Download Rebellion at Riohacha, 1820: Local and International

Rebellion at Riohacha, 1820:
Local and International Networks of Revolution,
Cowardice and Masculinity1
by Matthew Brown
Abstract. – This article looks at the rebellion of the Irish Legion at Riohacha, New
Granada (Colombia), in 1820. It highlights the Atlantic networks of politics, commerce,
and migration upon which Colombia’s independence from Spain took place. These networks catalysed thinking about changing notions of masculinities and collective identities in this period. The sources for the article are archival documents in Dublin and
Bogotá, and newspaper reports and private correspondence that reflected on the events
in question. The Irish Legion served the cause of Independence in Colombia under the
command of Simón Bolívar, and it was largely envisaged as a brave and generous Irish
contribution to the cause of liberty. The Legion’s rebellion thus caused numerous reinterpretations of their motives, both at home in Ireland and amongst Hispanic Americans. The article provides a brief narrative of events and traces the ripples of their consequences in Riohacha itself and away in Bogotá. The study emphasises how identity
formation in early nineteenth-century Hispanic America (including local, regional,
national, colonial, and imperial identities) was a flexible and contested process based on
understandings of masculinity and race, and influenced by often unexpected events such
as hunger, looting, ambush, and desertion.
This paper explores changing notions of masculinities and collective
identities across Atlantic networks of politics and migration in the
early nineteenth century. It uses the substantial documentation triggered on both sides of the Atlantic by the rebellion of an Irish Legion
1
This paper was written with the support of a European Union Marie-Curie Fellowship held at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Sevilla. Previous research in
Colombia, Venezuela, and Ireland was supported by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Graduate School of University College London. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Spanish language documents are my own.
Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 42
© Böhlau Verlag Köln/Weimar/Wien 2005
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in the service of the Independents in the war against Spanish colonial
rule, at Riohacha in May 1820. The first part of the paper provides a
short narrative of the agreed course of events, followed by a brief
overview of the Colombian and Irish historiographies. It situates Irish
involvement in the Colombian Wars of Independence within the contemporary Atlantic political and economic situation, and explains the
presence of several hundred Irish soldiers in a conflict in which Britain
remained neutral. The second part provides a brief introduction to two
of the principal protagonists of the rebellion, Mariano Montilla and
Luis Brion. The third part examines the consequences of the rebellion
in Riohacha and Bogotá.2
The Atlantic world in the early nineteenth century consisted of
interwoven networks of trade, politics, empire, migration, and ideology. As Mimi Scheller has observed for the Caribbean, “long before
the current fashion for studying ‘new’ transnational identities, the peoples and histories of ‘national’ entities intertwined and interacted with
each other”.3 Encounters above and beyond national and colonial
boundaries were complicated by class, gender, and caste or “race”.
This paper explores one of the occasions where all these networks
connected, and where the tension caused by their multiple pressures
caused an explosion: in this case, the violent insurrection of Irish
soldiers in a peripheral New Granadan port. It is therefore an “anatomy of a rebellion”, albeit one which stresses the transnational nature
of the causes and consequences of the events at the same time as
retaining the focus on the local.4 The consequences of the personal
2
Relations with the metropolitan capitals, London and Madrid, were of vital importance to these networks, but they have been excluded from this study in order to emphasise that colonial and imperial identities in the early nineteenth century did not
always revolve around a colony-metropolis framework, and to emphasise how identity
formation took place in complex networks of sites away from the formal boundaries of
colonial rule. I expand on the Irish dimension, and in particular the situation in Dublin,
in Matthew Brown, “The Irish Rebellion in Colombia” (unpublished paper).
3
Mimi Scheller, Democracy After Slavery. Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism
in Haiti and Jamaica (London 1999), p. 245. See also Nini Rodgers, “Ireland and the
Black Atlantic in the eighteenth century”: Journal of Irish Historical Studies 32, 126
(2000), p. 175–192.
4
Eric Van Young, The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence and Ideology in Mexico
1810 to 1821 (Stanford 2001). Young wrote several “anatomies” of rebellions, focusing
on their causes “from below” amongst indigenous and popular groups.
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mobility of the Irish adventurers cast into fine relief the international
and Atlantic context of the Hispanic American Wars of Independence,
which the Irish Legion encountered in the midst of the transition from
colonial to republican rule.5
A principal component of the masculinity of Irish adventurers and
of Hispanic American military and political elites alike during the
Wars of Independence was to avoid the charge of cowardice.6 Cowards
backed away from danger where the adventurer and soldier hero confronted risk in order to win greater gains for his own honour and for
the patria. Events in South America were central to constructions of
masculinity in this period because of the “culture of adventure” that
shaped British and Irish experience in the region.7 Dreams of glory,
wealth, and fortune were counterpointed against a constructed “landscape of adventure” in which chroniclers emphasised the physical dangers of the environment (fevers, alligators, savage Indians) in order to
highlight their own achievements in surviving and returning home
more “manly” as a result.
NARRATIVE OF EVENTS
The Wars of Independence in Spanish America (c. 1810 – c. 1825)
attracted attention across the Atlantic region. The authorities in London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Port-au-Prince, the Vatican, and Washington debated the merits of diplomatic recognition of the new states.
Corsairs and privateers supported by the new independent republics
5
Kenneth Maxwell, “The Atlantic in the Eighteenth Century: a Southern Perspective on the Need to Return to the ‘Big Picture’”: Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society 6th Series, 3 (1993), p. 209–236.
6
Matthew Brown, “Adventurers, Foreign Women and Masculinity in the Colombian Wars of Independence”: Feminist Review 79 (January 2005), p. 36–51, shows how
relations with women were also a constant reference in constructions of masculinity in
this period.
7
On the role of adventure in the formation of British masculinities in general, see
Graham Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire, and the Imagining of Masculinities (London 1994); on South America in particular, see Matthew Brown, Impious
Adventurers? Mercenaries, Honour and Patriotism in the Wars of Independence in Gran
Colombia (Thesis, University of London 2004), which provides more detail on the differences between British, Irish, Scottish, and other European adventurers.
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harassed shipping off the coast of West Africa.8 The British government adopted an ambiguous position due to its official support of
Spain as a European ally and unwillingness to do anything that might
encourage French expansionism in the Western Hemisphere.9 Instead,
it tolerated the departure from its shores of over six thousand adventurers to fight against Spain in Colombia.10 Many died of fevers in
tropical climates, but others contributed to the eventual victory of the
Independents and thereafter settled in the region.
