Bolívar and the War to the Death: The Account of a British Traitor

Bolívar, War to the Death, and the Empire That Sank Itself

Simón Bolívar was more than just the liberator of half of South America. According to a revisionist current, he was the architect of the destruction of the greatest empire of his time: a traitor funded by London who left behind a fragmented continent. The thesis is gaining traction. And, like almost everything touching the colonial past, it has less substance than it appears.

One part of the analysis holds that Bolívar and San Martín acted not out of conviction, but on foreign orders. The argument is supported by documented British intervention in favor of the insurgents and by the geopolitical logic of the era: weakening Spain in America served London's interests.

The Thesis of a Traitor Funded from London

The core of the accusation is that Hispanic American emancipation was not an autonomous movement, but an operation directed and sustained by powers that wanted to see the Spanish empire fall. England and France, it is argued, pulled the strings from the shadows.

Therein lies the problem. It is one thing for British interests to align with those of the insurgents—they did—and quite another for Bolívar to have worked on Whitehall's payroll. Confusing a coincidence of interests with direction of the plot is the recurring error of almost all conspiracy historiography.

The Decree of War to the Death: What the Archives Say

The strongest point of the accusation is not funding, but violence. The uncomfortable document exists and is dated: the Decree of War to the Death, proclaimed in 1813, declared death to any Spaniard who did not conspire against the Crown. According to the version presented in the debate, in early 1814, a thousand sick soldiers were executed in Caracas, dispatched with machetes because gunpowder was scarce and expensive.

Historiographical defense offers another perspective. Some interpret that decree as a reaction to a prior war to the death by the royalist side, already unleashed after the fall of the first Republic. The chronology is not settled. And the figure of a thousand executed demands verification against archives, not headlines.

Marx, Bolívar, and the Uncomfortable Biography

A detail unsettles many. The biography that Karl Marx wrote about Bolívar for The New American Cyclopedia, available translated on marxists.org, is not a panegyric. It is a harsh, dismissive piece that clashes with the later vindication of the liberator by Latin American leftists.

That a 19th-century revolutionary savaged Bolívar does not make him a traitor. But it does dismantle the simplistic reading that places his defenders and critics on the same ideological axis.

The Empire That Might Have Sunk Itself

Not all the debate buys into the conspiracy. Another part points to internal causes: a disastrous economic model, a predominantly illiterate population, a Crown more concerned with the Inquisition than with educating subjects. If the empire bled out, it was hardly the work of two men.

Two centuries of independence have yielded uneven results. A continent with extraordinary resources remains far from its expectations. If merely eliminating Spanish influence were enough to prosper, it would have been evident by now.

Monuments, Swords, and Cultural War

Several monuments dedicated to Bolívar still stand in Spain, something this sector finds inexplicable in a country that honors its perceived enemy. The public display of the liberator's sword in official ceremonies reignited the debate over which figures deserve institutional recognition and which do not.

Even geography has become part of the issue: there is a Basque municipality called Bolívar. An unimportant detail that, in gossip circles, serves all purposes today.

Two centuries later, the assessment remains open. It is likely that Bolívar was neither the traitor depicted by one side nor the saint by the other. History rarely grants such clean culprits.