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[Assistant] Yeah, and there's like a class action, I think, on that particular app, against that particular app. But yeah, it's there, you, you boot into the iOS ecosystem and you realize pretty quickly that if you're going to participate in any meaningful way, you need to connect a credit card. And that just doesn't happen when you boot into the Google Play Store.


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[Assistant] So whether the device is cheaper or not, if you want to utilize it, you, you kind of, that's just the approach they've taken.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, and yeaah, and there are certain things that you, I mean, on both sides, on both platforms, that each one does better than the other. It's just, it's not a very clear argument, that particular one, it's what, I hate getting into that argument, probably more than any other, and I probably run into it more than any other, the whole iPhone versus Android.


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[Assistant] Oh sure, yeah, uhm, so I'm available at Unbox Therapy on Twitter or YouTube.com slash Unbox Therapy and yeah, I make videos about consumer products and talk about consumer products and so if you want to check out more, then that's the place to do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. No, we're all cool. I mean, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really, I think it's really valuable to connect with people of like mind in this, in this space just because it's so new and moving so quickly that uhm, having success depends on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I'm happy to say that the great has gotten even greater because they've come out with a new generation 2 model that I love even more. It's got great feel, great balance, it's comfortable during the shave, it's comfortable after the shave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's got a softer flex hinge for a more comfortable glide, a trimmer blade for hard to reach places, a lubricating strip, and a textured handle for more control when it's wet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And unlike the other guys, when Harry's upgrades their stuff, they keep the prices exactly the same. It's still just $2 for a blade instead of the $4 you'd pay in the store.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a better shave for less money. Why on earth would I ever do anything else? Now Harry's has also unveiled now an exciting new deal.


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[Assistant] To get you started, they have a special offer for listeners of the show. They are so confident in the quality of their blades that they will send you their popular free trial set which comes with a razor, a five blade cartridge, and shaving gel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is all going to be free if you sign up for a shave plan and all you have to do is pay the shipping, which is negligible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when you're done with this episode, go to Harrys.com and enter the promo code REVOLUTIONS to get started with your free trial set.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But wait, there's more. When you enter Revolutions at Checkout, they'll add a bottle of Post Shave Balm to your order for free. It's all can't miss. So go to Harrys.com right now, enter the promo code REVOLUTIONSATCHECKOUT to claim your free trial set and Post Shave Balm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We left off last time with Simone Believar convening the Congress of Angostura in February 1819 and setting it to work drafting a constitution for what they all called the Republic of Columbia, a republic that they claimed covered all of the old viceroyalty of New Granada.


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[Assistant] And for the moment, this was a laughably grandiose proclamation. The Republic, as such, was little more than a loosely knit-together collection of armies, led by quarrelsome caudillos, answering to a rickety chain of command with a headquarters tucked away deep in the Venezuelan interior.


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[Assistant] But despite the apparent fantasy of it all, Simone Believer was about to audaciously bend reality to fit the fantasy. Gran Colombia would be a thing. Of that, for some reason, Believer was positive.


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[Assistant] Despite Believar's closing statement to the Congress that his work was done, one of the first things the Congress did was elect Believar President of the Republic.


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[Assistant] But everybody understood that he would focus almost exclusively on the war, and the actual business of civilian government would be left in the somewhat capable hands of a long-exiled new Grenadan intellectual named Francisco Antonio Saya.


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[Assistant] Now Seiya is an interesting guy who's actually been around quite a bit and he offers a different perspective on the events that we've covered so far. So before we head back out to war with Believar, let's go back and do Francisco Antonio Seiya.


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[Assistant] At 53 years old, Asea was positively ancient compared to his fellow revolutionaries. Believar himself was still just 35. Santiago Mourinho was 31. José Antonio Páez was just 29. Santander was 27.


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[Assistant] Born in New Granada shortly after the revolt of the Camuneros, Asaya started in seminary, but his liberal curiosity got the better of him, and he moved to Bogota to study secular law.


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[Assistant] He emerged from university in 1789 as a professor of philosophy, but his liberal curiosity then landed him in big trouble.


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[Assistant] He was a member of that little enlightened social circle that surrounded Antonio Nourinho.


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[Assistant] And when Noreno published the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1794, Seia was amongst those arrested, and he was shipped off back to Spain, where he spent two years in the same Cadiz prison that would eventually swallow the bones of Francisco de Miranda twenty years later.


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[Assistant] Seya was paroled in 1796 and then pardoned in 1798, but the authorities barred him from returning to the Americas. So, trapped in Europe, Seya's curiosity then took him in a scientific direction, and he got himself appointed to a scientific mission to France in 1799,


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[Assistant] So arriving in France on the eve of Bonaparte's coup of Brumaire, Seau witnessed first-hand the hopeful dawning of an enlightened end to the chaos of revolution, and he became an admirer of Bonaparte and a confirmed Francophile, seeing in the French the polar opposite of the medieval ignorance of the Spanish.


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[Assistant] He finally returned to Spain in 1803, and now a somewhat renowned scientist and intellectual, Ceja was appointed head of the Royal Botanical Garden in Madrid.


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[Assistant] But his French connections and worldview were very strong now, and when the abdications of Bayonne hit in 1808, Seau was one of the 85 deputies selected by Napoleon to rubber stamp the transfer of power to Joseph Bonaparte.


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[Assistant] Seyo was then rewarded with a provincial governorship and he loyally served the French regime until the end. So through the whole of the Peninsular War, Seyo was on the other side.


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[Assistant] When Napoleon's empire started imploding in 1814, Seya fled back to France.


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[Assistant] Instead of remaining in Europe, though, for the final collapse of Imperial France, Seya decided it was time to return home after 20 years of exile.


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[Assistant] Now I lose track of him for a little bit, and I'm not sure where exactly he landed, but the next time I can nail him down is 1816, when he shows up in Haiti to join Believar's little band of revolutionary caudillos who were gathering under the patronage of Alexandre Pétion.


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[Assistant] So SEA was amongst those who traveled back with everybody to Venezuela in March of 1816.


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[Assistant] But Seiya was an intellectual, not a soldier. So though he was respected, he was not exactly a force to be reckoned with in a company where the number of scars you had counted for more than the number of books you had read.


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[Assistant] But he was also something of an acceptable neutral party between all the Caudillos, and after Believar had been sent back into exile following his disaster at Akumare, Seya was the one who made the trip back to Haiti at the end of 1816 to tell the Liberator, come back, we actually do still need you.


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[Assistant] After Believer and Company successfully captured Angostura in the summer of 1817, Seya was then dispatched on a mission to London to assist the recruitment of British legionaries, and so he was amongst those running around painting happy little trees for would-be recruits.


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[Assistant] But then rumors started filtering back home that Seya was overstepping his bounds, taking out unauthorized loans and possibly embezzling money. So Believar recalled him to Angostura.


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[Assistant] But obviously, there were no hard feelings, because upon his return, Believar made, say, an editor-in-chief of a new patriotic newspaper that had been started to promote the republic.


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[Assistant] And that was the job that Seah held until his election to Vice President of the Republic in February 1819. Which, as it would turn out, was an office worth quite a bit more than a bucket of warm spit. Because when Believar wrote off to resume his grand war of liberation, Seah became the de facto President of the Republic.


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[Assistant] But though there was something pleasantly respectable about a civilian running the government, it would not be long before the Caudillos, who even Bolivar had trouble keeping in line, would begin looking sideways at the bookworm in Angostura telling them how to do their jobs. Especially once the rumors started filtering back that Simone Bolivar was dead.


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[Assistant] After issuing some final instruction to the eastern caudillos, Mourinho and Bermudez and those guys, Believar gathered up a company of about 300 newly arrived British legionaries and headed west up the Orinoco River in the direction of the western Janos and the army of José Antonio Páez.


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[Assistant] Now the relationship between Paz and Believar was critical to the success of the revolution, but that relationship was complicated. Paz was simultaneously deferential and insubordinate.


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[Assistant] He continued to act like Believar's orders were mere recommendations to be taken under advisement, but he did not budge from his belief that Believar was the right man to be El Jefe Supremo.


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[Assistant] So for example, in the summer of 1818, after Believar had returned to Angostura following his disastrous attempt to take Caracas, that was all the stuff we talked about last time,


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[Assistant] Elements in Paz's command, most especially a few of the newly arrived British officers, tried to orchestrate a coup to make Paz el jefe supremo and send Believar to his fifth and hopefully final exile.


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[Assistant] But Paz wouldn't have it, and at Believar's order he tossed the principal British agitator in jail and then deported him from the country.


