Hello and welcome to Revolutions,

The surprise victory at Ayacucho ended Spanish rule in South America. On the eve of the Abdications of Bayonne way back in 1807, the Spanish controlled millions of square miles of land from Mexico on down to the tip of South America, but after nearly 20 years of revolts, insurrections and wars, they had lost nearly everything. It was a stunning disintegration of a 300 year old empire. Now, they still controlled Puerto Rico and Cuba, but on the continent they were now down to just two tiny pockets of stubborn loyalty.

In Upper Peru, the conservative General Olañeta ignored Viceroy la Serna’s order to surrender and defiantly prepared to resist to the bitter end. Joining his defiant resistance was the garrison commander of the fortress of Callao. He too, refused an order from la Serna to surrender and instead prepared to withstand a brutal siege. Neither will succeed, however, and by the end of today’s episode, both of those pockets of stubborn loyalty would also be gone.

With Spanish rule now a thing of the past, South America entered a transitional phase, and a map of the continent in 1825 would not be recognizable today. Colombia was still a large superstate containing Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama. Down in the Rio de la Plata, chaos continued to rain, and nobody knew how it was going to shake out. The territories that would one day become Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil were still a hot mess of civil war and cross border conflict. Peru was Peru, but its border with Colombia to the north and Chile to the south would be a source of future conflict and debate, to say nothing of the looming question of what to do with Upper Peru.

Now, given his obsessive need to swim against the tide to plow the sea, as he so eloquently put it, Simón Bolívar hoped that when the dust of revolution settled, that there would be four great countries that emerged from the old Spanish possessions roughly conforming to the boundaries of the old vice royalties. But as we’ll see today, the centrifugal forces of federalism were already fatally undermining Bolívar’s dream of large centralist superstates taking root in South America. The leaders of South America did not agree on much, but they all agreed that they did not want to live in giant superstates, especially not superstates ruled by Simón Bolívar.

But though the map of South America in 1825 is not the same map that exists today, the transformation of the continent from Spanish colonies to free and independent nations was finally being recognized by the rest of the world, at least the English speaking world. As we’ve seen over the course of this series, the attitude of both the United States and Britain towards the Spanish revolutionaries was always guarded and neutral. The British would not risk their alliance with Spain while the Napoleonic Wars was ongoing. And then, even after Waterloo, Britain was hesitant to upset the reactionary postwar European balance of power. Now, we’re going to talk more about this when we get to the Revolutions of 1830, but after the Congress of Vienna, international politics in Europe was broadly directed by the so called Holy Alliance between Austria, Prussia and Russia – old style conservative monarchies opposed to liberalism, democracy, and anything that even hinted at revolution.

Britain’s early postwar policy was to work in concert with the Holy Alliance, forming what is called the Quadruple Alliance, which then became the Quintuple Alliance in 1818, after they folded in the fully restored Bourbon monarchy of France. Among other things, this concert of conservative powers resolved in the early 1820’s to oppose the Carbonari Revolt in Italy, the budding drive for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, and, of course, the liberal mutiny of the Spanish army in 1820, which we talked about back in Episode 5.17.

To deal with this last, and for us at this moment, most relevant threat, the Quintuple Alliance met in Verona in October of 1822 and approved a plan that would allow France to invade Spain, nullify the liberal constitution that had been established and restore full, absolute power to King Ferdinand VII. The British were not thrilled by this plan and would not help it in any way, but they also determined it would be fruitless to try to stop it. So in early 1823, just shy of ten years since they had been kicked out of the country, the French reinvaded Spain, successfully scattered the Liberal government and restored absolute power to King Ferdinand, all of this bringing an end to the period of Spanish history called the Liberal Trienium. It should come as no shock that the King would soon be making noise about the need to restore all of Spain’s old dominions in America to their rightful place, their rightful owner. But even Fernand’s closest allies were skeptical that this was remotely possible. The same French government that had just used its army to restore his absolutist throne was not interested in helping Ferdinand restore the Spanish empire to its former glory. Instead, the French entered into bilateral talks with the British to work out a shared response to the question of South America.

