Agustín Agualongo

Juan Agustín Agualongo Cisneros
Recreation of Agustín Agualongo by DonGatoCOL, 2023.
Born	(1780-08-25)August 25, 1780 San Juan de Pasto, Viceroyalty of New Granada, Spanish Empire
Died	July 13, 1824(1824-07-13) (aged 43) Popayán, Gran Colombia
Occupations	Painter and Military officer (General of the King's Armies in 1824)
Title	General Agustín Agualongo "Aut Vincere Aut Mori"
Military career
Allegiance	Spanish Empire
Rank	General
Nicknames	Caudillo of Pasto Lion of Pasto
Conflicts	Independence of Colombia Battle of Huachi Battle of Ibarra
Signature

Juan Agustín Agualongo Cisneros (San Juan de Pasto, August 25, 1780 – Asunción de Popayán, July 13, 1824) was a Commander of the Royalist Army in the Americas and a mestizo caudillo, during the War of Independence of New Granada (present-day Colombia).

For thirteen years he mounted fierce armed opposition to the republican armies in the territories of present-day southern Colombia and northern Ecuador. His forces clashed with those of Simón Bolívar himself (1783–1830) in the bloody Battle of Ibarra in 1823.

Agualongo has been described as the "idol of a warlike and impassioned people, he is today a symbol of hope for a defrauded people."

Beginnings

He was the son of Manuel Agualongo and Gregoria Cisneros Almeyda, and was born on August 25, 1780, in the city of San Juan de Pasto. He was baptized by Father Miguel Rivera in the Church of San Juan Bautista on the feast day of Saint Augustine.

Little is known of his life before he entered the military career, but most chroniclers and historians agree that, in addition to reading and writing, he learned the art of oil painting at the School of Arts and Trades, and worked in a workshop in San Juan de Pasto. It can be deduced from his signature that he had received a good education.

He married Miss Jesús Guerrero on January 28, 1801, from whom he legally divorced years later. That union left a daughter, María Jacinta Agualongo.

Pasto during the independence period

At the beginning of the century the population of the Pasto district was around twenty to thirty thousand people, 58% of them indigenous peasants and 38% white population. Of these, eight or nine thousand lived in the city of San Juan de Pasto itself. The Andean and coastal areas of southern New Granada were strategic because of their location, in the middle of the trade and communication routes between Popayán, Quito and Lima, becoming over the years a border zone between the United Provinces of New Granada and later the Republic of Gran Colombia, and the Viceroyalty of Peru. That was its military value: it was "the gateway to the south"; whoever dominated Pasto would control the land routes between New Granada and Peru.

"In that irreducible and fierce 'South American Vendée', crossed by the Guaytara and Juanambú rivers, between which rises the immense, ravine-scarred truncated cone of the Pasto Volcano, the invading armies had succumbed for several years. Against these formidable barriers and against the moral strength of the Pastusos, who fought the secessionists as heretics and defended their faith and their homes against them, the daring of the revolutionary caudillos had been shattered." Carlos Navarro Lamarca. Historia General de América. Vol. II.

Steadfast defenders of their tradition, embodied in the rights of their king, and with the support of the Church, the "indomitable Pastusos and Patianos" waged from 1810 a struggle comparable to the War in the Vendée during the French Revolution, "the tragic Vendée of our history." Another reason for the rejection of the pro-independence cause was the constant civil wars among the revolutionary factions during the Patria Boba. By 1816, at the time of the Reconquest, the clergy and the population in general had seen the economy ruined and many of their properties lost. Only the indiscriminate repression that Morillo's troops exercised over the population of the reconquered areas deprived the King's cause of popular support, something it had counted on at first, since the pro-independence project had little popular rooting. The institutional weakness that characterized that period was due to the inability of the rival regions and cities to unify their interests and make a common effort. The Spanish monarchy was very interventionist in the government of its rich overseas provinces. The criollos were accustomed to governing themselves through urban cabildos, but above these stood the whole apparatus of royal administration, which at that moment was disappearing; without much experience in resolving disputes among the different provinces on their own, conflict was inevitable.

The mestizos and indigenous people of Pasto constantly collaborated with freedmen and Black slaves from Patía. The latter, from 1811, following the reaction against the insurrection that had occurred in the great cities of central New Granada, organized a guerrilla force of 1,500 to 2,500 men with which they confronted the pro-independence armies sent from Cali. Most carried lances. They were led by Juan José Caicedo and Joaquín de Paz, and their ethnic composition raised fears of a "caste war" like the one that the slave armies of José Tomás Boves (1782–1814) had unleashed in Venezuela. For the criollo elite it was a nightmare that the scattered bands might unite, forming a force difficult to control and even more difficult to defeat. The insurgent slaves soon began to operate in Chocó and Barbacoas and the royalist authorities in Popayán soon sought to ally with them. In fact, when the autonomists of Cali attacked Popayán in 1811, they offered freedom to every slave who helped them defend themselves. This did not prevent the collapse of the colonial regime: in several royalist regions local governments were formed, nominally led by the former authorities. Until 1815 they acted in guerrilla bands autonomous from one another. In 1816 they became integrated into the reconquering army, and they would take part in Agualongo's campaigns between 1822 and 1824. However, their period of greatest belligerence was between 1809 and 1819 in the Popayán area, where they were the main bulwark in the zone. After the conquest of Bogotá by the pro-independence troops in 1819, some local leaders negotiated and changed sides. As part of what was negotiated, many Patianos were promised that they would suffer no punishment for their defense of the Spanish monarchy. It should be understood that from 1815–1816 abolitionist positions became more radical among the rebels, as they depended on the support of Alexandre Pétion (1770–1818), President of Haiti, the only republic born of a slave rebellion. This allowed them to win greater support among the Black population. However, as already mentioned, some royalist bands remained active after 1822. For those peoples, the campaigns of 1822–1825 were a mere repetition of the earlier ones.

