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in savings. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions

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apply. mintmobile.com. Hello,

1:20

and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4

1:22

comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My

1:25

name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author

1:27

and broadcaster. And today we are

1:29

gathering our troops and quick marching back to

1:31

19th century South America to learn

1:34

all about revolutionary leader Simon Bolivar. And

1:36

to help us, we have two very special comrades in arms.

1:39

In History Corner is a senior lecturer in

1:41

Latin American history at the University of Manchester,

1:43

specializing in the political, social and military history

1:46

of early modern Spanish America and the broader Spanish

1:48

world. You may have read his book, The Spanish Monarchy

1:50

and the Creation of the Vice Royalty of New Granada.

1:53

It's Dr. Francisco A. Saboroso. Welcome, Frank. Thanks, Greg.

1:55

Great to be here. And in Comedy Corner, she's

1:57

a rising star on both sides of the... of

2:00

the Atlantic. She's been featuring HBO's Women in

2:02

Comedy Festival, LaFEST, the San Diego Comedy Festival,

2:04

and she was a funny women finalist in

2:07

2020. Maybe you saw her in Edinburgh Fringe

2:09

last year, or of course on TV's Comedy

2:11

Central Live, it's the wonderful Katie Green. Welcome

2:14

to the show, Katie. Hi, thank you for

2:16

having me. Katie, your first time on the

2:18

podcast, you have Latin American

2:20

heritage and a master's degree

2:23

in Latin American studies, is that right?

2:25

I do, but I'm still worried it doesn't

2:27

mean much, okay? I

2:30

can see the panic in your face already. Okay, let's be

2:32

more generous. Are you good on history

2:34

in general? I'm not good

2:37

at retaining knowledge, so that

2:39

makes history very difficult for me. Most

2:42

of my degree was as

2:45

little as possible. Okay,

2:48

bare minimum, Katie Green, good to know. And

2:51

what about Simone Bolivar? Does the name

2:53

ring a bell? Do you know anything

2:56

about him? I know some things.

2:58

Good things, bad things? I know

3:00

some good things, I know some bad things. This

3:02

feels like gossip now. If anything's framed as gossip,

3:04

then I know. What

3:07

do you know about him? Ooh, he messed around.

3:11

He did. I know that's some gossip I've

3:13

heard on the streets. The

3:16

Liberator, so he liberated most

3:19

countries in South America. This

3:21

feels like the quiz has started now. So, what

3:23

do you know? Let's

3:31

not forecast properly with the first segment. This is the so

3:33

what do you know? This is where I have

3:35

a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener,

3:38

might know about today's subjects. And unless you are

3:40

listening from South America, I'm guessing you

3:42

probably recognise the name Bolivar. You may even know

3:44

that there's a country named after him, of But

3:48

you might not know why it's named after

3:50

him. If you're a gamer, you might have

3:52

come across Bolivar in our favourite games, Age

3:54

of Empires 3 or Civilization 6, which we're

3:56

always quoting, aren't we? He's the central character

3:58

in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel. the general in

4:00

his labyrinth. There are many

4:03

TV and movie sort of adaptations

4:05

of him, Spanish language adaptations. There's

4:07

Bolivar on Netflix. There's the 2013

4:09

film The Liberator. And

4:12

yes, spoiler alert, he liberated six

4:14

countries from Spanish imperial rule. But

4:16

how did a revolutionary hero end

4:18

up as a dictator? Let's find

4:20

out, shall we? Right then, Dr.

4:22

Frank, can we start at the beginning? Where

4:25

and when are we placing our young

4:28

Simon Bolivar? You know, when is he

4:30

born? Where is he born? What's his

4:32

family's situation? Is he kind of a

4:34

plucky upstart street searching? Or is he

4:36

pretty comfortable? Simon Jose Antonio de los

4:39

Antisimatrídas Bolivar y Palacios, that's a name

4:41

for you. What a name. So he

4:45

was born in Caracas, Venezuela on the 24th of

4:47

July 1783 to

4:50

Juan Vicente Bolivar y Ponte and

4:52

María de la Concepcion Palacio Siblanco.

4:55

He had two older sisters and an older

4:57

brother. And his parents had been married in 1773

4:59

when his mother was 14 and his

5:03

father 46. Oh, no, that's a

5:05

terrible age gap, Katie, that

5:07

I mean, that's a slight panic face

5:09

almost. That's pretty gross. Yeah,

5:13

pretty disgusting that.

5:16

Although we share a birthday, him and I, so

5:18

maybe that's not good for

5:21

me. Your 24th of July as well.

5:23

Yes. Okay, so problematic marriage clacks and

5:25

honks straight away into the

5:27

episode. And for listeners, Venezuela is on the

5:29

northern point of South America, isn't it? It's

5:31

up on the Caribbean coast. So Caracas is

5:34

almost on the sea, I think. But

5:36

Venezuela is part of Spain, or at least

5:39

the Spanish Empire, Frank. Yes, exactly. So the

5:41

Spanish first came in contact with what we

5:43

now call Venezuela in the 1490s. And shortly

5:47

afterwards, it became part of

5:49

the Spanish Empire. By the

5:51

18th century, Venezuela society was

5:53

highly racialized and split into

5:55

various groups, including Peninsular Spaniards,

5:58

white people born in

6:01

Spain, Creoles were white people

6:03

descended from Spaniards but born

6:05

in Venezuela, usually upper class

6:07

and wealthy, Blancos de

6:09

Origia or poor whites, often immigrants from

6:11

the Canary Islands, mixed race

6:14

Pardos, black, enslaved and free

6:16

people and indigenous groups. And

6:18

the Bolivar family were Creoles and were

6:21

very, very wealthy members of the Venezuelan

6:23

elite. In fact, Bolivar's dad

6:25

was probably one of the 14 richest

6:27

men in Venezuela. Wow. Okay,

6:30

so not a street urchin then and

6:32

they're Creoles, so they're born in Venezuela,

6:34

but of Spanish descent. Is that right?

6:36

Exactly. Okay, great. And Katie, today we

6:38

might describe an important person as a

6:40

big cheese. But do

6:42

you want to guess why Bolivar's dad was

6:44

described as the big cocoa, the big chocolate?

6:46

Did he own cacao

6:49

plantations? He did. They

6:51

were known as a grandes cacao. The

6:53

main source of income was from chocolate

6:55

production. They had two cocoa plantations. They

6:58

also had four houses in Caracas,

7:00

three cattle ranches, two sugar plantations, one copper mine

7:02

and a partridge and a pear tree. Not the

7:04

last one. Sorry, that was silly.

7:07

But they've got a lot of

7:09

stuff. How do you imagine his

7:11

childhood, Simon Bolivar? Well, didn't his

7:13

dad die when he was really young, though? I

7:16

read a biography, but only about

7:18

11 pages. So

7:23

I think I've gotten to that point. And

7:27

then the rest, he was like, let's just

7:30

wing it. Let's guess it. You

7:33

were too bummed out. You're right. His

7:35

dad did die young. Frank, it's actually a

7:37

very born into great wealth, but it's a

7:39

very tragic childhood for Simon Bolivar. He loses

7:42

not just one parent, but both. Yeah,

7:44

that's absolutely right. Both his parents had

7:46

succumbed to tuberculosis by the time Bolivar

7:49

was nine. And as a young wealthy

7:51

orphan, he was first sent to live

7:53

with his maternal grandfather and then with

7:56

his uncle, Carlos Palacios Iblanco, who was

7:58

mainly interested in Bolivar's shortly

8:01

after Bolivar's mother died, Bolivar started

8:03

his formal education at the Escuela

8:05

Publica de Caracas, but aged just

8:07

12 he ran away from Caracas

8:10

to live with his sister. His

8:13

uncle, who was mostly unimpressed with this,

8:15

sued Bolivar and forced him to

8:17

return to his house. Bolivar

8:20

later spent time in the elite militia

8:22

as a cadet before being promoted to

8:24

second lieutenant. So he ran away from

8:26

home at 12 and then was

8:28

sued by his uncle. Katie, have you ever

8:30

sued a child? And if not, why not? Well,

8:33

I mean, I've never met a child that

8:35

has that much money. So maybe I would

8:37

have if

8:39

I knew how much money they had. So he

8:41

became a military cadet. He became promoted to second lieutenant.