After these talks, British Foreign Secretary George Canning issued the Polignac Memorandum in October of 1823, taking its name from the French Ambassador to the court of St. James. The memorandum said that the British and French would not help Spain recover her lost colonies, but neither Britain nor France had their own territorial ambitions in South America and that they would also not pursue exclusive trading rights in the Western hemisphere. Economic free trade and political independence would be the order of the day in South America.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the United States watched the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the rise of the Holy Alliance with unease. Since George Washington had first put his stamp on the presidency, the guiding foreign policy of the United States had been avoiding entanglements in European affairs. Now, they had not been successful at this, as the Quasi War with France and the recent humiliations at the hands of the British in the War of 1812 attested. But still, at the tail end of the Virginia dynasty, the general policy of Presidents and Secretaries of States was still to try to maintain a general neutrality, which let them stand offish towards their South American cousins who you might think, given the United States’ own history and professed ideals that the government would gladly arm and support. Now, this left the South Americans understandably bitter and disappointed by the alleged Beacon on the Hill that was the United States of America, even more so because they well knew that the United States was not acting out of high minded principle so much as prioritizing the acquisition of Florida from the Spanish. Unwilling to upset those negotiations, the US refused to send boat loads of guns to rebels in South America and even made it a crime for American citizens to do so in a private capacity.

But with the old Conservative monarchies on the rise, and Florida finally secured, President James Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, worried about the hemisphere reverting to its old order, with European monarchies carving up and dominating the Americas. Now, as I just said, the British shared this concern, and they did not want to lose access to South American markets, so they talked to the United States about issuing a joint statement respecting South American independence and protecting everyone’s access to trade. But with the bitter hangover left by the War of 1812 still lingering, President Monroe refused a joint statement and instead plotted an independent course. In March of 1822, Monroe formally recognized Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Mexico as independent nations. Then, a year and a half later, the president addressed Congress in December of 1823 and declared what has become known to history as the Monroe Doctrine, though it was mostly written by Secretary of State Adams, the Presidents get naming rights on their policies.

Monroe said

“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”

But a major caveat applied to this general principle of keeping Europe out of the Americas. Monroe went on to say.

“With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have on great consideration and on just principles acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.”

So if you’ll recall from our final episode on Haiti, this formula of the Monroe Doctrine implicitly left out the second nation in the Western hemisphere to win independence because the United States still recognized Haiti as a colony of France.

The Monroe Doctrine also did not include Puerto Rico or Cuba, which were still recognized as colonies of Spain, nor did it include any other colony of any other nation that had not yet declared independence.

But of course, the most important thing to understand about the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine is that it was utterly toothless and everyone knew it. In 1823, the United States was a minor power with no real navy. And ironically, the only thing that can enforce America’s grandiose declaration that Europe stay out of the Americas was the British Navy. But luckily, the British were seriously interested in shielding their own access to South American ports and did, in fact, stand opposed to European powers trying to reclaim lost territory, particularly the Spanish.

And so the British position evolved from the British not recognizing South American independence to claiming neutrality in the conflict, to finally recognizing Mexico, Colombia and Argentina on New Year’s Eve 1824. Which was pretty good timing because this was just weeks after the Battle of Ayacucho marked the de facto end of the Spanish in the Americas.

Though they were now formally recognized by the governments of both the United States and Britain, the South Americans would continue to redefine what it is they want the rest of the world to actually recognize. And the looming question about what to do with Upper Peru would mark the beginning of the end of Bolívar’s dream of four large nations run by centralized governments and the beginning of the beginning of the 16 decentralized nations that would emerge after his death.

Now, actually, liberating Upper Peru turned out to be easier than anyone expected. After General Sucre finalized the terms of Spanish surrender with Viceroy la Serna, he prepared to go hunt down and capture General Olañeta. Sucre wasted very little time getting going and by mid February 1825 Sucre’s army had crossed the border into Upper Peru and entered La Paz not just unopposed, but to open arms. The remaining, quote unquote Spanish troops in the region were more often than not local recruits who welcomed the general amnesty Sucre had sent ahead. He was offering to absorb both enlisted men and officers at equivalent rank and pay into the Patriot Army.

So there was no war of Bolivian independence as such. The march to liberate Upper Peru was marked not by battles but by peaceful defections. The utterly intransigent Olañeta, however, held out with his last few remaining loyalists, but in April of 1825, he was killed fighting in a minor skirmish. And since he was the only casualty of that skirmish and all of his men then promptly defected to Sucre, it is widely assumed that Olañeta was assassinated by his own men. And this is why Ayacucho gets to go down as the last battle of Spanish American independence. Because by the end of April 1825, Upper Peru was in Sucre’s hands and he had hardly fired a shot in anger.

