Santafe, Santa Fe
August 9th, 1812 (Sunday).

This is kind of a weird feeling.  This is a city that is familiar and
alien, at the same time.  Probably I have stop thinking that this
downtime Santa Fe is my uptime Bogotá.  Anyhow, I guess I have to wait
until things are over before I can make a better judgment on the city
and its people.

A nasty battle has just happened, and my strategy seemed to have worked
down pretty well.  This does not hide the fact that over a thousand
people lie death on the battlefields.  Most of them royalist soldiers,
which actually mean people that enlisted to serve their king and
believed that following Samano's order they were accomplishing their
duty.  But there are also 200 of my men and, what is worst, 50
civilians.

We managed to take Santafé by leading most of the defending royalist to
fight our main column, lead by Matheson, in the Bogotá river, 10 km NW
from Santafé, while two smaller columns penetrated the defenses.  The
first was a command of 200 mostly local men that were camping in the
mountains of Sumapaz, in the South of Santa Fe, for several months.
They had been taking positions on the mountains that surrounded Santafé
in the East, and this morning, before sunrise, 50 of them entered the
city as peasants.

The second column, lead by myself and wearing proper Darien uniforms and
carrying Darien and Colombian flags, moved into the village of Chapinero
overnight and lead a march towards Santafé once first gunfire were
listened by 7:40.  By 10:50 (according to my watch) we reached the
Northern defenses of Santa Fe.

I guess I have to make a mention to the ruana.  The ruana is a piece of
cloth, a woolen poncho.  There are several types of ruanas, and in the
mountains and high plains of Bogotá and Boyacá they use one made from a
heavy square shaped woolen blanket with a small split in the middle
people put their heads through.  People can carry almost anything under
their ruanas, including daggers and rifles, yet they are easy to
uncover.  As they are made from wool, they are pretty warm on these
Bogota nights where weather can drop to almost to freezing temperatures,
yet they protect us under the rain or when crossing rivers and creeks.
On the other hand, they are easy to carry in our backpacks when we have
to march though warmer humid climates, like those in the Magdalena
valley.

Peasants around Santafé are used to carry ruanas, which allowed my men
from Sumapaz to go unnoticed this Sunday morning, while they introduce
rifles into the city.  This was fine as they allowed us to break the
royalist northern defenses of Santafé with ease.  Once this happened we
stormed all over the city with little resistance as most people where
either on their houses or in the churches doing little but praying.

At 11:15 my troops broke into the viceroyalty palace and most uniformed
defenders had already surrendered if not death.  I restrain to get into
the palace until my men told me it was secured by 11:30.  We then went
into the streats and churches of Santafé to tell the locals they had
nothing to worry from us, and by 11:45 we played the bells hoping that
the people fighting in the River would have listened.

As Matheson told me, they listened and played a white flag to reach an
agreement with the royalists but they refused to surrender.  Most of the
death came actually after we took Santafé, when the stubborn royalist at
the Bogotá river were severely outgunned by Matheson.  The survivors
surrendered by 12:20 but there was a final rematch when some of the
royalist that were fighting in the river had come back to reinforce the
defenses in Santafé and were received by my men.

I had already took the viceroyalty palace as my base while we clear out
things here in Santafé.

This afternoon, when things had calmed down, I went to the house of the
Marquis of Saint George, brother of Jorge Tadeo Lozano, to speak with
the family.  They received me with some prevention, which I expected but
at least I confirmed that they where okay and I convinced them that my
US ambassador was also fine.

Tomorrow it will be time to get the political situation solved.

-- Gen. Tomás Pinzón
   Chief Commander of the Armed Forces of Darien
   Santafé, Santa Fe