Antonio Nariño

Antonio Nariño was an ideological Precursor and one of the early political and military leaders of the independence movement in Colombia, then known as New Granada. Nariño was born in Santa Fé de Bogotá in 1765 and died in Villa de Leyva in 1823.

Early political activity

In 1794 he translated the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" from its original French. For this he was imprisoned ten years by the Spanish authorities. Nariño had previously worked as a tax collector ("Recaudador de diezmos") and was also accused of fraud resulting from this activity.

However, he escaped from his captors as the ship landed in Spain and later went to France and England, where he continued his work supporting the revolution in South America.

Some of his detractors claimed that he was persecuted due to his failure to come up with certain funds he had access to as a tax collector, and not necessarily due to political motives. In light of this charge, they argued that he escaped and promoted revolution to be able to safely return to New Granada.

The authorities again caught up with him in Bogotá. This time he was imprisoned in Madrid but somehow managed to get away and return to Colombia, where he was able to take part in the revolution. He founded the political newspaper La Bagatela in 1811. That same year he was selected president of the State of Cundinamarca.

Recognized as the commander of the centralist republican forces in New Granada, he fought several battles against the federalists organized around the city of Cartagena.

Southern campaign

In July 1813, General Nariño began an intensive military campaign against the Spanish and Royalist forces in the south, intending to reach Pasto and eventually Quito.

Nariño's forces, known as the Army of the South, numbering 1500 to 2000 men, managed to capture Popayán in January 1814 after defeating the Royalist forces in the area in a series of initially successful battles.

After stopping to reorganize the city's government and his own forces, he pressed on towards Pasto. Historians have speculated that, had he not stopped at Popayán but actually decisively pursued the fleeing Royalist army, he might have been able to successfully capture a relatively undefended Pasto.

As things happened, the constant raids of Royalist guerrillas, the harshness of the terrain, the lack of promised reinforcements from Antioquia, and the delays in bringing up his army's artillery contributed to weakening the morale of many of the troops under his command, when they had practically reached the gates of Pasto.

After being wounded during combat, a false rumor of his death was spread, and most of the remaining soldiers scattered, only some 400 returning back to Popayán. Nariño, left practically alone in the battlefield, attempted to hide, but surrendered himself when Royalist scouts found him. He was taken into Pasto in May 1814, and then sent to the Royal prison at Cádiz via Quito.

Later years

Nariño was freed in 1821 after the revolt of Rafael del Riego, and returned to his country, now independent from Spain after the republican victory at the Battle of Boyacá.

Nariño was one of the candidates for the presidency of Gran Colombia in 1821, where he lost to Simón Bolívar by the significant margin of 50 to 6 votes in the Congress held at Cúcuta, finishing second. He also lost the election for vicepresident, as Francisco de Paula Santander eventually defeated him by a 38 to 19 vote margin after several heated rounds of voting.

References

• El colombiano de todos los tiempos - semana.com
• Biografía del General Antonio Nariño
• Defensa ante el senado

Bibliography

• Blossom, Thomas. Nariño: Hero of Colombian Independence. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1967.
• Crow, John Armstrong. The Epic of Latin America. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992.