8:43

We're not sure if that was because he was rich

8:45

and he bought his commission or if he was any

8:47

good at war. And

8:50

then Katie, he did a classic posh boy

8:52

thing, aged 16. What do

8:54

posh 16 year old boys do, well maybe

8:56

slightly older do when they leave home, usually

8:59

here in Britain? They get girls pregnant. No, I

9:01

don't know. They

9:04

might do. I don't know. They go to

9:06

Spain. They do. They

9:08

go to Spain. Do they go to Spain and get

9:10

girls pregnant? They literally go to Spain and

9:12

maybe get girls pregnant. But for legal reasons, let's

9:14

not go too far into that. But that certainly

9:16

what's the Mont Bolivar kind of tried to do.

9:18

He went on a gap year. Eight sixteen. He

9:21

went to Spain. He went to Madrid in

9:23

1799. I

9:25

spent a lot of money there. Lived very

9:27

decadently. Annoyed even more uncles. But

9:29

he does have a holiday romance. I'm not

9:31

sure if there's a pregnancy. I think there's

9:33

a holiday romance though, Frank, isn't there? Yes,

9:35

there is. Although it all ended in tragedy.

9:38

So in 1800, at the age of 17, Bolivar first laid

9:42

eyes on Maria Teresa Rodriguez del

9:44

Toro y Aliza, a 19 year old mother

9:47

Elena with a pale complexion and dark eyes

9:49

and hair. And it was love at first

9:51

sight. They were married in San Sebastian in

9:53

the Basque country on the 26th of May

9:55

1802. And three weeks later, They

9:59

set sail. Or Caracas. But to

10:01

happen if was actually quite short

10:03

lived on the twenty second of

10:05

January, eighteen or three, just six

10:07

months after their arrival in South

10:09

America, Maria Theresa died from yellow

10:11

fever. So heartbroken believe about never

10:14

to remarry and it clearly impacted

10:16

him deeply. He later wrote, had

10:18

I not been widowed, perhaps my

10:20

life would have been different. I

10:22

would not be sent it out

10:24

believer. Really sad case he, he's

10:26

lost both his parents by nine.

10:29

He moves on, finds a beautiful

10:31

young woman, marries her, loses have

10:33

a twenty year. he needs therapy.

10:35

Yoni. Therapy Really badly. Oh. My.

10:37

God. Also. He's

10:40

still. Got with a lot of

10:42

women so. You never. Is it true that he

10:44

never married again, but he still. He

10:46

still got live other boroughs.

10:48

It's the heartbreak you know the our, the

10:51

heartbreak and Kate Smith ssn. I'm taking the

10:53

sympathetic great you could you're You're clearly going

10:55

a little a more cynical Rupert as I

10:57

guess I don't trust them a cat or

11:00

I already already been caught up with the

11:02

point of view on it is it is.

11:04

Tremendously. Sad he moves on in

11:06

a in another whispers he goes on

11:08

another gap year. Frank in his early

11:11

twenties. he comes this time see Paris

11:13

and France which of course at this

11:15

point in history this has been the

11:17

French Revolution. Katie there's been political violence

11:19

to be guillotine ings he suddenly in

11:22

amongst the real moment in time. Frank

11:24

yes and at least later on blooper

11:26

claim that during this time in Paris

11:28

he had a kind of of political

11:30

awakening or the we don't know how

11:32

much of this is just retrospective. mythmaking

11:35

on his behalf the so

11:37

promptly in paris believer became

11:39

influenced by enlightenment thinkers specially

11:42

lock and montesquieu and quickly

11:44

came to believe in the

11:46

need for independence for liberty

11:48

equality republicanism and centralized government

11:51

he strongly opposed federally some

11:53

of any kind and believer

11:55

was also an avid reader

11:57

of nineteenth century politico writers,

12:00

people like Benjamin Constant or

12:02

Madame Destelle, whose ideas went

12:04

beyond the Enlightenment but are

12:06

less known today. He

12:09

had also grown up in a highly

12:11

politicised environment in its own right, with

12:14

its own very rich political tradition.

12:16

And indeed, elites across the Spanish

12:18

world read 18th and 19th century

12:20

treatises through the lenses of Spanish

12:22

political thought. He's reading a lot,

12:24

he's reading philosophers, he's reading writers,

12:26

he's getting deep into the kind

12:28

of political tension of the day. But

12:31

he's also in France during the

12:33

rise of a superstar. Do you know who

12:35

the political superstar is in 1804, Katie? Napoleon?

12:39

Yeah, it is Napoleon, very good.

12:41

I think that was on page 11, now I think I'm

12:43

done with all my knowledge. That

12:47

book's done quite well, 11 pages, they've crowned quite a

12:49

lot in. Yes. Yeah,

12:51

so on the 2nd December 1804, Napoleon

12:53

Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of France.

12:56

And we think Bolivar was in Paris at

12:58

the time, so he may have perhaps seen

13:01

the coronation ceremony, we don't know, or the

13:03

parade. Young Bolivar, aged 21, 22, do

13:05

you think he's a fan

13:07

of Napoleon? Do you think he's excited

13:09

by Napoleon? I think he's a

13:11

fan, but how

13:13

tall was Simone? Because

13:18

I feel like he couldn't look up to

13:20

him that much, you know? He's like, there

13:22

must be some flaws. I'm

13:24

picturing Simone being like 6

13:28

feet. Maybe I've

13:30

romanticised him. He gives off 6 feet of

13:32

energy in his statues, whereas we know

13:34

Napoleon was a little bit slightly more average-hited.

13:36

But you think he's a fan, that's your

13:39

general guest here. But wasn't

13:41

he a fan and then he didn't

13:44

like him anymore because he

13:46

wasn't good? You

13:49

do know stuff, you pretend that you don't know anything,

13:51

but this is all the stuff in my script. I

13:53

mean, Frank, Simone Bolivar, he's seeing

13:55

Napoleon come to power, But

13:58

is he impressed by this? Ami

14:00

man who's taken power to be know

14:02

what we know from firm believers own

14:04

writing to what extent this is written

14:06

ex post facto to to build on

14:09

a much we don't know but what

14:11

he says is of his both impressed

14:13

on repelled by Napoleon that he's quite

14:15

impressed by his achievements especially some military

14:17

commander and the love and glory bestowed

14:19

upon him by the French people but

14:21

at the same time he claims to

14:24

be repelled by his compromise s on

14:26

his method of ruling. He sang the

14:28

ponies a centrist this this this this.

14:30

This this never heard him cause that

14:33

before. Okay and having left Paris T

14:35

T t when I guess where he

14:37

goes next. Simon Bolivar Snow the European

14:40

this nation is it a new place

14:42

The new place today. So he's a

14:44

little euro trip now. Specific he is

14:46

he's that a rail guard.