On 6th October 1819, the port of Riohacha was occupied by a force
of three hundred men “of all nations”, led by the Scottish adventurer
Gregor MacGregor.11 This was part of Simón Bolívar’s strategy to distract the Spanish colonial forces while he embarked on the campaign
that led to victories inland at Pantano de Vargas (25th July 1819) and
Boyacá (7th August 1819).12 In the face of renewed local resistance,
MacGregor fled after six days. The local authorities suffered four
months of tension under the threat of another sea borne attack until
their fears were realised when Bolívar destined the Irish Legion,
newly arrived from Europe, for the same area of coast as a means to
capturing the valuable, and staunchly Loyalist port of Maracaibo.13 On
8
For these African journeys, see interrogation of Thomas Bull by Royalists, no date
(c. 1818), Puerto Cabello: Archivo General de Indias (= AGI), Cuba, Legajo 906.
9
The best summary of this approach is still John Lynch, “British Policy and Spanish America 1783–1808”: Journal of Latin American Studies 1 (1969), p. 1–30.
10
The expeditions are discussed at length in Eric Lambert, Voluntarios británicos e
irlandeses en la gesta bolivariana, vol. 1 (Caracas 1983) and vols. 2–3 (Caracas 1990),
and Brown, Impious Adventurers (note 7). The vast majority of adventurers served in the
territories whose liberation from Spanish rule was led by Simón Bolívar: the CaptaincyGeneral of Venezuela, the Viceroyalty of New Granada, and the Presidency of Quito.
The republic formed from this region was called Colombia until its disintegration in
1830. Historians now refer to this entity as “Gran Colombia” to differentiate it from New
Granada, which assumed the name Colombia in 1863.
11
For MacGregor’s Caribbean and Atlantic context, see Matthew Brown, “Inca,
Sailor, Soldier, King: Gregor MacGregor and the early nineteenth-century Caribbean”:
Bulletin of Latin American Research 24, 1 (2004), p. 44–71.
12
This strategy is reflected in the map they used, marked in English: “Mapa de la
provincial de la Hacha y de la costa desde río Carrazal hasta cabo de San Agustín y Peña
Serrada, con la posición de las fuerzas en guerra”. Map of Riohacha and surrounding
coast, annotations in English, estimated date 18th October 1819: AGI, MP-Panama 325,
taken from AGI, Cuba, Legajo 748.
13
Bolívar to Devereux and Montilla, 21st February 1820, Girón: Simón Bolívar O’Leary
(ed.), Memorias del General O’Leary publicadas por su hijo Simón B. O’Leary, por Orden
del gobierno de Venezuela y bajo los auspicios de su Presidente, General Guzmán Blanco,
Ilustre Americano, Regenerador de la República, vol. 17 (Caracas 1984), p. 83–84.
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13th March 1820, Riohacha was occupied by a force of around a thousand men, mainly from the Irish Legion, led by Mariano Montilla.14
This ended the Spanish Crown’s formal control of the territory, and the
Independents’ control of the region was confirmed when news of the
rebellion of Spanish troops at Cádiz on 1st January 1820 finally
arrived in South America.15
Montilla left a small detachment to defend his conquest and led the
majority of the Irish Legion into the interior in order to fulfil his orders
from Bolívar to join forces with a column led by General Lara. Not
encountering Lara, who had been delayed further south, Montilla’s forces
turned around and returned to Riohacha. On 13th May, the Irish Legion
refused to continue in the Independents’ service, and they were embarked
on ships waiting to take them to Jamaica. From there, they dispersed
across the North Atlantic world. Some stayed in the British Caribbean,
working on plantations, while others arranged transport home or to other
colonies in North America. A few Irishmen set out independently on
small vessels and were washed up in nearby Loyalist ports like Santa
Marta where, bedraggled and desperate, they begged the authorities to
send them “anywhere”.16 A few regained their good health and returned
to Colombia to serve the Independents in the later stages of the war.
14
Lambert estimated that the Irish Legion was composed of some 2,000 men in total, but the number involved in the rebellion at Riohacha was only around a quarter of
that figure. Ascertaining exactly how many rebelled at Riohacha is not easy. Earlier units
sent out from Ireland were incorporated into the British Legion in late 1819, and Mariano Montilla wrote that of the 800 Irishmen originally supposed to have left Margarita
with him, because of illness and disease only 678 were able to do so. Eight months later, the Jamaica papers recorded the arrival of just 544 men from Riohacha, of whom 95
were suggested to have been Riohacheros. Benjamin M’Mahon thought that the number
of Irishmen was closer to 200. Francisco Burdett O’Connor claimed that his regiment of
Irishmen (261 strong when it left Margarita) stayed loyal to the patriot cause at Riohacha. It therefore seems likely that a considerable number had already casually deserted,
or died, between leaving Margarita and departure from Riohacha. “La Narración de Mariano Montilla”: General de Division Mariano de Montilla: Homenaje en el Bicentenario
de su nacimiento 1782–1982, vol. 1 (Caracas 1982); Dublin Evening Post (= DEP), 31st
August 1820; Lambert, Voluntarios británicos e irlandeses (note 10), vol. 2, p. 302;
Francisco Burdett O’Connor, Independencia americana: recuerdos de Francisco Burdett
O’Connor, coronel del ejército, libertador de Colombia y general de división de los del
Perú y Bolivia. Los publica su nieto T. O’Connor d’Arlach (La Paz 1915), p. 39.
15
Correo del Orinoco, 18th March 1820 and 25th March 1820.
16
Ruiz de Porras to Viceroy Sámano, letter and postscript, 5th May 1820, Santa
Marta: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745. The three Irishmen were John Cassidy, Patrick Cannon,
and Thomas Burke.
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HISTORIOGRAPHY
The rebellion of the Irish Legion at Riohacha has been described with
scorn by many historians, especially from those with military backgrounds. In Colombia, the rebellious Irish were described by early
military chroniclers, such as Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, as spiteful
and bitter mercenaries, and their “barbarity” was contrasted with the
“heroism” of other foreigners involved in the wars.17 Vicente Lecuna
blamed the Irish for the failure of an important strategic expedition.18
As such, the Irish Legion was demonised to serve historiographical
goals of glorifying other actors in the Wars of Independence. In their
urge to describe rum-thirsty and violence-hungry Irish marauders,
some of these historians followed factually incorrect contemporary
narratives. The initial occupation of Riohacha occurred in March and
the rebellion two months later. Most excessively, Guillermo Plazas
Olarte wrote that the Irishmen found Riohacha unoccupied and that,
“drunk on victory and aguardiente, they sacked the town and then set
fire to it”.19 In one of the few blemishes on the latest and most impressive study of the wars that avoids many of these pitfalls, Clément
Thibaud discussed the Riohacha rebellion as if it were peripheral and
unrelated to the larger processes he treated.20
17
Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, Memoria sobre la vida del General Simón Bolívar
(Bogotá 1977), p. 317. Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (b. 1798 Popayán, d. 1878 Coconuco) was a junior officer during the Wars of Independence and became president of
New Granada between 1845–9, and president of the United States of Colombia between
1863–4 and 1866–7. Following his interpretation, see Roberto Ibáñez Sánchez, “‘La independencia’”: Álvaro Valencia Tovar (ed.), Historia de las fuerzas militares de Colombia, vol. 5 (Bogotá 1993), p. 300.
