Document: El Manifiesto de Cartagena

Context and Aim
Written in Cartagena de Indias in December 1812 after the collapse of the First Republic of Venezuela, Simón Bolívar’s Manifesto of Cartagena is a strategic and political diagnosis meant to persuade New Granada’s leaders to avoid Venezuela’s errors and to support a renewed war for independence. Speaking from exile yet with the urgency of a commander in the field, Bolívar links the fate of Venezuela and New Granada, arguing that only unified, energetic action under a strong central authority can secure liberty against a resurgent Spanish Empire.

Diagnosis of Venezuela’s Defeat
Bolívar attributes the fall of Venezuela not to a lack of zeal for liberty but to constitutional and administrative fragility. The federal system adopted in 1811 fractured power among jealous provinces, bred localism, and paralyzed national decision-making. Excessive deference to abstract liberal forms, frequent elections, and dispersed authority prevented decisive wartime measures. Military organization suffered from the same weakness: no stable army, poor discipline, and reliance on volunteerism when conscription, hierarchy, and sustained logistics were needed. Financially, improvisation and the erosion of public credit undermined the state’s ability to feed and pay troops, while forced levies alienated allies without producing resilience.

He also emphasizes the calamity of the Caracas earthquake of March 1812, which royalist clergy framed as divine punishment for rebellion. Patriot authorities, lacking unity and resolve, failed to counter this moral shock. Civil strife, leniency toward conspirators, and indecision at the highest levels culminated in capitulation, opening the door to reprisals and the rapid restoration of Spanish control.

Critique of Federalism and Call for Central Authority
From this diagnosis flows a stark conclusion: in revolutionary war, divided sovereignty is ruinous. Bolívar argues that Spanish America’s political culture, geography, and the immediacy of existential conflict demand a concentrated, energetic executive capable of swift measures. Laws and constitutions must be adapted to circumstances; liberty cannot survive if its guardians lack the strength to defend it. Clemency for counterrevolutionaries, admirable in peace, becomes “criminal” when it encourages treason during war. Unity of command, clear subordination of civil to military necessity, and continuity of policy are presented as the indispensable antidotes to the centrifugal tendencies of federalism.

Religious, Social, and Psychological Factors
The manifesto attends to opinion and morale as much as to institutions. Bolívar warns that royalists effectively weaponized religion and fear, while patriots ceded the pulpit and the narrative. A revolutionary government must contest meaning as well as territory, sustaining the confidence of citizens through visible vigor, justice, and victory. Racial and class anxieties, exploited by the enemy, require inclusive mobilization under firm discipline so that all free inhabitants see their safety tied to the republic’s survival.

Appeal to New Granada and Strategic Program
Bolívar turns from analysis to exhortation. New Granada, he insists, must not replicate Venezuelan federalism; it needs a central government, a standing army, secure finances, and coordinated provincial obedience. Cartagena is a crucial bastion whose defense and provisioning are prerequisites for offensive operations. He urges New Granadan authorities to grant him men, arms, and authority to carry the war back into Venezuela, arguing that the security of one country is inseparable from the other’s emancipation. The strategic horizon is clear: concentrate power, mobilize resources, punish treason, and carry the fight relentlessly until independence is irreversibly won.

Legacy
The Manifesto of Cartagena marks Bolívar’s emergence as a thinker of revolutionary statecraft. It fuses military realism with a political theory of emergency centralization, setting the intellectual template for his subsequent campaigns and for later constitutions he inspired. By turning defeat into a lesson plan for victory, it became both a justification for and a roadmap to the renewed offensive that followed.