Back down in Lima, Bolívar was thrilled by all of this and he tripped over himself singing Sucre’s praises and promising the dawning of a new age of liberty, etc, etc. It was especially great news because the situation in Lima remained treacherous and depressing. Just as Olañeta had refused la Serna’s order to surrender, so too had the commander of the fortress of Callao. So the port of Lima was still in enemy hands.

When Bolívar returned to the capital in December of 1825, ex-president, Torre Tagle and his fellow defectors had all fled to Callao and brought with them 4,000 of their closest friends all of whom feared patriot reprisals. The fortress now bulged with over 7,000 men, women and children. Bolívar ordered a siege that would ultimately last for a final terrible year of suffering and death.

With the defectors locked up in Callao, though, Bolívar was able to get to work reconvening what was left of the Patriot Congress. When he did get them together in mid February 1825, he formally announced the victory at Ayacucho and then said the best part is this means I don’t have to lead you anymore. He said, “Peruvians, the day that your Congress meets shall be the day of my glory, the day in which the most vehement desire of my ambition shall be fulfilled, not to command anymore”. Whereupon the Peruvian Congress re-upped Bolívar’s dictatorship for another year and Bolívar accepted.

I do need to slip, however, a pretty critical correction into the middle of all this. Last week, I said that the Colombian congress up in Bogota stripped Bolívar of both his military command and the presidency of Colombia, which was only half right. They relieved him of his military authority, but not his political authority and he remained President of Columbia. I’m embarrassed for having made that mistake. But having been stripped of his Colombian military commands and with Santander running the show in Bogota, it did mean that Bolívar was now all but a figurehead up in Colombia. But he was still President even as he now re-upped his dictatorship of Peru.

Anywho, with further encouraging reports coming in from Sucre and with the whole interior of Peru still left to be settled, dictator Bolívar gathered up a large entourage and departed Lima on April 15, 1825. They all headed back up into the mountains, this time planning to complete the journey to Cusco, the ancient Incan capital of the Andes. Much to Manuela Sáenz’s fury, however, Bolívar left her behind in Lima and the couple nearly broke up permanently during this latest separation, and it’s possible that that was Bolívar’s plan. But if it was, it didn’t take to the benefit, I think, of both of them.

But while Bolívar and Sáenz entered a period of separated estrangement, Bolívar reunited with a man we have not seen since, oh it looks like Episode 5.5, his old eccentric tutor and traveling companion, Simón Rodriguez. They had not seen each other now in over 20 years, not since they had walked from France to Italy and back. After separating in Europe, Bolívar had returned to Venezuela and become The Liberator, while Rodriguez had stayed behind and become an itinerant teacher for hire. Rodriguez finally came back to South America after more than two decades of exile now that the wars of independence were winding down. And when Bolivar found out that Rodriguez was now in Peru, he insisted his old tutor come join him at once. Now, everybody else found Rodriguez to be an eccentric crank, which he probably was, but Bolívar still harbored old affections for him and they still agreed on many of the liberal principles that Bolívar had learned at Rodriguez’s side.

So as Bolívar’s entourage moved up towards Cusco, they had the opportunity to put those principles into practice. And like a liberating wave, every city and town they passed through got a raft of reforms. Bolívar founded schools, abolished slavery, and eliminated all the old privileges and restrictions. He redistributed land from the rich to the poor. While on this journey, Bolívar was also now particularly interested in the future of the Amerindians. Now, the Amerindian population in Venezuela was not particularly big, so they had never figured too prominently in his program to date. But here, in the interior of Peru, they made up a large majority of the population, and Bolívar thought it both his political and moral duty to free them from the ancient shackles of Spanish oppression. He said,

“I want to do all that is possible for them — first, for the good of humanity; second, because they have a right to it; and ultimately, because doing the right thing costs so little and is worth so much.” 

But though he reformed everything in sight, as often as not the whirlwind of reform Bolívar’s entourage brought with them dissipated the minute they left town, and the old power structures re-entrenched under newer, more patriotic guises.