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[Assistant] So, though Pais took Believar's orders under advisement, he did follow them when he agreed with the orders. And after departing for Angostura, Believar ordered the Lion of the Apure to avoid any major battles with General Muriel's royalist army until Believar came back. And Pais complied.


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[Assistant] He followed this order even as Murillo marched on Paz's headquarters in the city of San Fernando.


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[Assistant] Refusing to fight, but also refusing to let Mario take the city, Paz ordered San Fernando burned to the ground and then withdrew with his men out into the open plains.


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[Assistant] Murillo later said that when he saw the flames rising from San Fernando he pretty much lost all hope of ever winning the war. How do you fight an enemy that simply does not care about living naked out in the wilderness if they have to?


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[Assistant] And the only thing Murillo really has going for him here is that he was a veteran of the Peninsular War and so he was well acquainted with guerrilla tactics and he had some idea how to deflect them. He kept his men together, he prevented anyone from getting isolated, he maintained strong defensible positions and tried not to take any obvious bait.


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[Assistant] And General Mario's request to be relieved continued apace.


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[Assistant] So though things were going according to his instructions, when Believar reached Paz as headquarters finally in March of 1819, his first question was, where do you and your men stand? Are you with me or what?


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[Assistant] So reported troop strength numbers fluctuate a lot depending on the source you read, but combined Believer and Paz currently lead somewhere between 3 and 4,000 men. And though they would ultimately disagree about where this year's campaign was headed, they once again agreed that attacking General Murillo was the obvious opening move.


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[Assistant] And at the moment, Murillo was headquartered at a spot called La Caceres del Medio.


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[Assistant] And again, numbers are difficult to establish, and in total Murillo commended somewhere between six and seven thousand men, but how many were actually there with him is unclear to me. In fact, picking through the details of what happened next has been pretty tricky in general, because accounts differ and provide different, significant details. But it's a pretty big moment in the wars.


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[Assistant] I'm pretty sure that this is how things unfolded.


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[Assistant] He broke his men up into small squadrons to ride around kicking up dust to make sure it seemed like the whole Republican army was on the move.


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[Assistant] Now, Murillo was probably tricked into thinking that more than just 150 men were on the way, but he was by now fully aware of Paz's standard hit and run tactics, and so Murillo was at least prepared for that when it came. And in fact, he laid a pretty careful trap.


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[Assistant] When the dust clouds were reported, Murillo mobilized about a thousand cavalrymen and arrayed them at the far wings of his army, with the infantry and heavy guns in the center. When Paz's generos charged in for the hit, Murillo launched his own cavalry on a diagonal line to cut off the run.


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[Assistant] So this started out according to plan for both sides. Paz came charging in for the hit and then turned around for the run.


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[Assistant] But now an overwhelming cavalry force was threatening to close off their escape, so Paz ordered one of his best officers, a guy named Juan Jose Rondon, to wheel around with a small company and charge headlong back into the center of the royalist infantry.


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[Assistant] And this had the intended effect. The royalist cavalry wings took the bait and collapsed in on Rondon's little band, while Paz and the rest of his generos were able to keep riding away.


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[Assistant] But just before he was fully enveloped, Rondon and his men broke off their attack, wheeled around again, and then burst through the last little sliver of daylight.


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[Assistant] With the Royalist cavalry now ramming into each other and the infantry, everything in their lines devolved into a tangled mess of confusion.


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[Assistant] When Paz saw all the disarray, he gave the most famous order of his career.


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[Assistant] Now the official sanitized version is that he yelled vuelven caras, or about face, but historians think it far more likely that he yelled vuelven carajo, which has a few literal ways it can be translated, but my Spanish speaking friends on Twitter think I can go with go back god damn it.


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[Assistant] And yes, you can come find me on Twitter at Mike Duncan. It's actually way easier to get a hold of me there than by email.


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[Assistant] Anyway, after yelling, go back goddammit, all 150 of his men wheeled around and charged headlong back into the disorganized mess of royalists.


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[Assistant] With confusion reigning and believing that they were well and truly under attack by the whole Republican army, the Royalists all panicked. The cavalry just rode off, leaving the infantry to fend for themselves, and understandably spooked, the infantry then broke and fled in all directions, just trying to get out of this alive.


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[Assistant] When the dust finally cleared, upwards of 500 Spaniards lay dead, and all their heavy artillery pieces were just sitting around waiting to be picked up.


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[Assistant] Having beaten a force that was at a minimum ten times larger than his own, the Lion of the Apure lost two dead and six wounded.


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[Assistant] In the aftermath of the battle, General Murillo sent back a report stating that he had been attacked by at least 700 men, and it's not clear whether he believed that, or was exaggerating to cover his butt, as generals throughout history have been wont to do.


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[Assistant] The two sides then spent the rest of April and May 1819 waging an indecisive war of skirmishes. Believar desperately wanted to deliver one more decisive blow before moving on, but Murillo wasn't having it and he refused to be baited into a battle.


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[Assistant] This was frustrating because the rainy season was starting to set in and Believar couldn't afford to wait much longer to execute the plan that he had been keeping secret for months. A surprise invasion of New Granada.


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[Assistant] But the final piece of that secret plan finally fell into place at the end of May, when he got a letter from Francisco de Paula Santander, and Believar knew it was time to move on.


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[Assistant] So backing up a little bit, after Believer and Paz and Santander had gone their separate ways in the summer of 1818, with Believer going back to Angostura and Paz staying in the Venezuelan Janos,


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[Assistant] Santander had crossed back over into New Granada to recruit men and most especially gather intelligence on the state of affairs and whether New Granada could even be taken by an invasion.


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[Assistant] After nine months of work, Santander finally wrote back to Belivar to say yes. New Granada is right for the plucking. Come on over.


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[Assistant] And though Santander is not exactly an unbiased observer, I mean, he wants Believer to invade New Granada, he wasn't wrong.


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[Assistant] Remember, General Murillo had brought most of his own army back into Venezuela, leaving behind a small corps of peninsular soldiers to manage things with the help of some local militia.


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[Assistant] Santander was able to report that these forces were not exactly crack units. They were underpaid, undersupplied, and very low on morale.


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[Assistant] And then just in general, the viceroy that Murillo had reinstalled in Bogota believed that harsh repression was the most effective means to bring the country back into line.


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[Assistant] Mario counseled ruling with a lighter hand, but the viceroy wanted no part of it, and Bogota had become a repressive hub of summary executions, property confiscation, and just general maltreatment of the locals.


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[Assistant] Whether they were die-hard patriots or not, the people of New Granada did not like the new viceregal regime.


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[Assistant] On May the 23rd, 1819, he called his senior officers for a small council of war in the town of Setenta. There, using cattle skulls for chairs, Belivar revealed his plan. They would march across the Janos, up into the mountains of New Granada, surprise the royalists, and seize Bogota.


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[Assistant] Now this is Believert at his most recklessly daring. Remember, this is the beginning of the wintry, rainy season, and already the Janos was filling with water from rains that never ceased. The mountains would be more of the same, except everything would be freezing cold to boot.


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[Assistant] Now was the time to retire for the winter. Not literally march into some of the steepest mountains in the world.


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[Assistant] But Believer believed that it could be done. And more importantly, if it were done, it would be a strategic masterstroke.


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[Assistant] Now his plan was inspired both by the recent example of Jose de San Martin, who had just liberated Chile with his own surprise invasion through the Andes, and also by the most famous general in history because it goes without saying that Belivar was well-versed in the life and career of Hannibal.


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[Assistant] And if you guys remember from back in the history of realm, Hannibal always preferred difficult terrain to the fortunes of a battle, not of his choosing.


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[Assistant] His own march through the Alps in terrible weather is legendary, but even more impressive was that time he marched three days through a supposedly impenetrable swamp to split the legions and surprise the Romans at their rear. That was when he lost his eye.


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[Assistant] Taking an army into the mountains now was brilliant because it was insane.


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[Assistant] General Murillo suspected Bolívar's ultimate intention was to invade New Granada, but there was plenty of time to prepare for that because it's not like they were going to leave tomorrow. And as for the Royalist forces in New Granada? Well, it quite rightly did not even occur to them that an invasion might be coming from Venezuela.


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[Assistant] Which was Believar's point, as officers agreed, that it was crazy, but doable.


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[Assistant] The only dissenter to all this was Paz, which drove Believar crazy, because Paz had actually been the first man Believar had confided his plans to, and he seemed at the time to have been in full agreement.


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[Assistant] But now that it was actually before him, the centaur of the planes did not want to leave the planes. And you can't really blame him.


