Every impartial person has admitted the zeal, sincerity, and high character of that friend of humanity, who so fervently and so steadfastly denounced to his government and to his contemporaries the most horrible acts of sanguinary frenzy.
#Simon bolivar last words trial
The humane Bishop of Chiapas, that apostle of America, Las Casas, has left to posterity a brief description of these horrors, extracted from the trial records in Seville relating to the cases brought against the conquistadores. Modern critics would never credit them were it not for the many and frequent documents testifying to these horrible truths. “Three centuries ago,” you say, “began the atrocities committed by the Spaniards on this great hemisphere of Columbus.” Our age has rejected these atrocities as mythical, because they appear to be beyond the human capacity for evil. Accordingly, only conjectures that are more or less approximate can be made, especially with regard to her future and the true plans of the Americans, inasmuch as our continent has within it potentialities for every facet of development revealed in the history of nations, by reason of its physical characteristics and because of the hazards of war and the uncertainties of politics.Īs I feel obligated to give due consideration to your esteemed letter and to the philanthropic intentions prompting it, I am impelled to write you these words, wherein you will certainly not find the brilliant thoughts you seek but rather a candid statement of my ideas. In my opinion it is impossible to answer the questions that you have so kindly posed because, although some of the facts about America and her development are known, I dare say the better part are shrouded in mystery. Thus, I find myself in conflict between the desire to reciprocate your confidence, which honors me, and the difficulty of rewarding it, for lack of documents and books and because of my own limited knowledge of a land so vast, so varied, and so little known as the New World.
Sensible though I am of the interest you desire to take in the fate of my country, and of your commiseration with her for the tortures she has suffered from the time of her discovery until the present at the hands of her destroyers, the Spaniards, I am no less sensible of the obligation which your solicitous inquiries about the principal objects of American policy place upon me. I hasten to reply to the letter of the 29th ultimo which you had the honor of sending me and which I received with the greatest satisfaction. Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of this Island An admirer of the British parliamentary system, Bolívar argued for a balance of power in the different branches of government, although later he asserted strong executive rule while in power.
From the island of Jamaica, he issued a letter analyzing the current and future perspectives of the independence struggle. Simón Bolívar, a member of the Venezuelan planter class and a leading figure in the movement, was in exile. In 1815, the fight for the independence of the Spanish colonies in Latin America was on the defensive.
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