18
Archivo General de la Nación (Colombia) (= AGNC), Sección La República, Secretario de Guerra y Marina (R GYM), vol. 35, f. 30–39. Julio Barón Ortega, La Campaña Heroica: Pantano de Vargas (Tunja 1983), p. 88; Vicente Lecuna, Crónica Razonada de las Guerras de Bolívar: Formada sobre documentos, sin utilizar consejas ni
versiones impropias. Conclusiones de acuerdo con hechos probados, y la naturaleza de
las cosas (New York 1950), p. 400–405.
19
Anonymous [Captain Cowley], Recollections of a Service of Three Years during
the War of Extermination in the Republics of Venezuela and Colombia, by An Officer of
the Colombian Navy: Moving Accidents by Flood and Field, 2 vols. (London 1828), vol. 2,
p. 181; Guillermo Plazas Olarte, “La Legión Británica en la Independencia de Colombia”: Revista de las fuerzas armadas 1, 2 (1960), p. 293.
20
Clément Thibaud, Repúblicas en armas. Los ejércitos bolivarianos en la Guerra
de Independencia (Colombia-Venezuela, 1810–1821) (Bogotá 2003), p. 445, 454.
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Although it does not deal with the Irish Legion’s rebellion at Riohacha, there is a North Atlantic academic current that runs close to this
stream, stressing the precocious and often inherent rebellious tendencies of “the Irish” in comparison to their “British” counterparts.21 The
presentation of the event in Irish historiography diverges slightly from
these interpretations, neither glorifying nor demonising Irish subversion. Instead, the Riohacha rebellion has been effectively sidelined
and pigeon-holed. The extensive research of Eric Lambert has been
largely neglected by historians of the diaspora or Irish involvement in
the British Empire. Lambert’s failure to synthesise his own investigations or to present them to an audience beyond his narrow specialisation meant that his Spanish-language tomes lie neglected in only a few
libraries, despite the wide range of sources consulted and their interest
to students of the “Irish abroad”.22 Indeed, most other histories of the
Irish abroad or in Latin America avoid the subject of the rebellion at
Riohacha.
Unlike the Venezuelan or Colombian historians, who sought to
contrast Irish mutiny with native loyalty and patriotism, Lambert
blamed cultural factors, especially “mutual incomprehension” between Creole leaders and the Irish.23 Indeed, Lambert’s interpretation
was a refinement of the contemporary claim that the Irish were “naturally” mutinous by virtue either of their low social status, lack of military experience, or national character. Here, I attempt to move beyond
essentialist cultural explanations and to explore the geographical,
social, and economic networks within which the Riohacha rebellion
took place.
21
See for example Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600–
1850 (London 2002), p. 323–324; Peter Linebaugh/Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed
Hydra: The Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary
Atlantic (London 2000), p. 187–188.
22
If used at all, the term “Irish Legion” refers to a completely separate and much
smaller unit raised by Bernard MacSheehy in 1803 that was eventually incorporated into
the French Army. S. J. Connolly (ed.), Oxford Companion to Irish History (Oxford
1989), s. v. Irish Legion. The brief treatment of the Irish Legion in Peadar Kearby, Ireland and Latin America: Links and Lessons (Dublin 1992), p. 98–103 dodges past the rebellion at Riohacha with some dexterity.
23
Lambert, Voluntarios británicos e irlandeses (note 10), vol. 2, p. 271–273, 281,
291.
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LUIS BRION AND MARIANO MONTILLA
Two of the principal protagonists require brief introductions. The letters
they wrote in the immediate aftermath of the rebellion were scattered
across the Atlantic world and conditioned much of the subsequent writing about the events. In the absence of the leader of the Irish Legion,
General John Devereux (who did not arrive in Venezuela until mid1820, by which time the vast majority of his men had deserted or were
dead), Simón Bolívar chose Colonel Mariano Montilla to lead the terrestrial operations and Admiral Luis Brion to organise the maritime
transport. Montilla (b. 1782 Caracas, d. 1851 Caracas) was Venezuelan
by birth, like Bolívar a member of the Caracas elite, and fiercely loyal
to his patron. In the words of one adventurer, Montilla was “a worthy
man, a brave soldier, and an accomplished gentleman. He has made the
tour of Europe”.24 Montilla saw the attack on Riohacha as an opportunity to prove his worth to Bolívar and was anxious that the “terrible
quality” of the “raw recruits” he had been entrusted with would undermine his honourable reputation.25 Positioning himself as the representation of civilisation against Irish barbarity, Montilla mocked what he perceived as an Irish superiority complex with regard to South Americans.
He wrote that “they believe themselves lords of all the land they walk
on, and entitled to do what they wish to the inhabitants if they don’t find
there the means of satisfying their ambition”.26
Central to Montilla’s interpretation of the events at Riohacha was
his special concern to maintain his own reputation. Because the Irish
refused to acknowledge his authority in March 1820, he argued that
these “vagabonds and ruffians” lacked manliness and were inveterate
“cowards [...] who turned around as soon as they saw the enemy
approach”.27 Montilla directed most of his scorn at the private soldiers
24
[Cowley], Recollections (note 19), p. 68.
Montilla to Pedro Briceño Mendez, 4th January 1820, Juan Griego: General de
División (note 14), vol. 2, p. 619–621. These Montilla documents are also in O’Leary,
Memorias de O’Leary (note 13), vol. 17.
26
Montilla to Francisco de Paula Santander, 20th July 1820, Turbaco: General de
División (note 14), vol. 2, p. 686–687.
