The Rites of Statehood: Violence and Sovereignty in Spanish America, 1789-1821 Jeremy Adelman Princeton University in Gabriel Ga
1 The Rites of Statehood: Violence and Sovereignty in Spanish America, 1789-1821 Jeremy Adelman Princeton University In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, The General in his Labyrinth, a long-winded Frenchman lectures a pensive, dying Simon Bolivar. The Liberator responds. He acknowledges that the revolution unleashed the furies of avenging justice, and laments, without repudiating, his decision to order the execution of eight hundred Spanish prisoners in a single day, including pa.ti~nts in La Guaira' s moral authority to reproach me, for if any history is drowned in blood, indignity, and injustice, it is the history of Europe." When the Frenchman tries to interrupt, Bolivar puts down his cutlery \ and glares at his guest. "Damn it, please let us have our Middle Ages in peace!" he exclaimed. 1 These, of course, were Garc,a Marquez's words, not Bolivar's. But they echo Bolivar's requiem on the events he shaped about the relationship between savagery and state-formation. More than lofty proclamations or principle's of statehood, the historical memory of the years leading to 1821 are saturated with blood. For the chroniclers and epic writers, from Jose Manuel, Restrepo's (1827) Historia de la Revolucion de Colombi~ to Garcia Marquez, the scenes of violence and carnage gave rise to narratives of sacrifice and struggle that could not be wholly redeemed by what came after. And yet, we have not thought very systematically about the significance of political violence in Latin America - despite its recurrence. Perhaps it is because of its recurrence: for so many, the cruelty was sown into a ''tradition'' of conquest and 1 Gabriel Garda Marquez, The General in His Labyrinth (New York: Knopf, 1990), p.
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