Tag: Bolivia

On a Shooting

Antofagasta is a Chilean harbor town located about a quarter of the way down the coast of the shoestring nation. If you traveled inland from the town, you’d come close to where the borders of Bolivia and Argentina meet. Back in 1905, Antofagasta was a boom town; it owed its existence to the mining of first silver then copper in the nearby Andes Mountains. And it was the scene of a brutal killing of a young police officer on fateful August evening of that year.

It seems that a couple of drunks in a bar started something. They either mouthed off to the wrong person or the wrong person mouthed off to them. Pistols were brandished. Sensing that some frontier-style violence was about to happen, the barkeep sent word to the local constabulary that they had better come to the cantina, quickly. When the police arrived, the officers told the brawlers to take their disagreement outside, to the street, that the establishment wanted no trouble inside. As the argument began to move through the saloon doors, a shot rang out. One of the police officers was instantly killed at close range by a pistol.

Well, in the ensuing chaos, an arrest was made. It seems that the man who did the shooting was actually an American, one Frank Boyd. He argued that his Smith & Wesson revolver went off accidently, but that didn’t make the policeman any less dead. The 24-year-old officer, Arturo González, was buried the next day with full police honors, including a procession, marching band and the flower-bedecked hearse. His beautiful young widow and two-year-old son followed closely behind.

Boyd appealed to the US Consulate for help. The US representative, one Frank Aller, posted $50,000 bond and stated that he would allow Boyd to stay in his house as a condition of his release. At the bond hearing, Boyd’s business partner, a man called Thomas Fisher, testified that, while he was not present at the shooting, that he could vouch for Boyd’s character, saying that they two had come to that part of South America to invest in the cattle business. He further swore that he trusted Frank Boyd with his life. The release of Frank Boyd was granted.

Well, you can guess what happened. Boyd (and Fisher) skipped out of Antofagasta the next day and never looked back, leaving the family of Officer González without anyone held responsible for his death and the US Consulate $50,000 poorer. But legend says that within a couple of years later the pair would be killed by Bolivian troops in a shootout, so maybe justice of a sort was served.

But we can’t be 100% sure what really happened after Antofagasta to Fisher and Boyd, better known to you as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

On The Liberator

Ok, there’s no catch here and no surprise ending–this post is about Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator and “founding father” of much of that continent. To dismiss or pigeon-hole him as South America’s version of George Washington doesn’t do the man justice. He is largely responsible for the freeing of most of Spain’s colonies in that continent from Madrid’s control. And that almost-constant war against Spanish colonialism framed most of the man’s 47 years on earth. He won victory after victory against the Spanish, and paved the way for the eventual independence of many modern nations.

How many people can say that they were the president of not only one, not only two, but three different nations? Yes, at one time, Bolivar was the chief executive of Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia.

At the same time.

Bolivar was a disciple of the humanist Enlightenment philosophers who believed in the essential rights of men. While his ideas met strong resistance in most quarters, it seems that he was for the removal of the system of slavery in all of South America. His detractors said that this position wasn’t without a selfish reason; Bolivar needed soldiers to fight the Spanish, and he was happy to take newly liberated slaves into his ranks. To be fair, for his time, Bolivar was remarkably progressive in his treatment of other races, a trait that was lacking in the leadership of many other democratic republics of that time (looking at you, America).

He also recognized the United States’ version of federalism as the optimal model for a united Latin American nation one day, but he was also practical enough to realize that Spanish colonial influence and the political and social organization system that combined large landowners and the power of the Catholic Church made such unification almost impossible. Before he died of tuberculosis, he felt a failure for not uniting the disparate countries and cultures.

And it’s not fair to say that Bolivar accomplished all he did on his own. A confluence of several factors beyond his control certainly made his successes in getting the various Spanish colonies their independence. Among these factors were the weakening of Spain’s power in the Americas due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars as well as Britain’s threats of retaliation if Spain made too much of an effort to re-assert its dominance over the South American continent (The Monroe Doctrine said the same thing, but the infant American republic lacked the military teeth to make this stick). Besides, other important military leaders in the various areas of the continent aided him in his liberation activities including Jose de San Martin from what is now Argentina.

But it’s also not an understatement to say that Bolivar was the right man at the right time. History is often made by these confluences of person and period, timing and personality.

I’ll leave you with one more factoid. Besides the nation of Bolivia bearing his name, did you know that one other nation in South America is named after him? Yes, it’s true.

The official name of Venezuela is the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela.