for a world of equals, a world of justice.”10 However, this use of Bolívar begs the question of whether Chávez’s project is the same as the Liberator’s; additionally, would Bolívar agree with Chávez’s vision for Venezuela? According to Historian Philip Price, Chávez was, in fact, not continuing Bolívar’s project. Instead, he had appropriated the Hero of Venezuela for his own ends, citing Bolívar’s love of liberty. Hugo Chávez, like many in Latin America and, more specifically, Venezuela, maintained a living memory of the Liberator, which is why Chávez articulated a Pan-American vision even if the ideas he put forward were diluted and further left than anything Bolívar would have considered.11 Chávez quoted the war revolutionary’s speeches and writings on freedom and liberty to stir up support for his democratic Socialist agenda, but “liberty to Bolívar did not mean democracy or socialism.”12 In truth, Liberty meant independence from Spain, and Bolívar did not believe the people of his time were ready for democracy, so he called for a strong central government with an executive for life. Ironically enough, once in office, Chávez would serve as Venezuela’s chief executive for the remainder of his life until he died of cancer.
Even though Chávez and Bolívar had stark ideological differences, the two figures did, however, agree on the idea of a unified Latin America. In his Manifesto, Bolívar says they would never defeat Spain until Latin America had established a central government lest they remain embroiled in fractious debates. At the same time, the enemy could quickly mobilize thanks to its resources and unified organization.13 Likewise, in the Letter from Jamaica, Bolivar writes, “Union is certainly what we need most in order to complete our regeneration.”14 This desire to see a unified Latin America is expressed throughout Bolívar’s writings and would inspire the future leader of Venezuela of the late 20th century. Hugo Chávez sought a sort of unification in Latin America, perhaps not under the central unified government envisioned by Bolívar. But rather a union via a dynamic regional alliance to break the hold of imperialist powers on the international order. At the end of his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2011, Chávez called for “an enthusiastic push for the consolidation of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a political bloc that federates the 12 sovereign States of South America with the purpose of grouping them under what the Liberator Simón Bolívar called ‘a Nation of Republics.’”15 Here, we see a direct invocation of Bolívar and a reflection of the Liberator’s dream of a unified Latin America. Both Leaders sought a Latin American union as a means to an anti-imperialist end. Still, the desired execution of this unification differed significantly between the two. It’s important to remember the ideological roots of Bolívar as a sort of national liberalism, whereas Chávez’s ideas grew from a more populist socialist soil. Despite these ideological differences, Chávez leveraged Bolívar’s fame, image, and rhetoric to appeal to the Venezuelan populace because, to Chávez, Bolivar was not just a man. In an interview with Aleida Guevara, Daughter of the famous Latin American Rebel Ché Guevara, Chávez said, “Bolívar is not just a man, Bolívar is a concept. More than just a theory, Bolívar is a complex set of ideas related to politics, society, and justice.”16 By playing fast and loose with the memory of Bolívar, Hugo Chávez could co-opt the Liberator for his own political ends despite a chasm of ideological differences between the two men. Although neither man fully achieved a unified Latin America, this dream of a nation of republics is clearly an aspect both men’s legacies share. Still, there were other areas where the two leaders held a common view.
Although standing at different points on the political spectrum, both men held deeply anti-imperialist views. While Simón Bolívar’s anti-imperialist focus was aimed primarily at Spain, he was somewhat critical of his brethren to the north, to whom he had served as ambassador. In a Letter to Colonel Patrick Campbell, the British Chargé d’ Affaires discussing the formation of Greater Colombia, commonly known as the Plague America with Miseries Letter, Bolívar asks the minister, “Can you imagine the opposition that would come from the new American states, and from the United States, which seems destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of Freedom? I can almost foresee a general conspiracy against poor Colombia, already the target of excessive envy by all the American republics?”17 This would be a prescient prediction, much like those made in the Jamaica letter. As we know, the United States would go on to heavily intervene in Latin American politics and governments, staging coups and engaging in covert operations of subversion and torture throughout Latin America. It would be this aspect that President Chávez would lean heavily on for his anti-imperialist rhetoric. In his 2006 speech to the U.N., Chavez blasted the United States for their intervention policy during the Cold War. At the outset of his speech Chávez said, “The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger, and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads.”18 This scathing critique of the United States not only gave the Venezuelan President clout with fellow socialists and anti-imperialists but also allowed him to highlight pan-hispanic or pan-american aspects of the Bolívarian Revolution. Bolívar, much like Chávez, saw the idea of pan-Americanism not the way the United States had articulated it but as a bloc to contain the United States. Although he sought international recognition from the U.S., Bolivar wanted little to do with its form of Federalism, as the critiques in his Cartagena Manifesto indicate.19 However, unlike Chávez, “Bolívar did not despise the United States; he simply was wary of such a powerful and ambitious nation in such relative close proximity.”20 In fact, the Liberator admired the United States for their rational democracy, and many Americans had admired him but were quick to denounce him after the establishment of Gran Colombia when his northern critics claimed he had abandoned his republican principles. Bolívar and Chávez both held deep mistrust of the United States, and this only allowed Chávez to further draw on the ideas of the Liberator, thus linking the legacies of these two men.