Finally, Bolívar reached Cusco at the end of June 1825, and was greeted by extravagant celebrations. And during his month there, he instituted even more reforms to liberate the Indians and everything else. But after a month in the capital, Bolívar kept on the move. By now, he had dispatches from Sucre that General Olañeta was dead and Upper Peru was in Patriot hands. So Bolívar continued his liberating tour, on the road from Cusco down to La Paz. Finally, on August 19, 1825, Bolívar and Sucre reunited on the shores of Lake Titicaca. They embraced for the first time in ten months. Now in person, Bolívar continued to shower Sucre with praise and adoration for the magnificent work he had done. Never one to share the spotlight, Bolívar now readily let Sucre enjoy his moment in the sun, and whatever towns they passed through, Bolívar let Sucre enjoy the full measure of gratitude from the people. And it is clear that Bolívar was transitioning now from Sucre being a much-loved protégé to a real heir apparent. After his brush with death the year before, it was more imperative than ever that Sucre be prepared to continue Bolívar’s work, even if the Liberator himself were to die.

While they made the final approach to La Paz, Sucre and Bolívar also discussed what was to become of Upper Peru. When they first met, Bolívar was not 100% thrilled about the direction Sucre had steered things. Under Sucre’s auspices, a small congress of about 40 rich criollos had gathered on July 10, and on August 6 they had declared independence from everyone and everything, renaming newly independent Upper Peru the Republic of Bolívar. They then further elected Bolívar president and requested that he write a constitution for their new nation. Bolívar was, of course, gratified by these honors, but independence for Upper Peru flew in the face of his “four great superstates” theory. Bolívar did not want small subsidiary territories to become their own independent countries, as it would tend to give everyone else ideas. 

But the status of Upper Peru was tricky, and even Bolívar could see that it was not a simple matter of following the letter of his own law. Upper Peru was technically a part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata; it had been since 1776. Which meant that if he followed his own principles blindly, he would soon be organizing a handoff of the entire region … to who? The guys down in Buenos Aires? But this was unacceptable. The people of Upper Peru had never really been a part of the Río de la Plata, and over the past decade, they had endured multiple incursions by Argentinian armies. There was a lot of bad blood between the two sides. And then, on a more self-interested level, Bolívar was not prepared to just hand over the great silver mines of Potosí to a bunch of strangers in Buenos Aires. There were limits to Bolívar’s Pan-American fellowship. Colombians and Peruvians had liberated Upper Peru, so why should Argentinians benefit?

Bolívar tried to thread this needle by recognizing the old claim of Peru to her sister province, but Sucre told Bolívar that this wasn’t going to work either; the locals did not want to be ruled by Lima, and that any attempt to force them to do so would turn Upper Peru into a hotbed of counter-revolutionary activity that would wreck unforeseeable damage to the patriot cause. Accepting advice from Sucre — as he accepted advice from almost nobody else — Bolívar relented. Upper Peru would now be the Republic of Bolívar, soon shortened to simply Bolivia. He also accepted the presidency and the request to write a constitution. And by accepting the presidency of Bolivia, Simón Bolívar was now the chief executive of Gran Colombia, Peru, and Bolivian territory that covered 1.5 million miles. It was, as so many historians love pointing out, a greater area than Alexander the Great himself conquered. 

For a few brief, mad moments, Bolívar then wanted to push his luck even further. Though he was not interested in handing Upper Peru to the Argentinians, and still harbored a bit of a grudge for their refusal to help liberate Peru the year before, Bolívar still took meetings with a stream of notable delegates who left Buenos Aires to pay call on the Liberator. But they did not come to him to stake a claim to Upper Peru so much as to lobby him to keep marching and help them with their latest round of troubles. Now, we’re not going to get into those latest rounds of trouble, but the Río de la Plata remained a hopeless disaster, with civil war melding into a renewed war with the recently declared Empire of Brazil. The ambassadors from Buenos Aires begged Bolívar to march down and lend them a hand. Now, obviously, Bolívar was not too impressed with these pleas, given the fact that the same guys had ignored his own recent entreaties to help him free Peru. But even still, Bolívar couldn’t help himself, and his imagination was fired by the idea of completing a circuit of the continent that would leave him standing at the mouth of the Río de la Plata, having liberated everyone and everything in South America. 

But still lacking any formal military authority to take Colombian troops, he wrote back to Santander, requesting that the Colombian troops be allowed to keep marching down out of the mountains and join the fight in the Río de la Plata. He said,

“Caesar in Gaul threatened Rome, and I in Upper Peru threatened all the conspirators of America and consequently can save all its republics. If I lose my position in the south, the conquest of Peru is worthless, and the Empire of Brazil will devour the Río de la Plata and Upper Peru.”