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[Assistant] Half naked cowboys who ride around in grasslands are not exactly well suited for frozen, steep, mountainous terrain.


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[Assistant] But though furious at the perceived betrayal, Believar once again recognized that he could not risk losing a staring contest to Paz. So Believar compromised. He ordered Paz to take up a position at Cucuta, which was still on the other side of the border in New Granada, and still off the Janos,


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[Assistant] And he also further agreed to let some of his men go with Believer, including the hero of La Caceres del Medio, Juan Jose Rondon.


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[Assistant] But even with this compromise in place, Paz still continued to take Believar's orders under mere advisement. And after Believar rode away, Paz turned around and headed east. He never would go to Cucuta.


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[Assistant] On May the 26th, 1819, Believer set out with 2100 men, divided into four infantry battalions and three cavalry squadrons.


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[Assistant] Also in the mix were various non-combatant auxiliaries, including families of some of the men, especially from among the 300 or so British legionaries, who as I said had signed up for service in South America as much to try to start a new life there as to go on some grand military adventure.


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[Assistant] And one of the women present was, I kid you not, nine months pregnant. I don't know her name, but we'll get to her in a second.


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[Assistant] Now no one was told what the ultimate destination was going to be because Believer quite rightly feared mass desertion.


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[Assistant] Now before they could even begin the grueling march up into the mountains, they had to get to the mountains. So Believar pointed them in the direction of Tame, on the other side of the border in New Granada, where Santander was waiting with his own small army.


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[Assistant] But Tame was over 250 miles away, and by now the rains were non-stop and torrential. As I mentioned a few times, during the dry season, the Janos is bone dry, but during the rainy season, everything floods. So this is not a time to go out marching.


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[Assistant] But the only way to get from here to there was to march from here to there.


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[Assistant] The worst conditions meant literally swimming alongside improvised leather boats that held their gear. And always it rained, and always there were bugs. Animals died, supplies, guns and carts were abandoned if they became immovable.


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[Assistant] And even if this all hadn't ended with a march through the mountains, this march through the wintery Jeannot's rain would have been impressive all on its own.


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[Assistant] Just before the army crossed the border into New Granada, Believar finally revealed to his men what this was all about. That this was in fact the beginning of the invasion of New Granada.


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[Assistant] And by this point, the only way out was forward.


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[Assistant] Finally in the last week of June, the beleaguered army hit dry ground as the grasslands gave way to the foothills at the base of the mountains, and they successfully linked with Santander's forces at Tame.


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[Assistant] The men were given a week to recuperate from their long march through the flooded plains, but on July the first, 1819, it was back to it. And now the going was going to get really tough.


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[Assistant] The rains never stopped, except now instead of mud and flood water, it was all slick rocks and iced over paths that ran along narrow ravines. And it's not like these guys had gone to REI to get outfitted for the ascent. They were poor peasant soldiers.


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[Assistant] These guys were marching barefoot. They marched in tattered rags that could only charitably be called a uniform.


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[Assistant] As they struggled up the mountain, the strong started to carry the weak, and Believar personally carried men broken from whatever combination of hunger and fatigue, sickness or injury had taken them down. Many just didn't make it. They dropped dead, and everyone else just kept walking. Up, up, up, because you can't go back now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They would hit torrential creeks raging from winter rain and have to cross in a single file line with each person holding the hand of the man in front of them and behind them, forming a human chain until they all reach the other side.


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[Assistant] They would reach chasms that could only be crossed by stringing a rope between the trees and fixing improvised leather hammocks to take men and women across one by one.


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[Assistant] And eventually they crested 13,000 feet as they wound their way around the tallest peaks. Hypothermia set in and even if you wanted to stop you couldn't because you would just freeze to death.


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[Assistant] On July the third, on the third day of the climb, that pregnant woman I mentioned, she gave birth.


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[Assistant] Now as the father of two small children, I've just been through all of this and frankly I consider the woman's presence on the march to be insane already. But then on top of that insanity, right now in the middle of all this, she gives birth.


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[Assistant] The next day Believar spotted her with a newborn strapped to her chest under a blanket as she just kept walking.


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[Assistant] Now I have no idea what happened to her because after this she just disappears from the record, but I have to say, of everything I've talked about over the whole course of this show, all of it, everyone,


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[Assistant] This unnamed woman giving birth in the middle of this deadly treacherous hike, it might be the single most badass moment I've ever heard of. I mean my god, this isn't something I'm making up, this actually happened.


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[Assistant] On July the 6th, after six days of marching, the bedraggled little army finally hit a safe oasis. The town of Suatcha, about 150 miles northeast of Bogota.


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[Assistant] The residents there had been alerted that this liberating army was doing this insane thing and rushed out to their aid. They brought food and blankets and water and gave them fire, literally the essentials of life, to save these men and women who had done this crazy, reckless, brave thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was one upside to all this. The Royalist forces had no idea that they were there, they had no garrisons even remotely close, and no pre-arranged plan for how to deal with an invasion right now in all this crappy weather in July 1819.


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[Assistant] Believar's men were all half-dead, but to a certain degree they had the enemy right where they wanted them.


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[Assistant] Now as with Paz, Believar and Santander had a complicated relationship, and for example, Santander had never gotten over that time Believar threatened to shoot him right at the beginning of the admirable campaign six years earlier.


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[Assistant] But here, Santander was blown away by Believer's resolve, his determination, and his genuine spirit of patriotic unity.


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[Assistant] I mean all that talk of everyone being in this together was one thing when Bolivar was trying to convince new Grenadins to come help him liberate his home country of Venezuela.


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[Assistant] But now Believer was showing the same relentless resolve the other way. He was leading Venezuelans to liberate New Granada.


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[Assistant] And Believar then wasted no time making sure that their shared sacrifice was not all in vain.


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[Assistant] Here is where this man distinguishes himself above the rest, exhibiting extraordinary resolve and energy. In three days, he remounts and arms the cavalry, musters ammunition, reassembles the army, then sends out patrols, energizes the citizens, and plans an all-out attack.


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[Assistant] Now even though Santander and Believar would spend as much time in conflict with each other as in partnership, at this moment, Santander came to realize that whatever else he thought about Believar, Believar's shtick was not empty vanity. He was the real deal.


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[Assistant] By now word was spreading that this Republican army had appeared out of nowhere, and the ranking Spanish general, a guy named Jose Maria Barrero, quickly mustered what forces he could, ultimately about 4,000 men, to put them between Bolivar's army and Bogota.


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[Assistant] After the dead were subtracted and new recruits added, Bolivar was now leading an army of about 2600 men, and near the end of July, they were on the move towards Bogota.


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[Assistant] On July the 25th, they finally ran into the Royalists at Pontano de Vargas, literally the Vargas Swamp, a region of swampy marshes rimmed by low hills.


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[Assistant] And General Barrera was able to occupy those hills with his royalist forces, which gave him two essential advantages. He both outnumbered Bolívar and held the high ground. And this is usually game-set match.


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[Assistant] But Belivar, of course, decided to launch a full frontal assault right into the teeth of this.


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[Assistant] When things, quite predictably, started going badly for the Republicans, their left flank was being turned to disarray.


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[Assistant] The British legionary stepped into the breach and held back any finishing blow, which gave just enough time for Juan Jose Rondon, the hero of La Quesada del Medio, to lead the cavalry on a furious charge up into the high ground wielding nothing but spears and machetes,


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[Assistant] They crashed into the Shocked Royalist line just as heavy rains started to fall.


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[Assistant] The Royalist soldiers had been preparing for a long winter of sitting around doing nothing. Not, you know, standing here in the rain being attacked by machete-wielding crazy people from Venezuela. They completely caved, broke, and fled.


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[Assistant] Santander later reported that the battle of Pantano de Vargas had been won by the calm of the British and the intensity of the generos.


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[Assistant] In the aftermath of his defeat at the Vargas Swamp though, the Royalist General Barrario made a critical decision.


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[Assistant] Now what I'm guessing here is that Baradio did this for two reasons.


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[Assistant] First, he did not want to provoke a panic in Bogota that might trigger a patriotic insurrection. And second, he wanted to buy himself some time to regroup, catch Believar, and deliver the crushing blow he now already claimed had been delivered. But that's not how things are going to go.


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[Assistant] Instead, this lie would set the stage for the decisive battle of the campaign. The battle that to this very day marks the beginning of true independence for Colombia. The Battle of Boyacá.


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[Assistant] On August the 7th, 1819, the two sides were maneuvering around Toonha, once capital of the now defunct Union of New Granada.