14:48

Ssssss, the. Italy.

14:51

Yes, Very get you to do well

14:54

on average I think what I would there

14:56

was a success getting in his mindset. Yeah

14:58

he goes to Rome where he mates none

15:00

other than the Pope. How old is he?

15:03

Now that's when he. Totally three I think.

15:05

He's pretty young and he's not impressed.

15:07

What Pope is is this is Pope

15:09

Pius the seventh or not. Impressive. Know.

15:13

That's not even in. it's not funny. And

15:16

now and of frank, I'm quite

15:18

surprised to see Mumble of are

15:20

not impressed by the Pope. Why

15:23

is this so believer? But this

15:25

point is is more or less on

15:27

our face through a blatant very critical

15:30

of the role of the Catholic church

15:32

in Spanish control of Spanish America. So

15:34

when they when they meet when we

15:37

were actually refuses to bend down

15:39

to keys the pope sleepers agreeing instead

15:41

to just kiss his ring but wrong

15:43

however have had a transformative impact in

15:46

believers life in another way. Inspired by

15:48

the ancient city and it's glorious history

15:50

we were apparently made a bow

15:52

she. Said Moral: As these white us, I

15:54

swear before you. I swear before the God

15:56

of my father's I swear by my father's

15:58

I swear by my. honor, I swear

16:01

by my country that I will

16:03

not rest body or soul until

16:05

I have broken the chains with

16:07

which Spanish power oppresses us." Again

16:10

though, we might have to be careful about

16:12

whether this is myth-making on Bolivar's art, but

16:14

that's how the official story goes. Wow, quite

16:16

the vow. I swear I will not rest

16:19

until I have broken the chains with which

16:21

Spanish power oppresses us. Katie,

16:23

what's the best vow you've ever made and have you managed to

16:25

keep it? Oh gosh. That

16:27

was, I just found

16:29

out that he was only 5'6", so

16:32

I'm deeply saddened. Yes,

16:35

one of the research team has just put on the

16:37

screen Bolivar, 5'6", and Katie's face

16:40

fell, your crest fallen. Wow,

16:42

I feel like on his profile he put 6

16:44

feet, I don't know why. How

16:47

tall was Napoleon? Yeah, about 5'6",

16:50

probably, about the same height. No, is

16:52

that with the hat on? Probably not with the hat, the

16:54

hat's probably giving him another kind of inches, yeah. Oh

16:57

my, greatest vow I've ever made.

17:00

Maybe I'll say that for marriage, but at this

17:03

rate it's not happening, so maybe I'll never have

17:05

to make a vow ever in my life. Okay,

17:07

yeah, don't be encumbered. Okay, fair enough.

17:10

Well, Simon Bolivar, he makes his vow

17:12

in 1805 in Rome, decides that he's going

17:14

to commit himself to independence.

17:17

And so they sail back to Venezuela in 1806 and

17:20

they get back to Venezuela and immediately I'm

17:22

picturing him fired up with zeal,

17:24

beating, you know, he's going to build the barricades

17:27

in the streets of Caracas, he's going to be

17:29

singing songs from La Miserable, but

17:31

actually, Frank, it

17:33

sounds like his revolutionary fervour doesn't

17:36

really go anywhere initially.

17:39

Yeah, so initially there's very

17:41

little anti-Spanish support in Venezuela,

17:44

so Bolivar basically just returns

17:46

to his cocoa plantations. However,

17:49

everything changed when Napoleon invaded the Iberian

17:52

peninsula in 1808, forcing the

17:55

abdication of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty.

17:57

Shocked by the news, both colonial

17:59

authorities and and leading local elites

18:02

in Venezuela, reject the new French

18:04

rulers. They create a temporary loyalist

18:06

ruling union of officials and leading

18:08

local citizens, which very much parallels

18:11

the junta movement in Spain, which

18:13

witnessed the emergence of local committees

18:15

to control local government in the

18:18

name of the Spanish king and

18:20

to organize the resistance against French

18:22

rule. So on 19th April, 1810, when

18:26

he was facing a revolutionary coup

18:29

in Caracas, the Spanish appointed captain

18:31

general of Venezuela, Vicente Emparán, considered

18:34

power and the local cabildo or

18:36

city council became the ruling authority.

18:38

And while theoretically they were

18:41

loyal to King Ferdinand VII, the

18:44

new government replaced Emparán with local

18:46

elites, but it was not strictly

18:48

a revolution against Spanish rule. It

18:50

was more just a desire to

18:52

not become citizens of France. Basically,

18:54

Napoleon has invaded Spain, so Spain

18:57

is now French, which means

18:59

that Venezuela is now French. So

19:01

it's all got a bit confusing,

19:03

Katie. And then the- Yeah, thank

19:05

you for that, because I was a bit confused. But

19:09

I was nodding. I was nodding. And

19:12

then, as Frank said, there's

19:14

a sort of pushback kind of coup in Venezuela where

19:16

they say, no, we're not having it. We're not having

19:19

the French. I can see that

19:21

though. I'm half

19:23

French, so careful what you say here, Katie. Wow,

19:26

I mean, I just, I think I had to learn

19:28

a new language. It's too much. Yeah,

19:30

fair enough. But this

19:32

is a complicated area for Bolivar because he's

19:35

vehemently anti-Spanish, but now

19:37

suddenly he has to be anti-French. There's

19:39

a slight confusion there, Frank. Yeah,

19:41

I would say even more so. I

19:43

mean, one of the main reasons why

19:46

the Caracas elite is anti-French is Catholicism,

19:48

which Bolivar is not a big fan

19:50

of. So they want

19:52

to keep their Catholicism. They see the

19:54

French as overwhelmingly atheist, which

19:56

is what Bolivar is. So he kind of

19:58

needs to align. with

20:00

his enemies and the ideology

20:03

that he wouldn't necessarily support. Okay,

20:05

so the enemy of my enemy is my friend? That

20:07

kind of thing. He's now going to use his money

20:09

politically for the first time. He's going

20:12

to go to London. Basically, he offers to pay

20:14

for the Venezuelan mission to go to London, as

20:16

long as he gets to tag along and become

20:18

a diplomat. And he shows

20:20

up and he's told before he goes, there

20:23

is a revolutionary Venezuelan exile called Francisco de

20:25

Miranda, who you cannot talk to. You cannot

20:27

meet him. You cannot talk to him. You

20:29

cannot write him a letter. You must not

20:32

have any contact with him. So what does

20:34

he do when he gets to London, Katie?

20:36

He contacts him. He

20:39

does. I like

20:41

that. Rule breaker. You're

20:44

warming to him, right? Yes. Yeah,

20:47

Frank, who is Miranda and why is

20:49

Simon Bolivar not meant to meet him

20:51

and then decides he will meet him?

20:53

In 1806, Miranda had been

20:55

backed by the British to lead an

20:57

anti-Spanish expedition to Caracas, which got nowhere,

21:00

so he had fled back to London.

21:03

And when Bolivar met him, they

21:05

tried to negotiate military support from

21:07

the British government, but failed. So

21:09

instead, they both returned to Venezuela

21:12

to establish a Sociedad patriotica, basically

21:14

a common type of

21:16

intellectual salon, supposedly focused

21:18

on agriculture and livestock,

21:22

but which really, as many

21:24

other groups like it, became

21:26

a key to promoting enlightened

21:28

ideas and revolutionary sentiments in

21:30

both the Iberian Peninsula and

21:32

Spanish America. So it

21:34

was essentially a pro-independence political pressure

21:36

group and a highly persuasive one

21:39

of that. And the

21:41

group gradually gathered more and more support

21:43

from the Creole elite, so that on

21:45

5th July, 1811, Caracas

21:48

proclaimed its independence. Wow.

