Bolivar and the indians

Abstract

For a long time Bolívar maintained an image of the Indian that was borrowed from Europe. This Rousseauist image flew in pieces when the indigenous population of the Pasto region rose up in arms on behalf of the Spanish monarchy and detained the Colombian army on the way to Peru. Then the “Noble Savage” suddenly became a “Dreadful Barbarian” and was always to remain as such. Bolívar’s indigenista decrees, inspired by the liberal ideology, definitively laid the foundations of the policy that the new Latin American republics were going to implement later on, in order to turn the Indian into a full-fledged citizen. However, the Libertador thought that the integration of the indigenous population to the nation in the making was neither possible nor desirable. He died with his mind haunted by the ghost of the “caste war”.