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[Assistant] I believe ours forces still numbered about 2,600, Bararios about 2,800. But as the Royalists moved around Toonha, trying to get onto the main road back to Bogota, they split in two, with an advance guard approaching a key bridge over the Boyacá River and a rear guard about a mile behind them.


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[Assistant] Now Believar had posted a small cavalry unit near the bridge to keep an eye on things, and when this advance guard approached and saw that little unit, they thought it was the only small unit in the area. But Believar's entire army was just behind a hill out of sight.


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[Assistant] So these two little cavalry units skirmished against each other, but when the Republican forces fell back, they fell back not out of sight, but into the waiting embrace of a much larger force led by Santander.


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[Assistant] The Royalist Vanguard realized they had made a mistake that a much larger army was right around the corner, but then they made another mistake.


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[Assistant] Rather than racing back to reunite with the rear of the army, they raced forward to capture the Boyacá bridge.


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[Assistant] Now this seemed like a good idea at the time, hold the critical bridge, but it split the royalist army in two.


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[Assistant] And the force led by Santander was hot on their heels. And so, yes, they took the bridge and got to the other side, but now they were pinned down there and cut off from their comrades.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, the rest of Believar's army came pouring out around the hill.


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[Assistant] They located the royalist's rear guard strung out along the road and hit them from all sides. Believar ordered the British legionaries to attack the front of the royalists. Rondon and the generos rode around the back and hit them from the rear. And then Believar ordered everyone else on a bayonet charge right into their center.


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[Assistant] General Barrerio's forces were hit from three sides simultaneously by a surprise attack.


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[Assistant] All told, the Battle of Boyacá lasted no more than two hours and it was a complete Republican victory.


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[Assistant] General Barario himself was cornered and captured, as were 1600 of his men.


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[Assistant] Another 500 lay dead, and the rest just scattered.


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[Assistant] There was now quite literally no royalist army within 500 miles of Bogota. The question now was not whether the Republicans would take the capital, but whether they would capture the viceroy in the process. They nearly did capture the viceroy.


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[Assistant] But about 50 of the men who had been pinned down by Santander at the bridge managed to get away. They raced for Bogota to raise the alarm.


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[Assistant] Now the city had no idea anything was even remotely amiss. The viceroy was in fact sitting around having dinner when a messenger burst in and told him the enemy was victorious and nothing was standing between them and Bogota.


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[Assistant] After getting over his shock, the viceroy had no time to do anything but just run. His attendants dressed him up like a peasant and he snuck out of town.


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[Assistant] Belivar would later send agents out looking for him, but the viceroy was never located and he never stopped running either. He wound up making it all the way to Cartagena and then he immediately got on a ship and sailed back to Spain, never to return.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile Believar was on a race of his own. With the smoke at Boyacab barely cleared he was off like a shot at full gallop to close the hundred miles or so to Bogota.


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[Assistant] And when he arrived in the city, he found himself greeted by bewildered citizens. I mean, less than 12 hours ago, they had been under the impression that whatever small invading force that had come up through the mountains had been beaten. And that was if they knew anything about any of this at all.


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[Assistant] And instead, what? General Bolivar is here? And he's won? The Viceroy is gone?


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[Assistant] And then Believar discovered just how close he had come to capturing the viceroy. There were literally still bags of money on his desk, just left behind in the rush. The treasury was full. The munitions depot were stocked. This was a complete victory on all fronts.


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[Assistant] But Believer had been in the dark himself about a lot of what had gone on in New Granada. And when he greeted men that he had known from the last time he had passed through Bogota in 1815, he asked around for the others. Where's President Camilo Torres, the man who supported me in my darkest hours?


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[Assistant] He was dead. His head had been chopped off and posted on a spike. Oh what about this guy? What about that guy?


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[Assistant] They had all been killed in the aftermath of Mario's reconquest.


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[Assistant] It was a sobering back end to an otherwise jubilant moment.


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[Assistant] Now since we know how this all turns out, we know that the Battle of Boyacá marks the beginning of Colombian independence, real permanent independence. There was no guarantee at the time that it would, nor any way that anyone could have known that it would, but it did.


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[Assistant] Believar's dramatic push into New Granada had fundamentally altered the political and geographic axis of the war. The Republicans were no longer confined to a few interior bases hiding out in Angostura playing Congress. They now controlled a huge stretch of territory reaching from the Orinoco River to Bogota


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[Assistant] And in no time, they would bring all of the interior of New Granada under Republican jurisdiction.


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[Assistant] It was now the royalists who were confined, restricted to a few ports along the coast, short of men and now knocked thoroughly back on their heels.


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[Assistant] When General Murillo was briefed about what had happened, he wrote a report to the Ministry of War back in Spain and said,


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[Assistant] The rebellious Believer has occupied the capital of Bogota and the deadly outcome of this battle gives him dominion over the enormous resources of a highly populated, abundantly rich nation from which he will take whatever he needs to prolong the war.


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[Assistant] This unfortunate loss delivers into rebel hands apart from the kingdom of new Granada.


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[Assistant] Many ports in the south where he will now deploy his pirates. The interior of the continent all the way to Peru is at the mercy of whoever rules in Bogota.


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[Assistant] In just one day, Bolivar has undone all that we have accomplished in five years of this campaign. And in one single battle, he has reconquered all the territory that soldiers of the king have won in the course of so many past conflagrations.


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[Assistant] Bolivar then set up shop in the great capital of Bogota and began putting together the bare bones of a new government to rule new Granada.


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[Assistant] But it was never his destiny to be a man of laws. And he was itching to get back on his horse, to ride triumphantly through liberated New Granada, spreading the good news that they were all free.


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[Assistant] And most especially, to return to Venezuela to trumpet the success of the invasion, and then return to Angostura to make preparations for the true union of Venezuela and New Granada. To no longer hide on the Orinoco River, but to meet out in the open and in full dignity.


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[Assistant] So at the end of September 1819, he appointed Santander, the man who was destined to be the man of laws,


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[Assistant] Vice President of New Granada, and left him the difficult task of organizing a restored republic. And this was truly a job for Santander.


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[Assistant] Always a mediocre soldier at best who did not fit in easily with the rough men who had been so easily won over by Believer.


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[Assistant] Santander was completely in his element, seated behind a desk drawing up edicts and reforms and tax codes and an entire political apparatus. And that is where Santander would stay, becoming the founder of modern Colombia, as Belivar himself left the capital in September 1819.


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[Assistant] Next week, the Liberator will return to Venezuela to forge the Union of Gran Colombia.


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[Assistant] But he would discover that in his absence from Venezuela, the tenuous alliances that had held the eastern caudillos together had broken apart, and it would take careful cajoling and careful soothing to bring everyone back together to complete Believar's first and most compelling desire


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[Assistant] Experts are saying most of their good jobs will stay south of the border. Most of their profits, too.


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[Assistant] Ottawa should do something about the loopholes. Fast.


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[Assistant] Casper is an online retailer offering an obsessively engineered mattress, made in America, at a shockingly fair price.


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[Assistant] The mattress industry is built on forcing consumers into paying notoriously high markups, and Casper is revolutionizing the mattress industry by cutting the costs of dealing with resellers and showrooms and passing that savings directly to the consumer.


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[Assistant] Casper mattress provides resilience and long lasting supportive comfort.


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[Assistant] Casper's mattresses are one of a kind, combining springy latex and supportive memory foam for a sleep surface that's got just the right sink and just the right bounce. Plus, its breathable design sleeps cool to help you regulate your temperature through the night, which is important during these summer months.


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[Assistant] Time magazine in fact named this technology one of the best inventions of 2015. It's one of the most awarded mattresses of the decade.


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[Assistant] So starting at just $500 for a twin size mattress and $950 for a king size, you compare those to industry averages and they are outstanding prices.


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[Assistant] Buying a Casper mattress is also completely risk free. Casper offers free delivery and free returns to the US and Canada and a 100 night home trial. If you don't love it, they'll pick it up and refund you everything.


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[Assistant] We come now to the beginning of our story. The preliminary work is done. The precursors have come and gone. The dawn of Spanish American independence is at hand.


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[Assistant] And as with the Haitian Revolution, it was a massive upheaval back in Europe that sent the revolutionary ripples across the Atlantic wrecking the foundations of Spanish rule in the Americas.


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[Assistant] And now it is actually an open debate whether a grassroots independence movement would have begun had not the Spanish monarchy been overthrown by Napoleon in May of 1808, but we don't need to worry about that, because Napoleon did depose the Spanish monarchy in May 1808, and, well, here we go.