21:51

Prophecy success. So Caracas, as

21:54

a city, proclaimed its independence. They

21:56

declared the independence of the province

21:59

of Venezuela. But really, the support is

22:01

in Caracas. Sure, the power base is the

22:03

city, okay. How long is he in London?

22:05

We don't even talk about his trip to London. How

22:09

was it? What did he say?

22:12

How long was he here for? Yeah, I

22:14

think it's just a few months. Basically

22:16

because when he arrived here and his

22:19

main aim is to get political

22:21

and financial support from Britain

22:23

to launch an independence campaign

22:25

in Venezuela, and he doesn't

22:27

get support because by this

22:29

point, Britain has become

22:31

an ally of the Spanish

22:34

resistance against the French. So

22:36

the British government has no interest

22:39

in backing rebellious Venezuelans,

22:41

which they would have loved to do

22:43

before 1808, but since

22:45

the alliance against France, they're no longer

22:48

interested. Okay, so his trip to London

22:50

doesn't really work, but actually doesn't need

22:52

it because he gets back to Venezuela

22:54

and the pressure group has managed to

22:56

essentially declare independence. So

23:00

you might be thinking, hooray, great, but

23:03

it doesn't really last very long, Frank, does it? No,

23:06

not quite. So Venezuela's first Republican

23:08

constitution split society into two classes.

23:10

On the one hand, you had

23:12

the property-owning voters and then you

23:14

had everybody else. Political

23:17

segregation and slavery also remained as

23:19

part of this first

23:21

Venezuelan republic, although the

23:23

slave trade was technically abolished. So

23:26

in response to this segregation, the

23:28

Pardos and black population rose up against

23:30

a Creole elite, and then on 26 March

23:33

1812, as people gathered

23:35

in the churches for Monday, Thursday,

23:38

a massive earthquake hit

23:40

Venezuela. The clergy proclaimed that

23:42

this was God's way of

23:44

punishing Venezuelan society for the revolution,

23:47

and the proclamation was actually strengthened

23:49

when a second earthquake struck the

23:51

city on the 4th of April.

23:54

So in the aftermath of

23:56

these earthquakes, the republic itself

23:58

collapsed with Miranda's rendering to

24:00

the pro-Spanish forces and Bolívar fleeing

24:02

to Cartagena de Indias in what

24:04

is now Colombia but was at

24:06

the time the Kingdom of Nucronada.

24:09

And here he spent his time

24:11

writing a manifesto addressed to the

24:13

government of Nucronada, explaining

24:15

all the reasons why he thought the

24:18

revolution in Venezuela had failed. So Miranda's

24:20

been captured. In fact, Bolívar turns his

24:22

back on Miranda. They've fallen out by

24:24

this point and Miranda gets

24:26

taken back to Spain and dies in prison in

24:28

Spain. So he's turned on his friend

24:31

and then he's run away and he's written his

24:33

sort of manifesto for why

24:35

the revolution has failed. It's called

24:37

the Cartagena Manifesto of 1812. His

24:40

four reasons are religious fanaticism, popular

24:42

elections, federalism and traditional fighting and

24:44

financial mismanagement. Popular

24:46

elections feels like, I feel like that shouldn't

24:49

be a bad thing. Those are

24:51

the four things he blames, Casey. What did

24:53

he think caused the earthquake? Was it not

24:55

God? He's an atheist,

24:57

I guess. Two earthquakes in a row? I

24:59

feel like if I was an atheist and there's

25:01

two earthquakes in a row, I would have to,

25:04

I'd go back to the Pope. I'd be like,

25:06

sorry, I was rude before. Maybe

25:10

you're right. I guess he's not

25:12

convinced by the divine vengeance angle.

25:14

He says financial mismanagement, federalism, popular

25:17

elections, religious fanaticism. So he's still

25:19

hung up on the religion thing.

25:21

And he's writing this in Cartagena,

25:23

presumably on the beach. With

25:26

a couple of beautiful ladies nearby. He's

25:28

probably fine. He's probably drunk. He's

25:30

got a mojito. Yeah. He

25:33

has not abandoned his principles or at

25:35

least not abandoned his vow that he

25:37

made in Rome. In May 1813, he

25:39

recruited several hundred soldiers. He returned to

25:41

Venezuela, Casey. He tried again. And

25:44

this time, Frank, I mean, I'm going to call

25:46

him more hard-headed, but that's a polite way of

25:48

saying violence is now

25:50

his, is part of his weaponry,

25:53

right? Yeah, you're absolutely right. So

25:55

Bolivar advanced quite quickly through

25:57

his homeland, first taking Merida.

26:00

Guadro, Rio, Barquisimeto, and Valencia

26:02

in short succession. And

26:04

in fact, it's this quick series of victories

26:07

that earned him the nickname

26:09

of the liberator, a

26:11

name which followed him until today. But

26:15

the war at this stage was absolutely

26:17

brutal with atrocities carried out by both

26:19

sides. Believer himself instigated

26:22

a new policy against the Spanish, what he

26:24

called the war to the death. So

26:27

anybody who had been born in

26:29

Spain would be killed unless they

26:31

actively supported and contributed to the

26:33

fight for independence. That's not centrist,

26:36

is it, Katie? That's

26:38

a bit mean, Matt. Yeah. Yes.

26:41

Wow. Yeah. So

26:44

he's killing any Spanish citizen who's not

26:46

wearing a pro-independence t-shirt. He's taking

26:48

it pretty far. I think he's still sad

26:50

about his parents. I

26:52

think he's lashing out. He's gone

26:54

full Batman. Embrace the darkness.

26:57

Yeah. Yeah. This

26:59

is, wow, I like that rebranding of

27:02

the liberator, AKA Batman. He

27:05

has to fight his way back into Caracas. And

27:08

when he arrives, Frank, is he beloved or

27:10

is he feared? Because he's killing people on the

27:12

way to get there. So when

27:14

he arrives, is he hailed as the great

27:17

liberator? Well, he kind of is

27:19

actually. The military campaign only lasts

27:21

for about three months. And

27:23

on the 6th of August of 1813, he rides

27:26

into Caracas, bathed in glory. In

27:28

fact, he was greeted by a

27:30

group of young women, all dressed

27:32

in white, who crowned him with

27:35

laurels and gave him flowers of

27:37

his dismounting from his horse. And

27:39

amongst these women in Caracas was

27:41

one called Josefina Machado, also known

27:43

as Pepita, who at

27:45

the ball given in Bolivar's

27:47

honor that afternoon, became his

27:49

mistress and would be sold for the next four

27:51

or five years. Katy, you were shaking

27:53

your head for much of that. Women,

27:57

we just love a hero. These

28:00

wow, that's just all these women

28:02

that that must have just I

28:04

can't imagine his ego Yeah, this

28:07

is why he became a dictator

28:09

because of these women all these

28:11

ladies in white greeting him with laurels and

28:13

flowers So he's a lover and

28:15

a fighter Katie. He can do it all. That's

28:17

what they all say. I feel like I Just

28:21

wow and he was only five six.