But after this request finally reached Bogotá, Vice President Santander blew his stack, and he categorically refused. He all but accused Bolívar of having slipped into some kind of madness. He said, “The miserable state of our financial affairs has forced me to suspend all combat. Ten years of peace would set us straight. Today, our army has estimated costs of $16 to $18 million. Our income is $7 to $8. From where will we extract the difference? The way to do it may be to shrink the army and get rid of the navy.”

Sucre seconded Santander’s fairly reasonable skepticism, and after a brief flirtation with the idea of marching down to Argentina, Bolívar let it go. He did have a fatal labyrinth to ascend into, but it would not be in the Río de la Plata. 

Instead, Bolívar turned around and began a return trip to Lima, arriving back in the capital in February 1826 after a ten-month absence. And as he was making his final approach, he got the good news that the fortress of Callao had finally fallen. The fort had been under continuous siege for over a year now, and in that time, conditions inside had gotten atrocious. It was not meant to house and feed 7,000 people, and disease and starvation had set in early and then only gotten worse. The Commander of the fort started sending the civilians out, but after the first few waves departed, the patriot besiegers caught on that the civilians were only being released to save supplies for the soldiers, so anyone else trying to get out was turned back. Things got predictably worse, and the Grim Reaper swept through, harvesting souls with ease. Of the 7,000 who entered, only half remained alive when the white flag went up on January 22, 1826. Among the dead was ex-President Torre Tagle, upon whom Bolívar was able to extract no personal vengeance for betraying the cause. But that’s okay, because vengeance is God’s beat anyway. 

When Bolívar returned to Lima, he reunited and reconciled with Manuela Sáenz, each forgiving the other for their sins. And from this point on, they were a de facto husband-and-wife team, even if they never actually married. At that point, February 1826, a lot of people expected Bolívar to pack it up and head home. And it made sense. The liberation of Peru was complete. The liberation of this new thing, Bolivia, was also complete. Even Callao had finally fallen. Bolívar had done what he had come to do and deserved all the thanks in the world for doing it. An exit now would be the natural conclusion of all of this, and he would be sent off with a great celebration of his accomplishments.

And there was also a dark flipside to the coin that also pointed to an exit. The Peruvians had no intention of being ruled forever by a Colombian backed up by a Colombian army, and they were already getting irritated by the foreign presence in their midst. Now that the war was over and independence at hand, lingering would fast turn into overstaying their welcome. Plus Bolívar’s relationship with Santander and the Congress in Bogotá was badly strained. He even got a letter from Páez back up in Venezuela that all was not well at home and Bolívar needed to come back. Páez said,

“The situation in this country is very similar to that of France when Napoleon was away in Egypt and was recalled by the leaders of the revolution who were convinced that a government which had fallen into the hands of the rabble would not survive. And you are in a position to say what that great man said then, that conspirators endangered the existence of the nation and let us save it.”

But Bolívar was unmoved by this kind of mangled version of Napoleon’s return from Egypt, and instead he sat down in Lima to draft a constitution for Bolivia – a constitution that would scare the pants out of everyone from Cartagena to Concepción. Simón Bolívar was angling to make himself Emperor of South America.

The constitution Simón Bolívar wrote for Bolivia was the culmination of his political philosophy, a philosophy that he had been developing since the Cartagena Manifesto way back in 1812. And it can only be described as a model of enlightened despotism. His experiences over the past decade only confirmed in his mind that elected legislatures were an important component of government, but were also pits of poisonous destabilization that had to be tended by the steady hand of a strong executive. So he created a romantic little legislative branch, deploying classical imagery with a Senate to enact laws, tribunes to control the Treasury and War Department, and Censors to guard civil liberties. He also created an independent judiciary to interpret and enforce the law. But at the center of the constitution was a president who would be elected for life, of which Bolívar said,

“We shall avoid elections, which always result in that great scourge of republics: anarchy –  the most imminent and terrible peril of popular government.”

The president would also have the right to name his vice president and successor without interference and establish extensive executive departments that would, in reality, leave the government run by the president. In Bolívar’s ideal model, one man had to run the show. 