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[Assistant] At the end of 1805, the British had won the Battle of Trafalgar and the French had won the Battle of Austerlitz. And the Battle of Austerlitz ended not just the War of the Third Coalition, but the 800 year old Holy Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] The destruction of the Holy Roman Empire led Prussia to declare war on France in October 1806, turning the third coalition of Britain, Russia and Austria into the fourth coalition of Britain, Russia and Prussia.


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[Assistant] But the fourth coalition did not last very long at all. By the end of October, Napoleon had destroyed the Prussian army and captured Berlin.


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[Assistant] The Russians kept up a fighting retreat, but were themselves thrashed at Friedland in June 1807, forcing them to sign the Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807, which, as I mentioned in that episode on the Empire, marks the apex of Napoleon's imperial career.


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[Assistant] Now it was as a direct result of bringing all of central and eastern Europe to its knees that Napoleon's gaze turned west to the Iberian peninsula.


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[Assistant] His anti-British continental system was only going to work if he could cordon off the entire continent. And at that moment, Portugal continued to defy the Emperor and trade with Britain. This was because the British and Portuguese have like, the single oldest treaty of friendship in European history, dating all the way back to the late 1300s.


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[Assistant] So as Napoleon wrapped up the Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807, he immediately demanded the Portuguese break it off with Britain, close their ports, and declare war on their oldest friend.


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[Assistant] Now at this point, the reigning sovereign of Portugal was Mad Queen Maria, who had long suffered from some sort of mental dementia. So the acting sovereign was her son.


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[Assistant] Now Prince Regent John, and John's wife was Princess Charlotte of Spain, eldest daughter of King Charles IV of Spain, and yes, that will be important to know here in a minute.


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[Assistant] Now the Portuguese royal family did not think Napoleon could possibly be serious about worrying with little old Portugal, given all his other concerns, but then they got an ultimatum in August from the French ambassador that if they did not comply and close off the continent, Napoleon would depose the whole lot of them by force.


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[Assistant] But to follow through on that threat, Napoleon had to get the French army from France to Portugal, and that meant going through Spain.


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[Assistant] Technically, Spain was still its own independent kingdom, so to keep things nice and legal, negotiations were well underway by the fall of 1807 to secure Spanish approval for the French army to enter its territory.


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[Assistant] These negotiations, though, just so happen to be unfolding against a backdrop of family drama inside the Spanish royal family, which Napoleon decided was a golden opportunity to do a lot more than just go kick Portugal around.


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[Assistant] So as we discussed two episodes back, King Charles IV of Spain was an amiable dullard. His wife, Queen Maria Luisa, was a petty despot who liked to play favorites, and the guy somehow running the show was the Queen's favorite favorite, Manuel Godoy, who had been Prime Minister now off and on for the last fifteen years.


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[Assistant] Well enter into this picture now, the Crown Prince Ferdinand.


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[Assistant] Ferdinand had been born in 1784 just as Godoy was catching his mother's eye and the boy was raised in a very restrictive environment. Godoy apparently using his influence to stop Ferdinand from getting a proper education or access to royal funds to keep the boy from ever posing a threat to his own rule. So Ferdinand


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[Assistant] Hating the tyranny of Godoy and the triviality of his mother and the stupidity of his father. He also utterly lacked any sort of training, education, or experience that would prepare him to one day run Spain, not that this would stop him from thinking that he was the man who really ought to be running Spain.


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[Assistant] So with the latest batch of spectacular French victories in 1806 and 1807, Prince Ferdinand got it into his head that he might be able to get Napoleon's blessing for a move against his hated parents.


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[Assistant] In October 1807, he wrote a letter to Napoleon asking for a French princess to marry and promising closer union between France and Spain when Prince Ferdinand became King Ferdinand.


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[Assistant] But his parents, and Godoy, discovered Ferdinand was going around behind their back, arrested the wayward prince, and rifled around in his papers, discovering that that letter had just been a part of a much wider conspiracy to overthrow Godoy.


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[Assistant] So King Charles wrote his own letter to Napoleon saying, look, maybe my son isn't going to make the greatest king and we should arrange for one of your brothers to succeed me.


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[Assistant] So this is all coming to Napoleon's attention just as his agents are securing permission from Manuel Godoy for the French army to enter Spain.


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[Assistant] On October 27, 1808, the Spanish and French signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which gave official approval for a French army 28,000 strong to march through Spain on their way to Portugal.


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[Assistant] The agreement then also stipulated that conquered Portugal would be partitioned into three new units.


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[Assistant] So when the treaty was signed, Godoy was under the impression that he had just secured his permanent ascendancy, rather than what he had really secured, which was his imminent demise.


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[Assistant] And something of Napoleon's ultimate intentions in Iberia were already on display, because the Emperor did not deign to wait for the treaty to be signed in order to send his troops across the Pyrenees. By the time the Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed, the French invasion of Iberia was already ten days underway.


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[Assistant] The Portuguese royal family, meanwhile, had finally caught wise to the fact that Napoleon meant business, and in a flurry of activity in the fall of 1807 tried to appease him, but by then it was too late.


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[Assistant] On November the 19th 1807, the French invasion of Portugal began.


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[Assistant] Vassalating right to the very end between capitulation and making a run for it, the royal family was finally convinced by their oldest friends, the British, that back in France, Napoleon had already announced their collective abdication, so really, they needed to make a run for it.


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[Assistant] So the whole Portuguese court and thousands of nobles and officials hurriedly tossed their stuff onto whatever ships they could find and on November the 29th they set sail out of Lisbon under British protection bound for the safety of their domains in Brazil.


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[Assistant] The next day, the French army entered Lisbon, and the seat of the Portuguese Empire would be Rio de Janeiro for the next 13 years.


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[Assistant] Now the response to all this in Spain was mixed. A lot of people were horrified that Godoy appeared to have sold out the peninsula to the French.


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[Assistant] But others were hopeful that the arrival of Napoleon might spell the end of the decayed husk of a monarchy currently in place in Madrid, and that maybe energetic French modernization efforts would revitalize Spain.


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[Assistant] But those hopes turned to dread, as Napoleon ignored the limited troop numbers stipulated in the Treaty of Fontainebleau.


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[Assistant] Saying he needed to secure the French occupation of Portugal, another 100,000 troops crossed the Pyrenees between December 1807 and March 1808.


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[Assistant] And then, under various pretext, these troops started seizing and occupying major citadels and castles and fortresses all across northeastern Spain. And the locals caught wise quick that the French had more on their minds than just annexing Portugal.


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[Assistant] Spanish anger at the Bourbons for having invited the French in led the court to retire from Madrid and set up shop at their winter palace in Aranjuez, which they hoped would be safer from potential mob reprisals. But they could not escape.


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[Assistant] In mid-March, Prince Ferdinand used the general anger against Godoy in particular to his own advantage.


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[Assistant] On March the 17th, 1808, Ferdinand supporters orchestrated a mob attack on Godoy's residence in Aranjuez. The attack came so suddenly and violently that King Charles did the only thing he could think to do to quiet them. He dismissed Godoy from service.


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[Assistant] So two days later came the stunning development. On March the 19th, 1808, King Charles succumbed to the mob and abdicated the throne in favor of his son.


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[Assistant] Then on March the 24th, Ferdinand entered Madrid to wild cheering. The kingdom had been saved from the decrepit, corrupt relics, and a new day was dawning.


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[Assistant] With both the deposed Charles and the newly risen Ferdinand now both writing letters to Napoleon looking for support, Napoleon said, hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you both come to the French city of Bayonne and we'll talk it all through like civilized men.


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[Assistant] Ferdinand, convinced Napoleon was going to support his claim, arrived in Bayonne on April the 20th and was promptly told that he was going to abdicate the throne immediately or else.


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[Assistant] A Ferdinand tried to resist, but then his father showed up a few days later and just caved in. On May the 5th, Charles relinquished his claim to the Spanish throne to Napoleon.


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[Assistant] And then on May the 6th, Ferdinand caved in too.


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[Assistant] He abdicated his claim back to his father from whence it passed immediately on to Napoleon.


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[Assistant] In what is today called the abdications of Bayonne, the Spanish crown passed from the Bourbons to the Bonaparts. Charles IV, Queen Maria Luisa, Prince Ferdinand, and Manuel Godoy would remain prisoners of the French for the next five years.


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[Assistant] In their place, Napoleon made a major addition to the Bonaparte imperial dynasty that he was building, naming his brother Joseph, King of Spain and the Indies.


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[Assistant] Now Napoleon thought that the Spaniards were too complacent, and lacked the moral fiber and courage to do anything but accept the abdications of Bayonne as a fait accompli. And he was basically right.