28:23

Can you imagine? They

28:26

must have he was on a horse. I

28:28

imagine maybe he was on a horse. Yeah I'm

28:31

gonna stand up for short men here. I'm only five nine. We

28:33

know we've got other things to offer, you

28:36

know It's not yes. Yes the horse And

28:41

the plantation the cacao so

28:43

Bolivar yes He's taking a

28:46

lover but he's not gonna marry her of course

28:48

because of his vow and where's Josefina

28:51

farm She's from Caracas. Yeah,

28:53

see I'd like to know more about her and see

28:55

how did she how was she the lucky one in

28:57

white? You know, she'll show how did she

29:00

get picked out of all the girls? And

29:03

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30:13

he becomes a dictator, Simon Bolivar. He's

30:15

dodged the Napoleon thing of going emperor

30:17

and he's gone full Julius Caesar. He's

30:19

dictator. It's an interesting title

30:21

dictator because we tend to use it now in

30:23

a very pejorative way. But it

30:26

is a political position of sorts. It's a

30:28

particular philosophy. What is his

30:30

justification, Bolivar, for saying, right,

30:33

I'm the new boss, but I'm not a king.

30:35

I'm not an emperor. I'm something else. So Bolivar,

30:37

at this point, in Visage Venezuela,

30:39

or starts to in Visage Venezuela, is part

30:41

of a larger country, which would also incorporate

30:43

New Granada. And this is the beginning of

30:46

what he would later on call the

30:49

Gran Colombia, an independent,

30:51

unified South American state,

30:53

which would all have

30:55

independent militaries, but which,

30:57

in Bolivar's view, should

30:59

have a unified central

31:02

government. So on the

31:04

2nd of January, 1814, a representative assembly

31:08

gathered in Caracas and granted

31:10

him supreme power with the title

31:13

of dictator in the tradition of

31:15

classical antiquity. So this was technically

31:17

an emergency office. It was given

31:20

to somebody when there was a

31:22

big crisis that needed solving. And

31:25

in Bolivar's view, that was what

31:27

was happening. He intended to centralize

31:29

power to safeguard and extend the

31:32

revolution, but it wasn't meant to be

31:35

a permanent thing. At that time, he also wrote

31:37

that holy representative institutions

31:39

were not suited to

31:42

the character, customs, and

31:44

present knowledge of the

31:46

people of Venezuela. So he wanted

31:48

to concentrate power in himself until

31:50

people learned how to be free.

31:52

You can't be trusted to have

31:54

a political system. I'll do it.

31:57

It's slightly cynical. I'm

32:01

wondering about this guy. It's

32:04

a bit conflicting because I feel like he's

32:06

done some good things and then now this

32:09

gets the tricky situation in the story.

32:12

I'm so conflicted on how to view him. The

32:15

Grand Columbia, he wants a unified South

32:17

America, but each region having its

32:19

own army is quite surprising to me. It

32:21

had a lot also to do

32:23

with the vast expanse of Northern

32:26

South America and the time it would take

32:28

to send commands from one place to another.

32:31

What he really wanted was a

32:34

centralized government that could deal with

32:36

foreign challenges and which could, if

32:38

needed, coordinate local governments, but at

32:40

the same time he wanted armies

32:43

that could respond more quickly to

32:45

challenges than having to wait for

32:47

an order to come from Bogota

32:50

to Kumanau or wherever,

32:52

which would have probably taken weeks and

32:54

weeks to arrive. I think that

32:56

sounds smart. I think I might be one of those

32:58

girls in white now. I might get

33:00

some flowers. Get

33:03

the laurel crown. You're back on board. Yeah,

33:06

this is innovative stuff going on over

33:08

here. It feels like a Roman model to me.

33:10

It feels like you have an emperor and then you've

33:12

got governors out in the provinces who can, they've got

33:14

their own decision making and their own armies to sort

33:16

of, yeah, okay, okay, okay, all right. Maybe

33:18

I'll get a white dress and some laurel, I don't know. I

33:22

might not be his type. He's a dictator, he's

33:24

established himself, he's got this big grand vision. Is

33:26

it going to hold? Does it last? Well, sadly,

33:28

no. Within about a

33:30

month, he has to execute 800

33:33

rebels in Caracas and

33:35

this pretty much triggers

33:37

a counter-revolution led by

33:39

Jose Tomas Bóvez, a

33:41

violent white pro-Spanish royalist.

33:44

Bóvez actually promised his black and

33:46

part of the followers that they

33:49

would get white Creole property if

33:51

they ousted Bolivar. So

33:53

by August, it's clear that Bóvez

33:55

was unstoppable and on

33:58

the 26th, Bolivar sailed the

34:00

island of Margarita, taking with him

34:02

silver and jewels from the churches

34:04

of Caracas in an attempt to

34:06

raise capital for what would be

34:08

a counter-attack. While

34:10

he's in Margarita, however, Bolívar is declared

34:13

an outlaw and he's forced to flee

34:15

again, this time going to Jamaica in

34:17

May 1815. Meanwhile,

34:20

in Spain, King Ferdinand VII has

34:23

been returned to power and

34:26

in February 1815, he

34:28

dispatched an army to re-establish

34:30

his South American colonies. These

34:33

expeditions were mostly successful and

34:35

so by October 1816, the

34:38

Spanish have basically reconquered Venezuela entirely.

34:40

Whoa! We had independence for about

34:42

one month, and then a civil

34:44

war, and now suddenly the Spanish

34:46

are back. They come back in

34:48

such a short amount of time! He's about 32

34:50

by this point, so

34:52

he's no longer the young young guy. He's now in

34:55

his 30s. That's a very busy 18

34:57

months. I feel so under

34:59

accomplished. What,

35:01

have you not alluded to the church, Katie?

35:03

I once took a Bible, but I actually...

35:05

Okay, all right. You brought it back, yes.

35:08

I'm sorry! Sorry. It's gonna

35:10

be an earthquake now. Yeah, exactly. Oh no. You're

35:12

struck down by lightning. So

35:14

we're halfway through the podcast and already

35:16

we've had one revolution failed, the second

35:18

one fails when the Spanish show up

35:20

again, the Empire strikes back, so

35:23

we're now on to the three-quel, third time

35:25

lucky. You're gonna try again, again, but

35:27

this story nearly begins in disaster because

35:29

an assassin comes to kill him, Katie,

35:32

and he escapes with his life. Do you know how

35:35

he escapes? He's getting more attractive. I'm

35:37

so sorry. Wow,

35:39

this is becoming... I'm

35:41

reframing this as a novella. How does he escape?

35:44

Now, I think I did try to

35:46

watch some of the series,

35:48

Bolivar, but I've also started rewatching

35:51

Dr. Who, and it's all kind

35:53

of mixing together, and

35:58

I'd like to say he went in the... TARDIS

36:00

but I don't think I

36:03

think I'm mixing the two. The crossover we've

36:05

all needed. Doctor Who meets him on

36:07

Bolivar. No he doesn't escape in

36:09

a TARDIS. He gets lucky basically the assassin

36:12

kills the wrong guy. The assassin kills his

36:14

friend. His friend Felix is sleeping in his

36:16

hammock and so the assassin comes and murders

36:18

who he thinks is Bolivar but it's actually

36:20

Felix. Oh poor Felix.

36:23

Poor Felix. That's a lucky escape

36:25

for Bolivar. Does that count as an

36:28

escape? I mean you tell me.

