GRAN COLOMBIA 237
The movement to abolish slavery offers a pow-
erful example of this negotiation among creole
elites and between them and subalterns. In 1820,
pursuant to military exigencies and congressional
proclamations that “no man can be the property of
another,” Bolívar had ordered Francisco de Paula
Santander, a leading general under his command,
to recruit an army of some fi ve thousand slaves in
the provinces of Antioquía and Chocó by promising
emancipation. This naturally excited great enthu-
siasm among the slave population, but it alienated
mine owners and other proprietors who depended
on slave labor. To reconcile these confl icting in-
terests, Santander limited his recruitment to three
thousand and directed all remaining slaves to re-
turn to their masters.
A similar compromise at the Congress of Cú-
cuta effectively prolonged the institution of slavery.
It passed a law that called for the gradual abolition
of slavery through a complicated process of man-
umission. Thereafter, all children born of slave
mothers would be free, but they were required to
work for their mother’s master until age eighteen.
The law also created a series of local juntas de
manumisión, committees composed of local nota-
bles, who were responsible for collecting tax mon-
ies necessary to pay slaveholders compensation for
their loss. The juntas, notoriously ineffi cient and
largely representing the interests of slave owners,
failed to liberate many slaves.
Nonetheless, slaves continued to pressure
Bolívar and his creole nation by organizing revolts
that swept across the republic between 1824 and
- Fearing the nation’s imminent collapse,
Bolívar issued an 1828 decree that effectively
centralized control over the juntas and assessed
fi nancial penalties against local junta members
who failed to act. This contributed to a growing
chorus of criticism from elites and local military
caudillos like José Antonio Páez, the pardo leader,
who denounced Bolívar’s “dictatorial” actions
and called for the dissolution of Gran Colombia in - In addition to the confl ict over slavery, Gran
Colombia’s survival was doomed by its geographic,
economic, and social realities. Immense distances
separated its component parts, and a mountainous
terrain made communication very diffi cult; it took
about a month for a letter to reach Bogotá from Ca-
racas. These conditions also hindered the develop-
ment of economic ties between Venezuela and New
Granada, and also Ecuador; Caracas and other
Venezuelan coastal cities communicated more
easily with Europe than overland via the Andes
with Bogotá. Finally, the Venezuelan elite of cacao
planters and merchants, joined by a new elite of
military leaders or caudillos, had little sympathy
for Bolívar’s idea of fusing several independent
Spanish American republics into one and even less
for his vision of a confederation that would unite
all the Spanish American states.PÁEZ,THE CONSERVATIVE-LIBERAL SPLIT,AND
THE FEDERAL WAR IN VENEZUELA, 1830–1863
On May 6, 1830, a congress assembled in Valencia
to provide the independent state of Venezuela with
a constitution, the third in the country’s short his-
tory. The document limited suffrage to males who
were twenty-one, were literate, and had a high
income. These requirements excluded most of the
population, numbering under 900,000, from par-
ticipation in political life. Of that number some 60
percent were descended from Africans. Another
15 percent were natives, and a quarter identifi ed
as white. A tiny minority of these, about ten thou-
sand, composed the ruling class of wealthy mer-
chants, great landowners, and high offi ceholders
and military offi cers, who usually were also land-
owners. The members of this class, often linked
through family networks, dominated politics.
Military hero, longtime champion of Vene-
zuelan independence, and former ranch hand José
Antonio Páez was elected president, a post he com-
bined with that of supreme army commander. His
rise illustrates the renewal of the old colonial ruling
class through the admission of a new elite of mili-
tary caudillos, frequently of very humble origins.
The Venezuelan society and economy over which
Páez presided essentially resembled the colonial
social and economic order. The latifundio con-
tinued as the basic unit of economic activity;
concentration of landownership increased after
independence because of the rapid acquisition of