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[Assistant] About the court nobles in Madrid, who had no interest in being on Napoleon's bad side, but wow was he ever wrong about the Spaniards generally.


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[Assistant] Napoleon thought it would take a few thousand troops to garrison the country once it had been seized, but man, was he wrong about that.


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[Assistant] A spontaneous citizen riot against the French occupiers in Madrid had already erupted on May the 2nd. The so-called Dos de Mayo uprising turned into a running street fight between the people of Madrid and French soldiers that was finally crushed by nightfall.


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[Assistant] Whereupon the French executed anyone who had been captured with arms in their hands, kinda setting the tone for the whole rest of the conflict.


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[Assistant] The Dostomayo Uprising now traditionally marks the beginning of the Peninsular War, the mass Spanish resistance to Napoleon that would require him to deploy not a few thousand troops, but a few hundred thousand troops, and contribute mightily to the downfall of his empire, because it was on that day, the Spanish ulcer started to bleed.


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[Assistant] Once news of the abdications of Bayonne got out, the rest of Spain went nuts, all on their own and independently of each other.


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[Assistant] The French had by now occupied a swath of territory in the north, running roughly from Pamplona down to Madrid. But in every province in Spain, local leaders started organizing resistance and declaring their intention to fight the French.


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[Assistant] And in short order, the institution that would define the early leadership of that Spanish resistance began forming. The junta or the junta depending on your preferred pronunciation.


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[Assistant] Operating on the principle that the metaphorical decapitation of the Spanish monarchy meant that power automatically devolved to the people, a junta was a self-selected local committee that proclaimed itself to be the representatives of the local people.


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[Assistant] By the end of May 1808, the first juntas were forming, and soon every halfway respectable municipality across Iberia had formed its own junta, to act as the guardian of local sovereignty until the monarchy could be restored.


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[Assistant] Charles IV and Godoy were blamed for letting the French in, so it was to Ferdinand that all these hunters pledged their allegiance.


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[Assistant] For the moment, these hunters were totally disconnected from each other, and none was superior or inferior to another.


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[Assistant] Although, down in Seville, they rather ostentatiously declared themselves to be the supreme junta.


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[Assistant] And made noises about trying to get the others to recognize them as the supreme junta.


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[Assistant] Well that didn't wind up happening, but the Seville Hunta did become the most important of them all in these early days. Seville was a pretty wealthy little city, and as far away from the French as you could get, and so they were able to start raising a real army to fight the French army.


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[Assistant] But most importantly for our purposes here, the Civil Junta declared jurisdiction over the Americas and took the lead in communicating with the leadership in Spanish America to make sure that they all pledge support for resistance rather than accepting the imposter, King Joseph Bonaparte.


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[Assistant] Now, it would be months before Word could make its way across the Atlantic, but it took considerably less time for Word to make its way up to London and into the home of Francisco de Miranda on Grafton Street, where he was once again hard at work on a new, new, new plan for a British-backed liberation of Spanish America.


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[Assistant] As we ended last week's episode, Miranda was just returning home to London on New Year's Day 1808, right smack dab in the middle of the Iberian crisis. The British have just spirited away the Portuguese royal family, and French troops are just continuing to flood into Spain unchecked.


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[Assistant] Now, despite the embarrassing failure of Miranda's Leander expedition, the British government was open to talking with him some more about the prospects in Spanish America,


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[Assistant] In part because Miranda came bearing official dispatches from the governor of Trinidad, who personally believed that the expedition had failed not because it wouldn't work, but because it hadn't been nearly big enough.


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[Assistant] So the minute he returned home, Miranda got back to work with the blessing of the British government.


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[Assistant] He sat with his friend James Mill and devised a plan to transform Spanish America into four new states, each one covering one of the four vice royalties. And then the British government assigned him to work on military logistics with Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.


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[Assistant] Wellesley and Miranda worked up a plan to send a 10,000 man expeditionary force to Venezuela and were at the point where units were being transferred around as part of the mobilization and Wellesley was putting in personal supply orders


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[Assistant] But the whole orientation of British policy abruptly changed after the abdications of Bayonne.


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[Assistant] With reports coming in that the whole of Iberia was resisting the French invaders, the British government decided that the war against Napoleon had to be fought there, not in faraway Venezuela.


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[Assistant] The troops destined for Spanish America were redirected to an invasion of Portugal.


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[Assistant] And Wellesley was the one who had to break the news to Miranda that the expedition was going to be cancelled. And Wellesley literally took Miranda out into Hyde Park to break the news in the hopes that the gaze of potential onlookers would force Miranda to not make a scene.


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[Assistant] Even there he was so angry that I told him I would walk on first a little, that we might not attract the notice of everybody passing. And when I joined him, he was cooler.


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[Assistant] He said, You are going into Spain. You will be lost. Nothing can save you. That however is your affair. But what grieves me is that there never was such an opportunity thrown away.


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[Assistant] Now of course, Miranda was wrong about the British going into Spain. That's not where they were lost, that's where in fact they really started to win. And he was possibly even wrong that a British invasion of Venezuela would have ever succeeded.


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[Assistant] But whatever happened next, the Spanish Americans were going to have to do it on their own.


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[Assistant] So those Spanish Americans have started learning about the dramatic events back in Spain in succession, depending on the time it took for news to reach them. And there could be quite a lag time, depending on where you lived.


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[Assistant] The first to find out were the ports in the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico, like Veracruz, Havana, and Caracas, who all found out about the abdications of Bayon in mid-July 1808.


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[Assistant] The governor of Havana then sent out further emissaries in multiple directions to spread the word, down to the Rio de la Plata, and then around to Chile and finally Lima, or over to Guatemala and Panama, and from there down to Lima.


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[Assistant] And the great capital of Peru, being so isolated on the Pacific side of the continent that they were of course the last to find out, and it was not until October the 4th that the viceroy of Peru was finally told that Napoleon had deposed the monarchy and installed his brother Joseph, fully five months after the fact.


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[Assistant] But shortly after the sensational news would hit the various cities, the Spanish Americans would then be greeted with emissaries representing the competing factions back in Europe, now trying to secure the loyalty of the Americas.


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[Assistant] The junta of Seville dispatched representatives everywhere, as did the usurping Bonaparteist government.


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[Assistant] But so too did agents come around from like Rio de Janeiro, because Princess Charlotte was now the one free member of the Spanish Bourbon royal family, and she was open to being recognized as Princess Regent in exile.


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[Assistant] So the Spanish Americans had an array of choices about how they were going to proceed. And ultimately, I'm about to walk you through the drama as it played out in New Granada, because that's the focus of the show. But before I do that, I do want to give you the flavor of how things are unfolding in the other three vice royalties.


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[Assistant] So up in New Spain, the town council of Mexico City wanted the viceroy to convene some kind of representative junta.


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[Assistant] After all, New Spain was a rich and civilized kingdom of six million people, and Mexico City itself was truly one of the great cities in the Spanish Empire. So its people deserve the same rights as their Spanish cousins. We should have a Junta too.


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[Assistant] And to the horror of conservative peninsulari administrators residing in Mexico City, the Viceroy himself seemed to agree.


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[Assistant] He took repeated meetings with an informal convention of local Mexico City leaders and in mid September approached the conservative Audiencia with a plan to call for the cities of New Spain to send representatives to create a consultative body for the duration of the crisis.


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[Assistant] The Audiencia not only rejected this idea, but fearing that the viceroy was on his way to inviting a full-blown revolution, they orchestrated a coup.


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[Assistant] On September the 16th, about 300 men stormed the Viceroyal Palace and arrested the viceroy along with some other prominent Creole leaders. The Audiencia then installed a random 80 year old general as the new viceroy.


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[Assistant] The movement to form a representative junta was quashed.


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[Assistant] But the new regime did agree to recognize the authority of the Civil Junta and support resistance to the French. And so this was the basic regime that would be in place when the next crisis comes along in 1810, a crisis that will help spark Father Hidalgo's insurrection and the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence.


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[Assistant] Down in the Rio de la Plata, things were complicated by a number of factors. For starters, there was the rather random complication that the acting viceroy, Santiago Linye, was a Frenchman. So there was strong suspicion on all sides that he would quickly accept the legitimacy of King Joseph Bonaparte.


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[Assistant] But agents from both the Seville Junta and the Bonaparte's government arrived in Buenos Aires in mid-August and both concluded that Ligné's Frenchness was just not a factor. He refused to recognize the abdications of Bayonne as legitimate.


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[Assistant] Further complicating things though was the very close proximity of the region to Brazil.