36:30

I wanted it to be like

36:32

through a trap door, in something

36:34

and it's like oh it's just

36:36

somebody else was killed. I feel

36:39

like that's not... I feel like action

36:41

movies have ruined this for you. Your fans

36:43

are very high. Did

36:46

Bolivar just get to the hammock and was like

36:48

oops? Pretty much. Bolivar

36:50

now hits upon a new strategy. He's

36:52

gonna liberate new Granada first and

36:55

that involves attacking over the

36:57

Andes Mountains. That sounds hard

37:00

Frank. How do you go over the mountains

37:02

to attack? So between 1817 and 1819 Bolivar

37:07

gradually made military progress in eastern

37:09

and southern Venezuela but he's entirely

37:12

unable to break the Spanish occupation

37:14

of the center north of the

37:16

province. So he makes a plan to

37:19

lure the Spanish out by

37:21

taking new Granada first and

37:23

this would involve taking all his army

37:25

up the Andes to catch them by

37:27

surprise. So he set out with

37:29

an army of about 2,100 men on 27th May

37:32

1819 but unfortunately they

37:38

hit the rainy season. So for

37:40

weeks his men marched through the

37:42

Amazon rainforest in waist-deep water. After

37:45

this then they faced the mountainous

37:47

Andes in freezing rain. Many

37:49

suffered from altitude sickness. Men and

37:51

animals died en route. Several British

37:54

volunteer soldiers had joined the expedition

37:56

and in fact one of the

37:58

British wives even gave birth. while

38:00

they were marching. Then the

38:02

surviving soldiers met and defeated the

38:04

royalist forces in battle on the

38:07

25th of July at Pantano

38:09

de Vargas, already in Nugrenada.

38:12

Then victorious Bolivar then intercepted

38:14

and overwhelmed a retreating

38:16

enemy at the infamous Battle of Boyaka on

38:19

the banks of the Boyaka River on the

38:21

7th of August 1819. On the 10th Bolivar

38:26

rode into Bogota to cheering crowds

38:28

where once again the young

38:30

women dressed in white presented him with a

38:33

crown of laurels. Crown

38:35

of what? Laurel. Oh,

38:38

I thought I heard something else. What did you hear? And

38:40

I was like, how did that happen?

38:43

Crown of Orals? And I was like,

38:45

whoa. How is that crowned? Wow. Wow.

38:48

God, this guy is crazy. Okay.

38:51

So when I, yeah, when I said he went over the

38:53

Andes, I clearly left out waded

38:55

through the Amazon River first. That's

38:58

hardcore, Katie. So Nugrenada,

39:00

we're talking Peru, Bolivia,

39:02

Colombia and well. Modern

39:05

day Colombia, basically. Okay. Northern

39:07

part of South America, but west of Venezuela. So

39:10

he's gone up over and through the

39:12

river and over the mountains and ambushed

39:14

the enemy. That's impressive.

39:16

Altitude, sickness alone will get you.

39:18

I went to Machu

39:20

Picchu and my friend didn't take

39:23

the medicine and he

39:25

barely did it. Really? Mm

39:27

hmm. It's pretty steep. Yeah.

39:30

Well, he also had food poisoning,

39:33

but that's his fault. So wow. So

39:35

then 2000 people. Yeah,

39:44

2100. Yeah. How

39:47

many people survived this? Yeah. So actually

39:49

at some point he meets with Sucre,

39:52

who's his right hand man,

39:54

who has another, I think

39:57

1900 men or thereabouts. So

39:59

the actual army that crosses

40:01

the Andes starts at about 4,000 men

40:03

and I think it ends around 2,500

40:05

or thereabouts. Whoa okay well that's

40:08

a big losses. There are big

40:10

losses yes. And what are they eating

40:12

on this trip? I'm just out of curiosity.

40:15

They bring with them some stores

40:17

because there's not a lot that you can just

40:20

pluck out of the Andes and eat. And

40:22

also I think the majority of the

40:24

people in the expedition are actually from

40:27

the Venezuelan lowlands so they're not at

40:29

all used to the weather,

40:31

the altitude, the cold of the Andes.

40:33

They would have been felt more at

40:35

home wading through the

40:37

Amazon forest than going

40:40

up the mountains. You're really packing for two very different

40:42

holidays there aren't you? Exactly.

40:44

It feels like coming to the UK. Oh

40:47

my god. So

40:49

he has this great success, the Battle of Boyaca

40:51

which is his great win and

40:54

returns to Venezuela Frank and

40:56

holds a Congress and Bolivar is trying

40:59

to assert himself now. So what does

41:01

this now mean? Has he established his

41:03

Gran Colombia? Yes exactly. So at Angos

41:05

Nura in Venezuela he held a Congress

41:07

which on the 17th of December 1819

41:10

announced the creation

41:12

of the Republic of Gran

41:14

Colombia which would include Venezuela,

41:16

Nugrenada and Quito, what is

41:18

now Ecuador which hadn't been

41:20

liberated yet but which would

41:23

soon be freed by Bolivar

41:25

and his General Sucre. Bolivar

41:27

was named President of Gran Colombia

41:30

with Francisco de Paula Santander made

41:32

the Vice President. So Bolivar

41:34

then strove to end royalist rule in Venezuela

41:36

once and for all and at the Battle

41:38

of Carabobo on the 24th of June 1829

41:40

he led his forces to

41:45

a bloody victory. He then re-entered Caracas

41:47

on the 29th of June 1821 after

41:51

an absence of about seven years and

41:53

in the following months the last pockets

41:55

of royalist resistance were defeated and

41:57

Venezuela was at last independent. And

42:00

who greeted him on the way in, Katie? Women

42:02

in white. Women in white, absolutely.

42:05

Bolivar's life is enormous, even his

42:08

military campaigns. But Frank,

42:10

we have now Peru

42:13

next on his agenda. Yes, so after

42:15

Quito Bolívar turned his attention to Peru,

42:17

which was kind of already in revolt,

42:20

he was named dictator of

42:22

Peru in 1824 and eventually

42:24

drove the Spanish out. He

42:26

then set his sights on Upper Peru, what

42:28

we now call Bolivia. And

42:31

his second in command, General

42:33

Sucre, was quickly victorious against

42:35

the last remnants of Spanish

42:37

rule. And then an assembly

42:40

comprised mainly of Creole elites

42:42

met and declared the independence of

42:44

Upper Peru on the 6th of August 1825

42:46

at Chukisaka. The

42:50

country was then renamed Bolívar, which

42:52

was later changed to Bolivia. And

42:55

Bolívar in turn was named supreme

42:57

executive leader, basically dictator. And

42:59

he then drafted the Bolivian constitution of 1826,

43:03

which in many ways was the apex of his political

43:05

ideas. But what's the

43:07

sentiment towards him? Are people like,

43:09

this guy's great, or are

43:12

people like, who is this guy? So

43:14

it's technically the elites of Upper Peru

43:16

who named the country Bolívar after him.

43:20

So, I mean, presumably they feel

43:22

quite positively about him and quite

43:24

thankful that he's liberated, by this

43:26

point, all of South America from

43:28

the Spaniards. So even

43:30

though he's called the dictator,

43:32

he's not, people are happy. He's

43:36

a likeable dictator. Wow. But

43:38

the fact that they've named the country after him is pretty indicative.

43:40

We could name a country after you, Greenland. Oh no, that's not

43:42

going to work. Kati land? Neither

43:44

does sound good. The Bolivian

43:46

constitution of 1826 is where

43:48

he writes his political ideas, which is a

43:51

really important document. But it's now that he

43:53

meets another beautiful woman, Kati. Can you believe

43:55

it? Yes. Okay.

43:59

No surprises. He's dumped his previous mistress,

44:01

he's onto a new one, and she's called

44:03

Manuela Saints. She's young, she's

44:05

beautiful. Aren't they all? Bert,

44:08

she's also clever and talented and educated

44:10

and already a spy for the revolution

44:12

and a courier for the revolution. She

44:14

delivers secret messages. Oh, so

44:16

now it's getting spicy. We like this.

