25 February 1812
Cartagena de Indias
Rebel city of Cartagena
New Kingdom of Granada
The viceroy in Santa Fe has a safe position right now, but surely not
for long. After the insurrection of September 1810 some of the kings of
Spain (I guess it was Carlos) replaced Amar y Borbón with Juan Sámano,
someone I remember from my classes of history as a cruel repressor.
Sámano arrived in April 1811 and he seem to have been less of the evil
orc than my history books commented, probably because he is younger now,
or probably because he didn't arrive to pacificate a successful
rebellion but rather to prevent the new rebellion to start and he would
have seen the happenings in Caracas and Cartagena in a different
perspective. No, he is still that Sámano. My informants had told me
that anything remotely associated with the enlightened Creole class in
Santa Fe has been severely repressed, confirmed at my arrival at
Cartagena; and the situation in Maracaibo was clearly part of Sámano's
policies.
Anyhow at this moment Santa Fe is a stronghold for Sámano, as well as
the South. I had expected an insurrection at Santiago de Cali but there
is none yet, and the royalists are still in control of Buenaventura. I
expect those places to be reinforced now that Darien should be a threat
for them.
Santa Marta is in a kind of limbo. They are technically royal still to
Spain and, of course, to viceroy Sámano, communications are kind of
fuzzy and the different fractions in the city are wanting for anything
to happen. The same applies to the main cities in Boyacá as Pamplona,
Socorro and Tunja. I am not sure how all the mess will turn out but it
is just a matter of time to see the Spanish empire out of the New
Kingdom of Granada, out of Colombia.
In Venezuela, well, Caracas and Maracaibo have declared complete
independence and are recognizing Miranda as their president. In Apure
royalist Boves is clearly in command, resisting any attempts by the
Venezuelan patriot armies to free los Llanos. It is hard to say on the
loyalists if they are Carlists of Ferdinandists, there seems that they
rather are part of the Spanish Empire that want to deal first with the
Creole rebellions before deciding with party to take.
I arrived to Cartagena three days ago and visited Antonio Nariño
yesterday in his residence. He is not in prison any more but he feel
like still being in one as the Creole authorities in Cartagena are not
letting him to go anywhere. As I guessed he wants to march over Santa
Fe and kick the Viceroyalty from there. He is not completely confident
that my troops would be much help but I offered all the help the Free
State of Darien could bring. In my opinion he should be the leader of
the nation we are building, but Cartagena leaders have a quite a
different opinion.
I cannot help that the Cartagenean Creoles do not trust me. Firstly
they have not decided still which should be the future of Cartagena, if
they should push for independence or just autonomy, if they should
support Carlos, Ferdinand, Miranda, Nariño or no one. Now I come here
as a colored General, claiming command on everyone on a green olive
uniform (quite a big portion of the armed men in Cartagena, and the best
armed ones), representing a _Free State_ created out of backwards
country and presided by a Negro. I am not surprised they are worried,
as Logan Ferree prevented me, most mixed-races look at me and my men as
kind of heroes, and these make the Creole aristocracy quite worried.
Fortunately my men are loyal or I guess they would have put me in jail
or, at least, in a similar situation than Nariño.
Now I am preparing my trip to Caracas. I am taking a boat in two days,
in the mean while I will try to lobby to the Cartagena junta if I can
convince them in working together, and if I can get Nariño to come with
me or, at least, to let him go to Darién.
-- Com. Gen. Carlos. E. Tomás Pinzón G.
Free Army of Darien