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[Assistant] So the Rio de la Plata had the strongest faction in support of recognizing Princess Charlotte as regent.


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[Assistant] And then of course there were little rivalries inside the Rio de la Plata that complicated things even further.


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[Assistant] So for example, the leadership of Montevideo organized a junta of their own, but mostly it was driven by their long commercial and political rivalry with Buenos Aires. They didn't want all of this to wind up with them becoming like vassals of Buenos Aires.


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[Assistant] And then there were peninsulares inside Buenos Aires who, like, never liked Lignier to begin with. And on January the 1st, 1809, they tried to stage a coup to oust him.


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[Assistant] But since Lin Ye still had the complete loyalty of a large and well-trained militia, this coup attempt failed.


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[Assistant] So while things in the Rio de la Plata were very like chaotic and lots of long knives were being drawn, the Viceroyalty of Peru kinda went in the opposite direction, and they were by far the least affected by any kind of internal turmoil.


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[Assistant] As I said, they did not even get word of the abdications of Bayonne until October 1808.


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[Assistant] And at that point, the viceroy simply said, right, nothing changes, I'm still in charge and I'll be running things in the name of King Ferdinand until he can be restored.


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[Assistant] The Viceroy was popular with both the Peninsulares and Criollo Elite Olima, and so when he decreed on October the 13th that look, I'm just gonna be in charge until further notice, there was no real push to challenge him.


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[Assistant] Peru was, and would remain, the least revolutionary of all the viceroyalties.


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[Assistant] So coming back around now to events in New Granada, we can also come back around now to Simone Bolivar and follow along in a bit more detail as he and his countrymen wrestle with the crisis caused by the abdications of Bayan.


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[Assistant] So we left Bolivar back in Paris at the beginning of 1806, having returned from his walking tour of Italy and his pledge to liberate his country or die trying.


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[Assistant] But estranged now from his fortune back in Venezuela, Bolivar decided it was time to return home. But with Napoleon's armies rampaging around and the British patrolling the coasts, this was much easier said than done.


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[Assistant] So Bolivar had to borrow money and then make his way up to the neutral port of Hamburg, just as Napoleon was sweeping across Germany on his way to Berlin.


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[Assistant] We'll leave our then departed Homburg on a neutral ship in November 1806 bound for the United States of America.


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[Assistant] He landed in Charleston in January 1807 after a particularly rotten voyage that saw Believar himself become incredibly sick along the way.


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[Assistant] But he did manage to make friends with an American from South Carolina on the ship who brought the sick and penniless Believer into his home where he could recuperate.


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[Assistant] And once he was recovered, Believar headed up to Philadelphia, where he was finally finally able to make direct contact with agents in Caracas and arrange a cash draw to pay off the debts he had been accruing and secure passage home.


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[Assistant] All told, Believar spent about five months in the United States, where he says that he quote, encountered rational liberty for the first time.


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[Assistant] So he also encountered the lingering bad taste Miranda had left in everybody's mouth thanks to the Leander debacle.


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[Assistant] And the prospects of his now sworn oath to liberate his country seem to be as far away as possible. And certainly the Americans he encountered were not at all optimistic about the chances of rational liberty coming to Spanish America anytime soon.


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[Assistant] Back in Caracas by June 1807, the now 24-year-old Believer took up his place as a young member of the inner circle of the Caracas aristocracy. And outwardly, he spent his time managing estates and the family businesses.


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[Assistant] But on the side, Believar was meeting with like-minded liberals of that aristocratic set, mostly drawn from the younger generation like himself. Under the guise of book clubs and social parties and card games, they would meet to talk politics.


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[Assistant] Among them were his older brother Juan Vicente, a few of his mother's brothers, including the uncle he had so famously clashed with as a child,


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[Assistant] Also various members of the extended Del Toro family. And then finally, Andres Baio, who had once briefly been Believar's tutor, and who was now the principal secretary to the captain general of Venezuela.


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[Assistant] Though it was clear that there was an informal division between Older Guard Criollo, who feared any revolutionary action would open the doors to real Haitian-style revolution, and then those like Belivar, who were ready to take the risk if an opportunity presented itself.


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[Assistant] Well of course an opportunity then did present itself in July 1808.


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[Assistant] During his routine work as secretary to the captain general, Andres Baio came across two notices in an English newspaper that bore the sensational news that Napoleon had deposed the Spanish monarchy.


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[Assistant] He rushed this to the Captain General, but the Captain General dismissed him and said that can't possibly be true. That's just British propaganda.


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[Assistant] But then, on July the 15th, two ships arrived at practically the same moment that confirmed the story. Although they did tell two completely different versions of it.


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[Assistant] So the first ship was flying under a French flag that turned out to be bearing official emissaries from the Bonaparteist government, saying that Spain has been conquered, Joseph Bonaparte is now King of Spain, and please accept this as the new state of affairs.


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[Assistant] The second ship, however, was British, and the captain said, no, no, no, that is not right at all. Yes, the monarchy has been deposed, but all of Spain is in insurrection. Do not recognize the French government, because none of your countrymen have.


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[Assistant] The Captain General then vacillated over what to do, but spontaneous demonstrations broke out in Caracas against the French that became so menacing that the French envoys quietly got back on their boat in the middle of the night and sailed away.


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[Assistant] So with recognizing King Joseph out of the question, it now came down to do we form our own junta and recognize Ferdinand, or do nothing and just keep the viceregal apparatus in place, untouched. I mean, what do we do?


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[Assistant] Now the kind of liberal criollo that Belivar hung out with agitated for a local junta that would recognize King Ferdinand. I mean, we are every bit as deserving of a junta as any other city in Spain.


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[Assistant] Now the captain general made a few noises that he might entertain the necessity of a junta, but then on August the 3rd a representative from the civil junta arrived and said, look, we are actually the central resistance government and we've decided that Venezuela ought to just stick with its existing system.


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[Assistant] We will recognize that the Captain General is the supreme authority here in Venezuela, and he will recognize that we are the supreme authority back in Spain. And then he will work with us to defeat the French.


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[Assistant] This of course sounded great to the Captain General, and he slammed the door shut on calling any kind of locally representative junta, going so far as to arrest some of the leading pro-junta liberals.


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[Assistant] But Bolivar was not among those arrested. Because he was really not down with their objectives. Because everybody was scrambling to recognize King Ferdinand. It was really all just down to how they were going to do it. Meanwhile, Bolivar was the only guy around who had ever actually met Ferdinand. And Bolivar hated Ferdinand.


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[Assistant] Remember, back during his first trip to Spain, Bolivar had been in and around the court at Madrid, and Prince Ferdinand was just a year younger than Bolivar. The two teenagers not only met, they had like


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[Assistant] But Bolivar did slip out of Caracas to avoid any unpleasantness with the Captain General because he was at this point kind of marked as a budding radical.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, over a new Granada proper, that is the future country of Columbia, a representative of the Seville Junta reached Cartagena on August the 9th and quickly secured the loyalty of that city. But then it took that guy another month to finally make his way up the Magdalena River to Bogota, arriving in early September.


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[Assistant] And there, he bore the same basic message that had been taken to Caracas. Keep the vice regal apparatus in place. Don't bother setting up a junta. It's really not necessary.


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[Assistant] Just keep your existing government and bureaucracy in place and please be prepared to support the great patriotic war of resistance back in Spain any way you can.


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[Assistant] The Viceroy in Bogota was all too happy with this arrangement, and he quickly nipped in the bud any attempt by the elite in Bogota to form their own junta.


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[Assistant] But the Creole back in Caracas were not ready to give up that easily. And after a few months, they drew up a petition signed by a bunch of local leaders saying we have the right to form a junta and demanded the captain general allow them to do so.


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[Assistant] They presented this petition on November 24th, but the Captain General was not interested.


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[Assistant] In his mind, this was all settled. And so, in response, he made a sweep of the city, arresting everyone who had signed the letter, and making a big show of repression to demonstrate just how he felt about all of this junta nonsense.


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[Assistant] Believar, though, was not picked up in this sweep either, because he had not signed the letter. He was not going to recognize Ferdinand. And in his mind, this was all the beginning of independence, and he would settle for nothing less.


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[Assistant] But it would not be until 1810 that events finally caught up to Belivar's vision for the future of Spanish America.


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[Assistant] So that's where things stood at the end of 1808. In all four American viceroyalties, the viceroys themselves continued to be the ultimate authority, all for recognizing the legitimacy of Spanish resistance to the French and the authority of the Seville Junta with attempts to create American Junta's mostly suppressed.