44:20

There is a small catch about Manuela. Do

44:22

you want to guess what the catch is?

44:24

No, she's 17. No, no

44:27

good news. She wasn't horribly underage.

44:29

She was 25, which is a perfectly

44:31

good age for a beautiful mistress of

44:33

a much older man. Oh no. I

44:37

still don't like it. I don't like it. No.

44:41

How old was he? Maybe just sort of hovering

44:43

around 40ish. Too much like his father. No,

44:48

she's married. She's married? Oh,

44:51

she's married to a British guy. She is married to

44:53

a British guy. Do you know that? Yeah. Yeah. How

44:56

do you know that? That's good. Good

44:58

knowledge. This

45:00

is the part of history where I'm like, ooh. Ooh.

45:04

You like it when it's spicy. This girl's cheating.

45:06

Yeah. I could read this in

45:08

hello. You could read this in hello. Well,

45:11

amazingly, you might be able to read her sort of

45:13

secret text that might be handed to hello by one

45:15

of her friends because this is what she says in

45:17

a letter to her husband when she dumps him. She

45:20

says, do you think it lowers my honor

45:23

that this general is my lover and not

45:25

my husband? I do not live by social

45:27

rules invented only to torment. So

45:29

leave me alone, my dear Englishman. You

45:32

are boring like your nation. Isn't

45:36

that great? I'm going to

45:38

quote her forever. Oh, my

45:40

God. I love to dump

45:42

every British guy like that. You

45:44

are boring like your nation. Yeah.

45:46

What a boss. What a woman.

45:49

Yeah. Oh, my

45:51

God. I love that. She

45:53

got the visa and was like, bye. Wow.

45:57

Good for her. You've been living in London for three and

45:59

a half years. Katie do you want

46:01

to defend Englishman's honor? Absolutely

46:03

not I am Team

46:05

Manuela, right? Yeah Manuela yeah

46:08

yeah I'm I am I'm

46:10

gonna get a t-shirt of her face. You

46:14

are boring like your nation

46:16

wow. It's a good line yeah but

46:19

didn't they stay married? She dumps

46:21

him whether they divorce I'm not sure but she

46:23

she ditches him and just you know moves him

46:25

with Simon Baudevard for the rest of his life

46:27

actually so this one sticks. Although

46:29

he's not loyal because the next thing in my

46:32

script says that shortly after we got together he

46:34

moved on to Guayaquil where he reportedly fell for

46:36

several women all in the same family. He's

46:40

working his way through. I knew this

46:42

would happen. I didn't

46:45

read this part of the book but I but I it's

46:47

because I already know the story. You sensed it

46:49

yeah you could see it was coming. I sensed it

46:51

from him. So there we go Simon Baudevard always with

46:54

the conquests so we should probably get back to politics

46:56

Frank. We mentioned the Bolivian Constitution of 1826 I think

46:58

it was distilling

47:01

his political ideas so what is

47:03

in this book? What are his

47:05

ideas? So the Constitution allows

47:08

elections for things like

47:10

the Congress but includes

47:12

a precedent that is appointed

47:14

for life and who chooses his

47:16

own successor so it institutes an

47:18

outer an element of authoritarian control

47:20

at the very top. This

47:23

was quite controversial at the time

47:25

but Bolivar felt ultimately that control

47:27

was necessary in order to safeguard

47:30

the hard-won independence and to maintain

47:32

peace. The Constitution did

47:34

also have a number of liberal elements

47:36

in it. Equality was enshrined,

47:38

slavery was outlawed, civil rights were

47:41

protected. By 1826 Bolivar

47:44

had liberated, I'm putting those in inverted commas,

47:46

six countries or at least six modern countries

47:48

as we know them. To do

47:50

that he had ridden 75,000 miles in the saddle

47:54

which probably explains why he

47:57

had terrible hemorrhoids Katie. But

48:01

who knows? Yes, he might well be having problems

48:03

front and back. And it's not

48:05

just his backside that's giving him trouble, Frank,

48:07

because the Gran Colombia dream that he has

48:10

put together, this united, federalised South America, as

48:12

soon as he puts it in place it's

48:14

starting to wobble. There isn't

48:16

stability. There soon is growing resentment.

48:18

You know, Katie asked, were people

48:20

happy? Quite soon. There was tension,

48:22

wasn't there, Frank? Yeah, so I

48:24

think the first ones to start

48:26

to dislike Bolivar a lot were

48:28

the Peruvians, who saw his government

48:30

and the presence of Colombian

48:33

forces in the country as

48:35

an occupation, and particularly so

48:37

after they are forced to

48:39

adopt the Bolivian constitution of

48:42

1826, which

48:44

made Bolivar president for life. More

48:47

or less at the same time

48:49

in Venezuela, the Caudillo-Hosiantonio Páez revolted

48:51

in April 1826 until

48:54

Bolivar's return quelled him. Much

48:57

of this increasing tension stemmed

49:00

from Bolivar believing that all

49:02

Americans should be bound together

49:04

by their continental, supranational identity,

49:06

which however many of the

49:08

individual countries didn't like. He's

49:11

saying, look, it needs to be a big block, and

49:13

actually the individual countries are saying, no, no, we want

49:15

to be countries. And political dissent

49:17

quite quickly turned to murderous intent, Katie.

49:19

Assassination attempt number two, here we come.

49:21

Oh no, what friend was in the

49:23

hammock? Well, no, no, no friends are

49:25

killed this time. A lot

49:27

of guards are killed. A lot of dogs are

49:29

killed. Not the dogs. A large gang of men

49:32

break into his palace in the dead of night

49:34

to come and murder him, but Manuela saves his

49:36

life. She hears them coming. She

49:38

grabs a sword. She jumps the door. She tells

49:40

him to get out. He wants

49:42

to stand inside and be the big man. She's

49:44

like, don't be an idiot. Go out the window.

49:46

So he does a runner, and she stands to

49:48

face the baddies and lives to tell the tale.

49:50

So good for her, right? She's a bit of

49:52

a hero. God, I love

49:55

this woman. We

49:57

should have talked about her life. just

50:01

what a hero yeah yeah

50:04

wow and so he escapes he

50:06

does he escapes they find him shivering

50:08

under a bridge sort of very very

50:10

cold in his pajamas i guess humiliated

50:12

but alive so bolivar has

50:14

dodged another early death but his utopia of

50:16

grand colombia is doomed really on the sixth

50:19

of may 1830 venezuela

50:21

officially became an independent republic

50:23

and then the following week ecuador left as

50:26

well he loses two countries in a week

50:28

which is that's a bad week and then

50:30

a few months later december 1830 this

50:32

so-called liberator president died of tuberculosis

50:34

he was only 47 bit

50:37

of an anti-climax at the end of the life there katie what

50:39

do you feel yeah i feel like it

50:42

would have been better if he was assassinated

50:44

that would have

50:47

been a better story tuberculosis

50:49

getting yeah yeah

50:51

it's a nice when he got his parents as well

50:53

didn't it yeah so it's oh runs

50:56

in the family runs and it's a horrible disease

50:58

uh but yes you're right only 47 so the

51:00

liberator president in 1830 is

51:02

when he died yeah that's

51:05

the end of simon bolivar the nuance

51:07

window and

51:13

it's time now for the nuance window this

51:15

is where katie and i put on our

51:17

long white dresses and throw flowers we give

51:20

two minutes to dr frank to tell us

51:22

something we need to know about simon bolivar

51:24

you have two minutes take it away please

51:27

so bolivar is perhaps the most famous

51:29

latin american person who has ever lived

51:31

certainly if you judge by the number

51:33

of books written about him and probably

51:36

also by the number of very

51:38

different looking portraits painted of him

51:40

although he died bitterly disappointed in

51:42

his compatriots and on his own

51:44

achievements he famously wrote in his

51:46

deathbed that he who serves the

51:48

revolution plows the sea he

51:51

remains to this day an enormously influential

51:53

political symbol troubling through

51:55

colombia or benesuela everywhere one

51:57

comes across a commemorative plague

52:00

indicating when and how many times

52:02

Bolivar visited this or that town.