Simón Bolívar is often referred to as the George Washington of South America, but unlike Washington, Bolívar never established a lasting nation in the hemisphere. Perhaps it is enough to say that he liberated what is today modern nations from Spanish Imperialism. But what is clear is how the Bolivarian government of Venezuela has leveraged his legacy. This was primarily the work of Hugo Chavez, who used his childhood hero to drum up popular support and help forge a Venezuelan national identity, just as many Latin American leaders have with other early American revolutionaries, as seen in Juan Domingo Perón’s affinity for Bolívar’s contemporary Jose de San Martín. Some may argue that these modern dictators have tarnished the legacy of these revolutionaries. Still, at the very least, their administrations have helped preserve their historical documents and artifacts, allowing us to reflect on their legacies.
Notes:
Marie Arana, Bolívar: American Liberator, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013,) 130.
Simón Bolívar, “The Cartagena Manifesto” in El Libertador: Writings of Simón Bolívar, Ed. David Bushnell, Trans. Fredrick H. Fornhoff, (New York: Oxford University, 2003,) 3.
Bolívar, “The Cartagena Manifesto” in El Libertador: Writings of Simón Bolívar, 4.
Bolívar, “The Cartagena Manifesto” in El Libertador: Writings of Simón Bolívar, 10.
Marie Arana, Bolívar, 175-176.
Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez, “The Jamaica Letter” in Simón Bolívar: The Bolívarian Revolution, Ed. Matthew Brown, (New York: Verso, 2009,) 54.
Bolívar, The Jamaica Letter, 58.
“Milestones: 1969–1976 - Office of the Historian,” accessed April 1, 2024, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/allende.
Simón Bolívar, “Document #1: ‘Letter from Jamaica,’” Modern Latin America, 1815. https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica.
Hugo Chávez, “Introduction” in Simón Bolívar: The Bolívarian Revolution, Ed. Matthew Brown, (New York: Verso, 2009,) xvi.
Sara Castro-Klarén, “Framing Pan-Americanism: Simón Bolívar’s Findings,” (CR: The New Centennial Review 3, no. 1, 2003,) 25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41949370.
Phillip Price, “How Bolivarian Is the Bolivarian Revolution: Hugo Chávez and the Appropriation of History,” in McNair Scholars Research Journal: Vol. 5: Iss. 1, Art. 7 (Boisie: ScholarWorks, 2009,) 42.
Bolívar, “The Cartagena Manifesto” in El Libertador, 6.
Bolívar, The Jamaica Letter, 62.
Hugo Frías Chávez, "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s Speech to the UN1," (Speech, Dallas, TX, September 2011,) in Law and Business Review of the Americas 17, no. 4, 633.
Aleida Guevara, Chavez, Venezuela & the New Latin America: An interview with Hugo Chavez. (New York, NY: Ocean Press, 2005,) 11.
Simón Bolívar, “Letter to Colonel Patrick Campbell, British Chargé d’ Affaires: “Plague America with Miseries” in El Libertador: Writings of Simón Bolívar, 172.
Hugo Chávez, “Document #23: ‘Address to the United Nations,’” Modern Latin America, 2006. https://library.brown.edu
Sara Castro-Klarén, “Framing Pan-Americanism: Simón Bolívar’s Findings,” 47-48.
Phillip Price, “How Bolivarian Is the Bolivarian Revolution,” 42.