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[Assistant] So we'll finish up today by heading back over to Spain so that we can follow the further organization of the various independent juntas into a single central junta and its subsequent call to invite the Americans to officially participate in the government, which would help create the first real waves of independence in 1809.


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[Assistant] So as I mentioned, Napoleon drastically underestimated Spanish resistance, and had brushed off Talleyrand's repeated advice to please not do what you are about to do.


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[Assistant] But in his defense, Napoleon had just crushed the Austrians and the Prussians and the Russians. I mean, what was Spain compared to the great military powers of Central and Eastern Europe?


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[Assistant] So from the territory that the French held down to about Madrid, the French launched multiple columns out in every direction in the summer of 1808 to complete the envelopment of the Iberian Peninsula.


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[Assistant] Now mostly these columns found themselves harassed by independent bands of local resistance fighters. And this is famously where the term guerrilla starts to enter the military lexicon as the Spanish word for little war.


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[Assistant] But the Civil Junta managed to organize detachments of the Spanish regular army and patriotic volunteers into an actual army, almost 30,000 strong, that they then sent to block the advance of a 25,000-man French army into Andalusia.


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[Assistant] In mid-July 1808, that Spanish army won a resounding victory at the Battle of Bailén, forcing the complete surrender of the French.


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[Assistant] And I should mention here that among those fighting at Bailén was a Buenos Aires-born captain in the Spanish army named José de San Martín.


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[Assistant] So the shocking defeat at Bylen, plus mass resistance everywhere else, sent French plans into complete disarray.


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[Assistant] King Joseph made what was supposed to be his permanent entrance into Madrid on July the 19th, but he stayed in the city for not even two weeks before prudently withdrawing back to more secure territory on August the 1st. The French advance in 1808 was halted and then reversed.


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[Assistant] By the end of summer, the French armies would be regrouping back behind the Ebro River.


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[Assistant] Then to make matters worse, the British launched their invasion of Portugal in August under the command of Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington, bringing with him troops that have very recently been earmarked for the invasion of South America.


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[Assistant] And the failure of the French to secure the rest of Spain left the French army who were holding Portugal cut off from any resupply or reinforcement.


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[Assistant] In short order, a combined British-Portuguese army defeated the French outside Lisbon at the Battle of Vimiero on August the 21st, but then the British did not press home their advantage.


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[Assistant] Wellesley had already been slated to be replaced as commander of the British forces, and when his new superiors arrived, they cut a deal with the French over Wellesley's strenuous objections.


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[Assistant] The British actually agreed to transport the beaten 20,000 man French army out of Portugal and back to France, stipulating further that they would be allowed to take their weapons and any personal property with them. That personal property, of course, being all the Portuguese loot they could carry.


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[Assistant] These insanely lenient terms caused quite a little scandal back in London, and an investigation into the affair was convened. And while the senior British officers were officially cleared of any wrongdoing, Wellesley was the only one who was returned to active service.


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[Assistant] So by the fall of 1808, the Spanish resistance had a bit of breathing room to try to organize their government.


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[Assistant] And the various juntas agreed to try to form one executive junta representing all of them to try to coordinate national defense.


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[Assistant] On September the 25th, the first meeting of the so-called Central Junta convened at Aranjuez, with each provincial junta granted two seats at the table.


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[Assistant] But though the central junta did successfully convene, that was kind of the only thing it ever successfully did.


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[Assistant] The men participating were hopelessly at odds with each other. Some were old guard absolute monarchist conservatives who fully intended to restore Ferdinand and the old regime.


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[Assistant] Others were new style liberal reformers who planned to use this opportunity to establish some kind of constitutional monarchy and generally modernize Spain.


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[Assistant] So though they all had a common enemy, they were not at all pulling in the same direction.


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[Assistant] A fact soon exploited by their common enemy, the French.


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[Assistant] So the tide turned again when Napoleon decided that the situation in Spain had gotten bad enough that he needed to show his marshals how to run a war.


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[Assistant] Napoleon then ordered a massive double envelopment of Iberia that pretty much steamrolled all organized resistance in its path.


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[Assistant] The central junta was soon enough in full flight to Seville.


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[Assistant] Napoleon himself then re-entered Madrid on December the 4th at the head of an 80,000 man army.


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[Assistant] Now convening in Seville, the central junta did manage to make two momentous decisions.


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[Assistant] First, they signed a treaty of friendship with the British on January the 15th, which was of course really important for their war effort, but for our purposes, was most especially important because it really reopened contact with the Americas, since the British were now facilitating, rather than blocking, movement across the Atlantic.


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[Assistant] And then on January the 22nd, the central junta issued a decree to their American cousins, inviting them to send representatives to sit in the junta. Each vice royalty was to send one man each, as were the major provinces of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Chile, Guatemala, and the Philippines.


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[Assistant] As we will see next week, this was a decision that kept the ball rolling in Spanish America towards independence because it acknowledged the right of the Americans to participate in the government as equals, even if they weren't really equals with the Peninsulares.


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[Assistant] The province of Upper Peru and then the city of Quito had both been denied special representation in the Junta.


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[Assistant] And as a result, would declare de facto independence from all other authorities save the deposed King Ferdinand himself in the summer of 1809.


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[Assistant] And while South America was starting to get more chaotic, the wind of the Peninsula War blew so hard against Spain that the central junta collapsed in early 1810, leaving yet another power vacuum that this time was fully exploited by radicals in the Americas to declare themselves independent.


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[Assistant] And in Caracas, Simon Bolivar will finally have a cause that he can get behind.


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[Assistant] So before we go, I will change subjects completely and plug the fact that I did another guest spot on the Ground Rule Trouble podcast to talk about baseball, specifically the all-star game, and why I continue to love it so much.


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[Assistant] So if you want to listen to your favorite history podcast or talk a little baseball, it's at GroundRuleTrouble.com and then I'll post an additional link at RevolutionsPodcast.com. Uh, we do talk some Francisco de Miranda at the end because


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[Assistant] Who doesn't love talking about Francisco de Miranda?


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[Assistant] This week's episode is brought to you by Casper. Casper is an online retailer offering an obsessively engineered mattress, made in America at a shockingly fair price.


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[Assistant] The mattress industry is built on forcing consumers into paying notoriously high markups, and Casper is revolutionizing the mattress industry by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms and passing those savings directly onto the customer.


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[Assistant] Time Magazine named this one of the best inventions of 2015, and starting at just 500 for a twin size mattress and 950 for a king size mattress, I mean those are great deals. Compared to industry averages, they are outstanding.


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[Assistant] Buying a Casper mattress is also completely risk free. Casper offers free delivery and free returns to the US and Canada in a hundred night home trial. If you don't love it, they'll just pick it up and refund everything.


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[Assistant] So you get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting casper.com slash revolutions and using the promo code revolutions at checkout. Terms and conditions do apply.


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[Assistant] After more than a decade of obsessive striving, he had finally fulfilled his dream when he triumphantly entered Lima in July of 1821, but that was probably the last time he was even remotely happy.


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[Assistant] Since then, he had been plunged into the vicious world of Peruvian politics, which were beginning to make the rivalries back in Buenos Aires look positively restrained.


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[Assistant] As we've seen repeatedly, San Martin was not really cut out for politics. He was far more comfortable as a general than a statesman. And for all the differences between San Martin and Believar, differences we're gonna talk about here in a minute, they shared a common preference for war over politics, it being far less treacherous terrain.


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[Assistant] But unfortunately for San Martin, there were now no campaigns to distract him. The last Spanish royalists had abandoned the coast and retreated to their strongholds in the mountains, and San Martin knew he did not have the men or the resources to go defeat them.


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[Assistant] As the protector of Peru, he tried to oversee the creation of a new government, but it was not going well. And the unhappy San Martin gave himself more over to the opium and drinking, and letting his secretaries do the actual work.


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[Assistant] As the months passed, Lima's disenchantment with the protector began to grow.


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[Assistant] And this enchantment was a common emotion for San Martin to leave in his wake. Back in Argentina, his name was still Mud for stealing the army of the Andes and never coming back.


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[Assistant] In Chile, he was now under suspicion because he had transferred all of his time and attention to Peru, leaving his old friends like Bernardo O'Higgins behind.


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[Assistant] San Martin had then gotten into a huge fight with Lord Cochrane after trying to buy the Chilean Navy, which also had not sat well with the Chileans. And then when Lord Cochrane had sailed back through Santiago, he warned O'Higgins not to trust San Martin.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, inside Lima, the protector was caught between angry merchants who had been ruined by his blockade, conservative royalists just waiting for the Spanish to come back around, and then patriotic Republicans whose support for San Martin was about to be dealt a crushing blow.