27
Mariano Montilla to Diego Bautista Urbaneja, 20th March 1820, Riohacha: General
de División (note 14), vol. 1, p. 155; Montilla, “Narrativa del General Mariano Montilla”,
no date: General de División (note 14), vol. 1, p. 183–202. See also Mariano Montilla to
Santander, 22nd March 1820, Riohacha: General de División (note 14), vol. 1, p. 157.
25
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who had disregarded the rules that should have kept them in their
place in the military hierarchy, and subverted the social distinctions that had hitherto continued (and would henceforth continue) to
govern the conduct of the war. If an Irish officer displayed loyalty and
bravery, then for Montilla, he was no longer Irish but was instead
subsumed within the wider “Colombian” identity. This was most
apparent when he praised “the one hundred and fifty marines, the
majority of who are Creoles, who took the vanguard under the command of Colonels García and Jación”.28 This latter figure was Thomas
Jackson, an Irishman. All this was intended to blame “the Irish” and
to excuse Montilla’s responsibility for the mutiny under his command,
a goal which he successfully accomplished. The “Irish” were scapegoated for the events, and Montilla continued to occupy prestigious
positions in the Colombian army throughout the 1820s. Montilla
articulated his view of Irish cowardice in letters written after the
events in question.
Admiral Luis Brion (b. 1782 Curacao, d. 1821 Curacao) was less
diplomatic.29 When Montilla was chosen by Bolívar, the Irish Legion
demanded that he should be accompanied by Brion, a wealthy merchant whose substantial investment in the Independents’ cause earned
him the command of the naval forces. The minister of war, Diego
Bautista Urbaneja, warned that this would be the only time that he
would bow to Irish complaints, as “these troops, insubordinate in their
very nature, must not get used to choosing their own chiefs”.30 Indeed,
their loyalty to Brion quickly evaporated in the heat of Riohacha, and
their feelings were reciprocated. According to William Lowe, captain
of the British vessel Betsy Ann, Admiral Brion “repeatedly called [the
Irish Legion] cowards, which they considered to be a lack of respect,
and to add insult to their injuries”.31 Lowe believed that this insult was
28
Montilla to Minister of War, 20th March 1820, Riohacha: General de División
(note 14), vol. 1, p. 155.
29
For Brion, see Enrique Ortega Ricaurte (ed.), Luis Brion de la orden de Libertadores, Primer Almirante de la República de Colombia y General en Jefe de sus ejércitos
1782–1821 (Bogotá 1953).
30
Urbaneja to Bolívar, 4th March 1820, Angostura: O’Leary, Memorias de O’Leary
(note 13), vol. 17, p. 91; also Urbaneja to Montilla, 28th March 1820, Angostura: General de División (note 14), vol. 2, p. 515.
31
“Diario de Capitán William Lowe”, 20th September 1820, Angostura: O’Leary,
Memorias de O’Leary (note 13), vol. 17, p. 443.
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the trigger that caused the Irish to leave the “country that offered them
nothing but misery and ingratitude”.
According to Lowe, Brion vetoed a compromise proposal that
would have allowed the Irish officers to take an expedition to Santa
Marta, “allowing them to take whatever property they could find in the
region or indeed any other area that they could capture”.32 Brion had
come to believe that the presence of foreign troops under his command was prejudicial to the goal of converting the hearts and minds of
the local population. He told the Jamaica merchant Duncan Mackintosh that “the inhabitants here [on the Caribbean coast] have developed such hatred for the foreign troops (and with good reason), that
they would rather join the royalist troops than us”. He continued that
“I would abandon the service immediately if I ever saw another band
of similar bandits trying to invade this sacred land”.33
By calling the Irish “bandits” and highlighting their mercenary
motivations, Brion attempted to re-situate his own reputation. Brion
was a wealthy man who had invested a great deal of his own fortune
in the wars. Nevertheless, as a foreigner himself – as a Jew as well as
someone born outside of Hispanic America –, his dedication to the
“cause” had to be constantly re-affirmed. Like Montilla he was educated, urbane, spoke good French (which enabled both to converse
with educated Irish officers like O’Connor without the need for translators) and initially gained the loyalty of his subordinates.34
For their own reasons, then, both Brion and Montilla made much of
Irish “character” in assessing the events at Riohacha. They contrasted
their own reputations, which had previously merited the “respect and
consideration [...] of Great Britain and the impartial world”, with the
“dishonour [...] and most despicable cowardice” of the Irish Legion,
who deserted the cause just when the Royalists were about to mount
an attack.35 For Brion and Montilla, the dishonourable looting and
burning of Riohacha fully justified labelling the Irish as “barbarians”
32
Ibidem, p. 444.
Brion to Duncan Mackintosh, 14 July 1820, Sabanilla: AGNC, R GYM, vol. 324,
f. 253–254.
34
O’Connor, Independencia americana (note 14), p. 26.
35
Brion and Montilla to the Duke of Manchester and Admiral Sir Thomas Popham,
6th June 1820, on board the General Urdaneta, in the bay of Riohacha: AGNC, R GYM,
vol. 325, f. 192–193, also reproduced in Ortega Ricuarte, Luis Brion (note 29), p. 76–77.
See also letters in Correo del Orinoco, 30th September 1820.
33
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and encouraged the dismissal of their pay and ration demands as
“unrealistic”.36 They described the rebellion as “the most detestable
and ignominious act in the history of war”.37 Contrasting themselves
with the “mercenary” and “cowardly” Irish Legion was the ideal way
of asserting their own loyalty, honour, and masculinity. It was in the
port of Riohacha where the interconnected Atlantic networks behind
the Wars of Independence became physically manifest.
It was in Riohacha that Montilla’s and Brion’s concepts of masculinity and loyalty clashed with those held by Irish adventurers, but
the port was not a blank field upon which these conflicts could be
played out. Ongoing internal developments in Riohacha society had
recently been affected by the incursions of other foreign actors, and
these changes – in concepts of allegiance, masculinity, service, and
community – all contributed to the events that led to the rebellion of
the Irish Legion.
RIOHACHA
Riohacha, a small port on the Goajira peninsula on the Caribbean
coast of New Granada, was connected to Atlantic networks in a variety
of ways. Since the sixteenth-century conquest it had remained a colonial outpost of Spanish rule, with its hinterland occupied by unconquered Indians, the Goajira, who established complex relations of
resistance and cooperation with their Hispanic neighbours.38 The Goajira also frequently allied themselves with foreigners for trade and
defence purposes throughout the colonial period. Riohacha itself
gained significant prosperity by exploiting its geographical position to
act as an unofficial contraband entrepôt for British and Dutch merchants from Jamaica and Curaçao.