52:05

And most significantly, Bolivar continues to

52:07

be a symbol claimed by multiple

52:09

political projects. Perhaps most

52:11

notably, between 1998 and

52:14

2013, Hugo Chavez

52:16

constantly used Bolivar's image and

52:19

discourse to legitimize his government

52:21

in Venezuela. Chavez

52:23

famously changed the country's name

52:25

to Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,

52:28

used to live an empty seat

52:30

in all government meetings for Bolivar,

52:33

and famously had the general's remains

52:35

used to produce a reconstruction of

52:38

Bolivar's face, which made the liberator

52:40

look suspiciously similar to Chavez himself.

52:43

However, there was actually not a

52:45

lot in common between Bolivar's background

52:47

plans and ideology and those of

52:50

Chavez. Perhaps most obviously,

52:52

the later was an ardent defendant

52:54

of direct democracy, whereas, as we've

52:56

seen, Bolivar believed that the people

52:58

of South America were not ready

53:01

to exercise political power, generally

53:03

mistrusted elections, and preferred

53:05

a restricted suffrage. Still,

53:08

they were perhaps a bit closer

53:10

to each other in that both

53:12

Bolivar and Chavez perceived regional supranational

53:14

integration to be an effective strategy

53:16

for resisting foreign imperialism, and in

53:18

that both saw government led by

53:20

a strong man as a way

53:22

of solving some of their nation's

53:24

problems, at least in the short

53:26

run. Nonetheless, Chavez's extensive

53:29

and often quite successful mobilization

53:31

of Bolivar to garner support

53:33

and legitimacy shows how terribly

53:35

relevant the mythical figure of

53:38

the Libertador remains in South

53:40

America today. So what do you know

53:42

now? This

53:48

time now for the quiz. This is the So

53:51

What Do You Know Now? It is our quick

53:53

fire quiz for Katie. See how much she has

53:55

remembered and learned. Katie, are you feeling confident? No.

54:00

Okay, well thank you for your honesty. I

54:03

took notes that they're not that great. I

54:06

wrote down Chocolate Man, that's about it. Okay,

54:11

question one. In 1783, Simone Bolivar

54:13

was born in which country? Venezuela.

54:16

It is Venezuela. There we go,

54:18

we're off. Question two. What happened

54:21

to Simone Bolivar's young wife he

54:23

met in Madrid? She died of

54:27

yellow fever? It was yellow

54:29

fever, very well done. That's really well remembered, yeah.

54:31

Maria Theresa was her name. Wasn't vaccinated.

54:35

Question three. While visiting Rome in 1805,

54:38

what vow did Bolivar allegedly make

54:40

having dissed the Pope? That's when

54:42

he vowed to liberate South America?

54:45

Absolutely. Question four. In 1808, who

54:48

invaded the Iberian Peninsula and booted

54:50

out the Spanish royal family, thus

54:52

galvanising Venezuelan elites against their new

54:55

foreign ruler? The French.

54:57

Napoleon. It was. Well

55:00

done. Question five. How did Bolivar get

55:02

himself on the Venezuelan diplomatic delegation to

55:04

London in 1810? By

55:07

bow? By ship? Yes.

55:11

I was like, this is too easy, you have a

55:13

question. How did he end up convincing them to let

55:15

him go? Do you remember? Oh,

55:17

hold on. Silver? No. Yeah,

55:20

he paid for it. He bankrolled it himself.

55:22

He's like, I'll pay for it if you

55:24

let me go. Question six. Can you name

55:26

three of the six modern nations that gained

55:28

independence from Spanish rule under Bolivar? Venezuela.

55:31

Yeah. Peru. Yep.

55:33

Colombia. Yep. That's right. You could

55:35

have Bolivia, Panama and Ecuador as

55:37

well. Question seven. What was Bolivar's

55:39

inspirational nickname that he got while

55:42

young? The Liberator. It

55:45

was. Question eight. When Bolivar rode

55:47

into cities as a liberator, who always greeted

55:49

him and what were they holding? Women

55:52

in white holding flowers. Yes,

55:54

and a laurel crown. That's right.

55:56

Question nine. Why did Simon Bolivar's mistress,

55:59

Manuela, sign? Choose him over

56:01

her husband. What was her famous line?

56:03

He was boring the British are boring

56:06

This for a perfect 10 out of 10 Katie. What

56:09

documents did Bolivar write in 1826

56:12

which distilled his political thinking?

56:19

Not the manifesto this is not the

56:21

one of Cartagena no, that's what remembered

56:23

this is a different one. Oh,

56:25

no I do remember slightly

56:28

zoning out in this I

56:31

remember I remember okay, he what

56:34

countries named after him Bolivia. Yeah, so

56:36

what's the document called the very

56:40

good document from Bolivia Begin

56:44

with C Constitution Okay,

56:49

so all together now a Constitution

56:52

of Bolivia no, yes the Bolivian Constitution

56:55

of 1826 Katie

56:57

Green 10 out of 10 No

57:01

help at all Well,

57:04

thank you so much Katie well done 10 out of 10 and

57:06

thank you so much Dr. Frank for sharing all

57:08

your knowledge with us and listener if after today's episode

57:10

you want to hear more about the Spanish Empire in

57:13

The Americas you can check out our episode on the

57:15

Colombian exchange for more revolutionary events in

57:17

Bolivar's life We have done our episode on young

57:19

Napoleon and we also do one on the Haitian

57:21

Revolution And remember if you enjoyed the podcast,

57:23

please leave a review share the show with your friends subscribe to

57:25

your debt To me on BBC sound so you never miss an

57:28

episode But all that's left for me

57:30

to do is say huge. Thank you to our

57:32

guests in history corner We had the amazing dr.

57:34

Frank is a barroso from the University of Manchester.

57:36

Thank you Frank. Thanks Great pleasure and in commonly

57:38

corner. We had the fantastic Katie Green. Thank you

57:40

Katie Thank you And

57:42

to you lovely listener join me next time

57:44

as we liberate yet another historical subject from

57:46

obscurity But for now, I must go and

57:48

unify all the other BBC Greggs into one

57:51

giant BBC Greg starting with radio ones Greg

57:53

James You'll never suspect it if I come over

57:55

the Andes Bye The

58:03

next episode of Your Death and Me was researched

58:05

by Roxanne Wall. She was written by Emmy Rose

58:07

Pricegoodfellow, Emma Niggos and me, the audio producer for

58:10

Steve Hankey and our production coordinator for this programme

58:12

Hobbs. The producers were Emmy Rose Pricegoodfellow and me,

58:14

the senior producer for this, Emma Niggos and the

58:16

executive editor for Chris Ledgeard. Hello,

58:21

Rosal Caine here. I used to love British history.

58:23

Be proud of it. Henry

58:28

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58:30

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58:38

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58:42

Radio 4's Evil Genius, the

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58:46

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58:49

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Listen to Evil Genius with me, Rosal

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