But that said, Bolívar really did hate royal absolutism with the heat of a million suns. His constitution was not a model of despotism; it was a model of enlightened despotism. So he wrote in the whole array of liberal political values: freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to work and move around as you pleased, guaranteed equality before the law, due process, jury trials. And of course, Bolívar continued to honor his old promise to Alexandre Pétion and wrote in the abolition of slavery. The idea here was that all Bolivians would have the right to live and work and not be abused by a structure that literally bound them under unjust rules and regulations. But being an old-style liberal noble, Bolívar also wrote in a distinction between Bolivians, the inhabitants of Bolivia, and citizens, a higher and smaller order that qualified a man, and yes, of course, only a man, to political rights beyond mere civil rights. This is the old active-passive citizen distinction that’s been floating around since the Estates General first convened a generation earlier. Bolívar carried on the belief that while all were owed the guarantee of basic civil rights, that even the president could not touch, only those with property and education would be allowed to actively participate in the government. When he finished writing, the constitution was sent by special messenger to Sucre in La Paz and presented to the Bolivian Congress. 

But the Constitution of Bolivia was only part of the story, as spring gave way to summer in 1826, because it was really just the first step in Bolívar completing a new grand task. He was already speaking of forming a Federation of the Andes, which would encompass all the territories he had liberated and maybe even someday snagging Chile to boot. But of more immediate concern was the coming Congress of Panama. Over the past year, as the expulsion of the Spanish became reality, Bolívar opened up a new round of dialogue with his fellow American revolutionaries, this time not asking them to help him liberate Peru, but instead to convene for a great summit where they could all discuss the future of the liberated continent. Basically, the Congress of Panama was the spiritual precursor for the Organization of American States and Bolívar hoped that they would be able to come together and agree to basic principles that would underwrite their relations with each other and possibly lay the groundwork for a strong enough union that they would not have to worry about the Monroe Doctrine or require the protection of the British Navy. 

The invitation to join the Congress was extended to all the new nations of Spanish America, and a few select interested third parties. Bolívar himself explicitly wanted the British to attend, but not the United States or Brazil, to whom Santander, who was helping him organize all of this, said, “I’m going to do it anyway,” speaking to the larger rift that was opening up between them. Now, nobody, not even Bolívar, wanted to invite Haiti, and so they were just left out altogether. They were French, for one thing, and of course, for another thing, they were all ex-slaves, which freaked everybody out. 

But what Bolívar hoped would be a grand moment in the history of the Americas fizzled into nothing. When the Congress convened in June of 1826, only Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and the Confederation of Central American Territories attended. The Río de la Plata sent no one. Brazil refused the invitation, as did Chile. The United States considered the invitation but considered it too long to actually get a delegate down there. The British, meanwhile, accepted the invitation and sent some consuls, who spent most of their time working out trade deals on the side.

The brief sessions of the Congress of Panama produced a lot of talk of guaranteed neutrality between the new nations, the arbitration of disputes, the abolition of slavery, and acceptance of the principles outlined in the Monroe Doctrine. But this talk produced no lasting resolutions, and only the Colombian delegation actually ratified anything. Simón Bolívar and everyone else in South America simply had different ideas of what it meant to be free and independent. Bolívar wanted them all to come together, and everyone else wanted to go their separate ways. 

But Bolívar pressed on in the face of this disappointment and was gratified when he got word that the Bolivian Congress had accepted his constitution. Then, with his blessing, of course, they had elected Sucre to be their first president. 

But even more than Bolívar, Sucre did not want political power. He was anxious to get home to his new wife. He considered himself to be a military man, not a politician, and he agreed to serve for only two years, not for life. But then Bolívar went even further. As it turned out, he had not written the constitution strictly for the Bolivians. He wanted all the nations he had liberated to adopt the same model. So he convened the Peruvian Congress on August 16, 1826, and induced them to accept that same constitution and then elect him, Bolívar, president for life.

This came as a shock to everyone in Peru and Colombia and frankly, everywhere else in the world, because everyone was expecting him to now go home, please, and not entrench his power in Lima still further. All his pretenses of being a South American Cincinnatus now seemed to be exposed as mere farce.

Finally, though, events back in Colombia forced Bolívar to depart Peru. It seemed that José Antonio Páez had gotten tired of waiting for Bolívar to return home and deliver Venezuela from the treacherous lawyers in Bogotá and had gone into revolt against Vice President Santander. So by the end of August, it was now Santander, rather than Páez, who was writing to the Liberator and begging him, begging him to come home. 

So in September 1826, Bolívar took the hint. He got on a boat that would take him back up to Guayaquil, from which he would make the overland journey up to Bogotá. He had been in Peru for just over two years. Everyone was glad he had come. And now everyone was glad that he was leaving. And next week Bolívar will return to Bogotá and there enter that fatal labyrinth from which he would not return.

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