The peninsula itself consisted mainly of desert, which made water
supply extremely problematic for travelling armies. Some slave plantations littered the coast, but the largely unwelcoming topography of
mountains, marshland, and desert meant that New Granada’s coastal
36
AGNC, R GYM, vol. 325, f. 193.
Ibidem.
38
Eduardo Barrera Monroy, Mestizaje, comercio y resistencia. La Guajira durante
la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII (Bogotá 2000), p. 221.
37
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towns were isolated from the rest of the Viceroyalty, especially so for
Riohacha, even by the high standards of isolation common in the
region.39 The colonial order felt increasingly vulnerable from within.
The 1788 census of the town of Riohacha revealed 1,463 free nonwhites, 392 slaves, 181 whites, 11 Indians, and 7 clerics.40 In the early
nineteenth century, memories of the slave revolt in Haiti were still present on the Caribbean coast, and these affected relations between people of colour and Creole elites.41 Late colonial military reforms had
concentrated on the more important port of Cartagena de Indias and
thus left Riohacha at risk from concerted attack by sea. The repeated
foreign attacks on Riohacha led to a heightened sense of anxiety in the
town about the nature of allegiance to king, country, and region. This
was particularly rife in the months leading up to the occupation of the
town by the Irish Legion, which saw heated recriminations over the
part played by the local population in receiving and accommodating
Gregor MacGregor’s troops during his occupation of the town in
October 1819.42
When José Solis was re-instated as governor upon MacGregor’s
departure, he attempted to cement his authority. He arrested all those
who had associated with the occupiers and made every effort to
forcibly stamp out dissent.43 Fundamental to Solis’s fears was the
apparent ease with which Riohachero men had developed relations of
familiarity with the enemy that went against what should have been
their natural loyalty to the King of Spain. It seemed to Solis, from the
evidence collected, that the insurgents had subverted their natural
identities as subjects of the Spanish monarch in the name of merce-
39
Eduardo Posada-Carbó, The Colombian Caribbean: A regional history, 1870–
1950 (Oxford 1996), p. 27–30. For an introduction to the locality and its indigenous
resistance, see Allan J. Kuethe, “The Pacification Campaign on the Riohacha Frontier,
1772–1779”: Hispanic American Historical Review (= HAHR) 50 (1970), p. 467–481;
and Barrera Monroy, Mestizaje, comercio y resistencia (note 38), p. 221–224. Also useful is Steiner A. Saether, Identities and Independence in the Provinces of Santa Marta
and Riohacha (Colombia) ca. 1750–ca. 1850 (Thesis, University of Warwick 2001).
40
Barrera Monroy, Mestizaje, comercio y resistencia (note 38), p. 284.
41
Saether, Identities and Independence (note 39), p. 325; Marixa Laxxo, “Haiti as
an Image of Popular Republicanism in Caribbean Colombia: Cartagena Province (1811–
1828)”: David Geggus (ed.), The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World
(Columbia 2003), p. 176–190.
42
Brown, “Inca, Sailor, Soldier, King” (note 11).
43
Solis to Viceroy Sámano, 14th October 1819, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
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nary self-interest.44 One man was accused of enjoying “ostentatious
friendship” with the foreigners.45 These relations triggered deep uncertainty with regard to allegiance to the re-established order. Aniseto Rodriguez, who MacGregor appointed to organise the Independents’ defence of the town, was accused of trying to persuade his
old colleagues that “just as you used to serve the King, now you can
serve the patria”.46 Such a simple transfer of loyalty was too superficial for many of those questioned (who were, of course, now anxious
to stress their loyalty to the revengeful governor). In their testimonies,
several residents of Riohacha claimed that they had replied that
they “could not serve the patria, because [they] did not want to fight
against their brothers”.47 That is to say, they evoked notions of kinship
linking them to Spain against the mercenary idea of the patria
proposed by Aniseto Rodriguez and linked in their minds to foreigners
like MacGregor.
After MacGregor had gone in mid-October, life in Riohacha
returned to something approaching its pre-occupation normality.
Accused and accusers lived next door to each other.48 In addition to the
fear of renewed attack, a new uncertainty had been brought into collective and individual identities. Miguel Gómez, a Loyalist who led
the defence forces of Goajira Indians, expressed his dismay that “those
who call themselves whites” were involved in intrigue against the
Governor. Gómez lamented that the enemy was not, as it should be,
“the one that comes from outside”, and that order had been reduced to
44
“Declaración de Mateo Bermúdez”, 22nd January 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba,
Legajo 745, “Causa criminal seguida contra Ramón Ruiz, por delito de infidencia admitiendo el empleo de alferez de las tropas que hivan a poner sobre las armas los insurgentes en defensa de la patria”.
45
“Causa criminal seguida contra Felipe Rosado cabo 1º”, 26th January 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
46
“Declaración de Bartolo Moreno”, 19th January 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745, “Causa criminal seguida contra José Aniseto Rodriguez, por delito de infidencia, y por admisión del empleo de coronel y comandante de las tropas que intentaron poner sobre las armas los insurgentes”.
47
For example “Declaración de Mateo Bermúdez”, 20th January 1820, Riohacha:
AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745, “Causa criminal seguida contra José Aniseto Rodriguez”.
48
According to the testimony of Mateo Bermúdez, the accused (Rodriguez) lived in
a house next to that of Mateo Llorens, one of the principal witnesses for the prosecution.
“Declaración de Mateo Bermúdez”, 26th January 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo
745, “Causa criminal seguida contra Felipe Rosado cabo 1º”.
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chaos.49 The alliance of Riohacheros with foreign rebels disorientated
collective identities, where the Indians of Goajira showed more loyalty
to the King than did the whites of Riohacha. On the eve of the arrival
of the Irish Legion, the role of “mercenaries” in political and military
conflict was extremely confused, introducing a new element to colonial social and caste hierarchies. When the Governor himself wrote of
the “auxiliary contingents, the offering of a barbarous people to the
cause, people without morals or religion who will support who pays
them the most”, he was not speaking of the Irishmen who attacked his
town, but rather the Goajira Indians who had assured his return to
power.50 For the Loyalist authorities, masculinity became increasingly
based on demonstrations of “faith, loyalty and love”, and whether they
liked it or not, this necessarily led to a change in the status of nonwhite men like the Goajira, who were now more likely to be considered “men”.51 At least in theory, any man could be faithful to the King,
loyal to his representatives, and express these allegiances through
love.52 Caste and class distinctions were henceforth loosened a little in
this time of crisis.53
When the Irish Legion arrived, therefore, their attack was perceived
as presenting a continuation of colonial pirate raids and the independent sorties of MacGregor. Many Riohacheros lived in fear of attack.
