Wars and Repatriations

Abstract

This chapter deals with a crucial period of the post-independence histories of both New Granada and Venezuela. There are three main subjects to be considered, and the lives of the El Santuario veterans cast new light upon them. They reveal how the two republics were consolidated in contrasting fashion on the fringes of the British Empire. British subjects were perhaps surprisingly involved in all areas covered here. The first episode is the War of the Supremes in New Granada (1839–42), which is conventionally understood as the result of the overbearing ambition of the regional caudillos, the “Supremes” who led its armies. José Manuel Restrepo’s verdict became historiographical commonplace: “Wherever there was a demagogue or an aristocrat who wanted to figure on the national stage, you could find independent and sovereign juntas appearing, even in miserable little towns.”¹ Salvador Córdova, in this interpretation, was the Antioquian incarnation of the caudillismo that tore the new republic apart.² He was captured and executed in 1841. The second phenomenon dealt with here is the strong British influence in Venezuela, illustrated by a flurry of activity and ever closer links in these years. The Mackintosh Question—the thorny and long-standing issue of how to repay public debt to private British investors, left over from the Gran Colombian union—was resolved for Venezuela while Daniel O’Leary was acting British consul in Caracas.