Every time a ship passed across the horizon, the defences were made
ready.54 Solis noted that “if MacGregor attacks again, or if Brion’s
expedition hits us, or Bolívar does, as I have been informed will happen, then we will be sorely troubled”.55 When they gathered opposite
49
“Declaración de Miguel José Gómez”, 1st March 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba,
Legajo 745. See also “Declaración de Jacinto Amaya”, 3rd March 1820, Riohacha: AGI,
Cuba, Legajo 745, speaking of “those who call themselves whites who were the only
ones to unite with MacGregor”.
50
Solis to Sámano, 30th October 1819, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745. Some
Spaniards saw the entire conflict as mercenary: one commented that he had been fighting against “the treachery of [those] who joined the cause of Judas for thirty pieces of silver”: Rafael Sevilla, Memorias de un oficial del ejército español (Madrid 1916), p. 283.
51
Petition of Mateo Llorens and Francisco de Paula Orite to Sámano, 11th October
1819, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
52
Sámano to “Todos Los Habitantes del Rio Hacha y su Provincia”, 19th October
1819: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
53
Saether, Identities and Independence (note 39).
54
Solis to Sámano, 20th January 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
55
Solis to Sámano, 13th October, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
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the port to begin their attack, Miguel Gómez claimed that “these foreigners will be scared to death of the Goajira Indians [...] just like their
predecessors were”.56
When the Irish Legion anchored outside the port of Riohacha on
11th March 1820, the sounds of their cannons reverberated through the
town.57 The Independents sent a message that they wished to avoid
“shedding blood pointlessly”, and that they only wished to “incorporate Riohacha into the great Colombian family” and to defeat “our
enemies the European Spaniards”.58 With this inclusive message, they
hoped to create links between the Irish mercenaries and the Creoles
and Indians of Riohacha, isolating the Spaniards of European birth.
The Governor ordered cannons to be fired in response and gathered
together one hundred and fifty men to hold the defences. But in the
face of rampant desertion, by five in the afternoon, Solis was left with
only twenty-five men. He therefore joined those running for the surrounding hills.59
With the occupation of Riohacha by the Irish Legion, documentation from the Spanish archives dries up. Sources for the events of
13th March 1820 onwards come overwhelmingly from Irish and Independent sources. Mosquera recalled that Montilla had told him that
“Riohacha’s richer inhabitants didn’t want the Irish to hang around as
they remembered the sacking and looting they had received at the
hands of MacGregor’s adventurers the previous year”.60 There was
also some looting by the retreating Loyalists, so the town probably had
little to offer prospective Irish pillagers.61
Nevertheless, it is clear that concepts of masculinity and collective
identity in Riohacha were undergoing profound change before the
arrival of the Irish, and that their incursion catalysed rather than created
the conditions for change. Men with good honourable reputations had
56
Gómez to Solis, 15th March 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
Solis to Sámano, 13th March 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
58
Brion and Montilla to Solis, 12th March 1820, on board the Urdaneta: AGI,
Cuba, Legajo 745.
59
Solis to Sámano, 13th March 1820, Riohacha: AGI, Cuba, Legajo 745.
60
Mosquera, Memoria sobre la vida del General Simón Bolívar (note 17), p. 312.
Frustratingly, Saether, Identities and Independence (note 39) did not refer to events in
Riohacha in this period.
61
J. M. Groot, Historia de la Gran Colombia 1819–1830, Tercer Volúmen de la
Historia Ecclesiástica y Civil de Nueva Granada (Caracas 1941), p. 68–69.
57
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been accused of intrigue against the King, and subordinate groups
such as the Goajira were now the bastions of Loyalist defence.62 The
authorities still struggled to see these Indians, with their tradition of
resistance to colonial rule, as anything other than barbarians. As a
result of the Independent occupation of Riohacha, the region lost its
formal allegiance to the King and was incorporated into Bolívar’s
Colombia. In the post-Independence years, the “socio-racial and
ethnic boundaries still existed [... but] they were essentially different
from the ones that had been prevalent”.63 The previously closed colonial community of honourable masculinity was opened up to new
groups – with restricted access, of course – in the republican period,
and these groups included Indians, blacks, and foreigners.
BOGOTÁ
In September 1819, Simón Bolívar entered the colonial capital of the
Viceroyalty of New Granada, Santafé de Bogotá. Situated on a highaltitude plain in the Andes, at a distance (by mule and then by boat) of
around three months from Riohacha, Bogotá was in communication
terms just as far from Riohacha as was Dublin. It was much easier for
Riohacheros to communicate with Kingston in Jamaica than it was
with Bogotá, and the similar situation for Cartagena de Indias resulted
in the development of a distinctive costeño identity, literally “of the
coast”, in opposition to “the highlands”.64 Bolívar’s capture of the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada marked an important symbolic
turning point in the war. In 1820, Colombia’s capital was moved from
Angostura on the Orinoco to Cúcuta, a small town equidistant between
the colonial Audiencias of Caracas and Bogotá, and also about halfway between Bogotá and Riohacha. Bogotá’s residents exerted growing influence over the Independents’ strategy and policy.
Bogotá had a population of around 30,000 at the end of the eighteenth century, with an agricultural labour force provided by mestizos
62
Letter of Lieutenant Nicholas White, reproduced in Carrick’s Morning Post
(= CMP), 4th December 1820.
63
Saether, Identities and Independence (note 39), p. 31.
64
Alfonso Múnera, El fracaso de la nación. Región, clase y raza en el Caribe
colombiano, (1717–1821) (Bogotá 1998).
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and the many indigenous peoples who lived in the surrounding countryside.65 In similar fashion to Riohacha, Bogotá was largely neglected
by colonial militia reforms. The capital was felt to be protected from
attack by the long distance and difficult terrain that separated it from its
perceived enemies.66 Unlike on the Caribbean coast, black slavery was
virtually non-existent in the highlands. Riohacha was, to all extents but
one, a different country from Bogotá, and the exception was crucial:
Riohacha formed part of the territory of the newly-declared Colombian
republic, and therefore events there reflected upon the attempts of leaders like Bolívar to create and maintain a sense of “Colombian” identity
to overlay pre-existing regional and local loyalties.
When the news arrived in August, Bogotano reactions to the Irish
rebellion at Riohacha were varied according to interest and politics, and
determined by perceptions of the class, national identity, and race of the
participants.67 The Colombian cabinet minister, José Manuel Restrepo,
categorised the news of Riohacha as “desertion” based on financial
grievances.68 Bolívar, who passed through Bogotá in this period, popularised this interpretation in a characteristically blunt dismissal of the
troops whose recruitment he had personally encouraged. In doing so,
Bolívar relied upon popular stereotypes of Irish indiscipline which he
could have picked up on his travels to London in 1810 or to Kingston in
1814, or from the British officers who served under him. The Irish
expedition to Riohacha was useful to Bolívar because it occupied
enemy resources far away from the terrestrial battlefields of the interior.69 After the rebellion, Bolívar scapegoated the Irish in order to fur-
65
Anthony McFarlane, Colombia before Independence: economy, society, and politics under Bourbon rule (Cambridge 1993), p. 361.
66
Allen J. Kuethe, Military Reform and Society in New Granada 1773–1808
(Gainesville 1978), p. 187.
67
Matthew Brown, “Esclavitud, castas y extranjeros en las guerras de la independencia de Colombia”: Historia y Sociedad 10 (2004), p. 109–125.
68
José Manuel Restrepo, Diario político y militar: Memorias sobre los sucesos importantes de la época para servir a la Historia de la Revolución de Colombia y de la
Nueva Granada, desde 1819 para adelante, vol. 1 (Bogotá 1954), p. 66, entry for 24th
May 1820; London Chronicle, 24th July 1820.
69
Lecuna, Crónica razonada (note 18), p. 404. See also Francisco de Paula Santander to Domingo Caycedo, 22nd May 1820, Bogotá: Guillermo Hernández de Alba/Enrique Ortega Ricaurte/Ignacio Rivas Putnam (eds.), Archivo epistolar del General Domingo Caycedo, vol. 1 (Bogotá 1943), p. 121; Bolívar to Santander, 17th November
1819, Uvita, copy: Fundación John Boulton, Archivo del Libertador (Caracas), C-109.
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ther define the new nation of “Colombia” in terms of loyalty and subordination to his rule and to the new Colombian institutions he had created.
The Irish were presented as rebelling against his new order, and consequently were unpatriotic and dishonourable. Claiming not to be surprised by the Irish Legion’s behaviour, Bolívar told Montilla that
“I feared that these murderers were capable of anything if they weren’t paid – just
like those courtesans who don’t put out until you’ve paid up front. So I have been
pleased to see the departure of such vile mercenaries”.70
For the Independent leaders, cowardice was as dangerous as insubordination. Briceño Méndez stated that the Irish Legion’s “terrible and
scandalous conduct was unworthy of our flag”.71 Irish cowardice was
presented as an insult to the honour of all Colombians. Just as bad,
regardless of their unreliability in battle, the Irish had made plain their
exaggerated opinions of what they deserved. Rebellions like theirs dishonoured the Independent forces.72 That is, they made explicit the
paradox of the traditional social hierarchies that Bolívar and other
Creole leaders hoped would underpin the new Colombian republic.
Daniel O’Leary, Bolívar’s Irish aide-de-camp, was also in Bogotá
at the time of the rebellion. He recorded his impressions a decade later,
when writing his memoirs in Jamaica. His influential narrative and
documentary collection was compiled in the early 1830s, while he was
exiled from Colombia after the disgrace and death of his patron Simón
Bolívar. O’Leary’s interpretation of the events has been privileged by
(especially English-reading) historians in the light of the rehabilitation
of Bolívar’s reputation.73 O’Leary blamed poor leadership rather than
any particular “national” Irish insubordination that could have led to
70
Bolívar to Montilla, 21st July 1820, Cúcuta: General de Division (note 14), vol. 1,
p. 226–227.
71
Briceño Méndez to Montilla, 20th July 1820, Rosario: O’Leary, Memorias de
O’Leary (note 13), vol. 17, p. 320.
72
Other rebellions of foreign troops (discussed in Brown, Impious Adventurers (note 7),
p. 129, 165–169, 222) were dealt with through summary executions, and were henceforth brushed under the carpet by the authorities. Because of their perceived national difference, the Irish rebellion at Riohacha provided an opportunity for the construction of
revolutionary masculinity in opposition to Irish insubordination and cowardice, which
was precluded in the other instances by the need to maintain British diplomatic and commercial support.
73
For example Jay Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions and Underdevelopment (1st ed. Albuquerque 1973, revised ed. 1994), p. 80–85.
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comparison between black slaves and the Irish. He argued that if they
had been led by Bolívar rather than sadly mismanaged by Montilla,
the rebellion at Riohacha would never have occurred.74 It was another
example, for O’Leary, of other Creoles failing to live up to the high
standards set by Bolívar.
The Irish rebellion at Riohacha, then, was less a strategic inconvenience than a potentially dishonourable example and a crucial tool in
the construction of a “national” Colombian identity. Briceño Méndez
wrote that “the Republic does not need soldiers who, far from coming
to serve it, come to destroy it and to scandalise it with their subversive
example and shocking crimes”.75 Those who might be inspired by this
precedent, of course, were the pardos, freed slaves, and indigenous
troops whose colonial rebellions had been largely limited to individual
and small-scale resistance, marronage, or urban uprisings. The explicit
claims made by the Irish for the fulfilment of revolutionary rhetoric
could not be tolerated because the Irish “example [... could cause other
groups to] believe themselves authorised to take similar measures”. 76
Only those Irish adventurers who had not served in the Irish Legion
(and there were many of them) felt able to reclaim their Irish identity
as individuals. John Johnston, one of the senior officials in the British
Legion, petitioned the Colombian government in late 1822 arguing
that “being from a country like Ireland, that has always been struggling to be free I acquired at birth the most liberal sentiments that
could possibly fill a man’s heart”.77 But officers like Johnston were
primarily seen as Colombian rather than Irish, a term which had
become synonymous at this stage with cowardice and insubordination.
The reverberations of such a development were not slow to reach Ireland.
74
Daniel O’Leary, Memorias del general Daniel Florencio O’Leary, 3 vols. (Caracas 1952), vol. 2, p. 124.
75
Briceño Méndez to Mariano Montilla, 1st August 1820, Rosario: General de División (note 14), vol. 1, p. 333.
76
Montilla to Santander, 20th July 1820, Turbaco: General de División (note 14),
vol. 2, p. 686–687. See Miguel Izard, El miedo a la revolución: La lucha por la libertad
en Venezuela 1777–1830 (Madrid 1979), p. 1–33; Elías Pino Iturrieta, País Archipiélago: Venezuela 1830–1858 (Caracas 2002), p. 3–48.
77
John Johnson to Secretary of War and Marine, 11th November 1822, Bogotá:
AGNC, R GYM, vol. 35, f. 884.
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CONCLUSIONS
The consequences of the Riohacha rebellion for Irish identity back in
Dublin were very different. The 1801 union between Great Britain and
Ireland had explicitly transferred the focal point of Irish political life
across the Irish Sea. It had considerable consequences for conceptions
of collective “Irish” or “Catholic” identity in Ireland, and as such
affected ideas of masculinity amongst men at all levels of society. The
collective identity of the Irish Legion had originally been based on
notions of brave manliness in adventuring overseas. The apparent failure of this manliness (emphasised by the early return of many volunteers in 1819 and by the subsequent rebellion at Riohacha in 1820)
caused consternation back in Dublin. The immense amount of newspaper coverage given to the Irish Legion in 1819 and 1820 in the
Dublin press demonstrates how important these independent foreign
adventures had become to a sense of Irish identity.78 Irish courage was
held against its counterpoint, South American cowardice. O’Connor
blamed the lack of manliness shown by South Americans, by “the
native Generals not wanting to fight and win like soldiers”.79 The residents of Riohacha were “cowards” for supporting the Loyalists.80
Francis Hall noted that the “disappointed adventurers” who returned
had lacked “sufficient penetration” to deal with the landscape of
adventure they encountered in South America.81 It is no coincidence
that the language was highly gendered: fundamental issues of masculinity were at stake.
The Dublin press tried to cast blame on non-Irish officers for inspiring insubordination.82 It singled out Brion for the “most cruel and dis78
I expand on the Irish dimension, and in particular the situation in Dublin, in
Matthew Brown, “The Irish Rebellion in Colombia” (unpublished paper).
79
O’Connor, Independencia americana (note 14), p. 42.
80
Conversation of Irish officers quoted in “Diario de Capitán William Lowe” (note 28),
p. 445.
81
Francis Hall, An appeal to the Irish nation on the character and conduct of General D’ Evereux (Dublin 1819), p. 23.
82
DEP, 27th July 1820. The private letter from Kingston, also reproduced by the
DEP, denounced that “piratical coward, Admiral Brion, formerly a Dutch Curacao Jew,
and by trade, a haberdasher of that settlement”. This was the first time that Brion’s
Jewishness or his civilian background had been deemed relevant by the Irish papers.
They aimed at Brion exactly the same criticisms (cowardice, lack of military experience,
and foreignness) that Bolívar and Montilla laid at the door of the Irish Legion.
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astrous” fate of the Irish Legion, which had been “disarmed, betrayed
and plundered”. The Dublin Evening Post dismissed the possibility of
mutiny, claiming that “the foulest treachery was practised against
them”.83 The DEP hoped to find succour in the common Irish soldier’s
loyalty and bravery, whose only wish was an opportunity to serve
nobly in return for an honest remuneration.84
The attempt to forge an Irish identity through adventure in South
America was thwarted by the difficulties of the Goajira peninsula. The
Riohacha rebellion in 1820 demonstrates the transnational and intracolonial networks that linked the North Atlantic, the Caribbean, and
Spanish America during the latter’s transition from colonial to republican rule. Networks of trade (both formal and contraband), migration,
ideas, labour, and politics were all intermeshed and interconnected. It
is worth re-emphasising the role of the indigenous people of Goajira
(in both representation and reality) in triggering the Irish rebellion at
Riohacha. Linda Colley has suggested that in North America
“[...] the belief that Indian violence was at once hideously cruel and unpredictable,
explains why some British troops (including men who had faced other enemies with
equanimity) deserted rather than do battle with them, or simply resigned themselves
helplessly to death in the face of their attack”.85
In Riohacha, the Irish Legion became convinced that violent protest
was the only way that authorities would possibly recognise the grievances of subordinate groups like themselves. Goajira resistance to the
intruders, through hostility, ambushes, and reluctance to provide provisions was influential in encouraging the Irish to take an opportunity
to leave when it arose. After spending time on the island of Margarita
in late 1819, the Irish soldiers had heard the tales of disease and the
barbarity of the war from troops who had arrived earlier. When the
Irish marched through the Goajira peninsula, they were already
steeped in the imaginative geography that portrayed South America as
a “landscape of adventure”. After marching through the unknown and
hostile interior, in which their worst fears of ambush and captivity
were occasionally realised, the Irish Legion returned to the clear blue
83
84
DEP, 27th July 1820.
CMP, 22nd August 1820. See also Groot, Historia de la Gran Colombia (note 61),
p. 69.
85
Colley, Captives (note 21), p. 181.
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horizon of the Caribbean. It should be little surprise that, when faced
with the sight of several favourable Jamaican merchant ships prepared
to carry them away to comfort and solace, they made the decision to
leave.
The consequences of their departure reshaped the political landscape in Riohacha and also reverberated around the Caribbean and as
far as Dublin and Bogotá, casting into relief the multi-layered networks of race, class, politics, trade, and gender upon which masculinities and collective identities were constructed in 1820. The conditions
that created looting and rebellion were specific to this part of the coast
and the circumstances of this period of the war. Very few other locations would have had neutral shipping available to evacuate the Irish
by sea. Had a rebellion occurred in the Apure, deeper into the Magdalena, or indeed at another less frequented port, Independent chiefs
would have had to be more flexible with the Irish, or would have
physically suppressed the rebellion.
In the long-term, Creole elites wanted alliance with the British in
order to attract financial investment and diplomatic recognition. The
Irish were not essential to this aim, and they therefore became convenient scapegoats in Bogotá. Creoles absorbed English stereotypes
about the Irish just as the adventurers absorbed Creole stereotypes of
savage Indians. The construction of masculinities was an integral part
of these networks of mutual exchange. The rebellion of the Irish
Legion at Riohacha in 1820 demonstrated how conceptions of service,
masculinity, and collective identity were changing across the Atlantic
in the early nineteenth century. The changes took place at different
rates in Riohacha and Bogotá and Dublin, and the processes often
diverged in completely different directions, according to the weight of
factors such as topography, demography, geopolitics, and war. They
were interconnected processes: none can really be understood without
the others. The union between Britain and Ireland, the abolition of the
slave trade to the British colonies, and the transition from colonial to
republican rule in Hispanic America had myriad and interlocking consequences across the Atlantic world. The future of such a changing
world was uncertain, yet the charge of cowardice remained loaded
with meaning.
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