The alliance born in July of that year between the caciques of the region and the colonial authorities was what allowed them to successfully resist the Quiteños and those who came after them. It had clear precedents in previous centuries; for example, in order to expand into frontier zones the Spanish had always allied with some peoples to conquer others. Obviously, the caciques demanded certain benefits for themselves and their communities, especially legal protection of their lands and autonomy. The Indians did not give blind support to any cause. The slaves saw something similar, considering that they could better defend their interests if, like the indigenous people, they placed themselves in the service of the defense of the empire. The most important loyalties for individuals were to the concrete community to which they belonged rather than to abstract national projects. The key to power lay in those ever-changing local alliances. The royalists also established an alliance with the power of Lima, which gave them fundamental military and ideological support. Other populations, such as Coro, the Llanos, Cuenca, Piura and Cuzco, had similar attitudes toward Lima and gave it support important enough to confront a juntista movement that was taking over almost the entire continent.

Relying on their hostile climate and topography, the Pastusos were able to repel troops from the interior of New Granada in 1812 and 1814, making the mere crossing of their lands very costly for later Gran Colombian expeditions. Any invading force coming from Popayán first had to cross the basin of the Patía River, a place of deep canyons where there was a constant risk of the troops falling ill. Farther south one had to continue through a series of defiles perfect for ambushes, and the Patianos were very skilled at carrying them out. If these difficulties were overcome, the invading army had to cross the confluence of the Juanambú and Guáitara rivers, torrential watercourses whose banks were deep, steep and rocky canyons, a place where a small, well-entrenched troop could resist a much larger number of attackers. The roads were of poor quality, the distances long and maps scarce (something common throughout the territory of New Granada). These natural advantages were maximized by the detailed knowledge the locals had of their lands, many of them veterans of years of campaigning by the end of the conflict.

The independence conflict went through three well-differentiated stages in Pasto, according to historian Rosa Zarama (who establishes a parallel division for the case of Coro). The first (1809–1814) was resistance to the attempts of the governing juntas of Quito, Popayán and Cundinamarca to impose their authority on the city. In the second (1814–1820/1821) the conflicts remained far from the province, which allowed a certain economic recovery and led the monarchy to recognize a certain autonomy for them as a reward for their loyalty. The last (1821–1824) saw the end of Spanish rule. The "regional armies" of Pasto fought the republicans of Popayán and Bogotá until the war ended in May 1822, but most of the peasants did not accept this and began a guerrilla-type resistance between October of that year and May 1824. The historian later added a fourth stage, 1824–1826, when the last remnants of the guerrillas fought the newly imposed order until their defeat.

Pasto had been under the jurisdiction of Bogotá since 1739, but the difficulty of the route prevented direct communication except through Popayán, so it retained its traditional contacts with Quito. However, what its leaders wanted was "to become a center of government with political, legislative, judicial and ecclesiastical independence" from Quito and Popayán.

Among other factors that explain the loyalty of the region are that there was no animosity between Spaniards and criollos because of the small number of the former and their easy integration, and that Pasto's trade was limited to Popayán, Quito and the Pacific coast. On the other hand, the war of independence did generate an animosity against the Pastusos on the part of the Bogotanos that would be prolonged culturally over time. The lack of educational institutions and isolation prevented the arrival of the ideas of the Enlightenment (which the revolutionaries tried to impose by force). The clergy vehemently encouraged resistance to the revolution. There was also the fact that the monarchy was the only thing they had known; it represented tradition and stability in the face of the uncertainty of the republican project. "In short, the Pastusos had no economic, political or ideological reasons to seek separation from Spain." Finally, the fact that Bolívar's pro-independence troops were formed and led mostly by foreigners (English and French) also generated distrust and rejection among the local population.

Military career in the Spanish Royal Army

Beginnings

When Agualongo was approaching thirty years of age, the Quito insurrection of August 10, 1809, broke out. The Quiteños knew that they would need resources for the foreseeable war, and to that end they wished to impose tributes on Pasto and Barbacoas. Six days later a letter arrived at the cabildos of Pasto and Popayán reporting the formation of the junta and demanding that they voluntarily accept its authority and not that of the officials of the metropolis. The answer was a resounding no, in defense of Catholic values, the loyalty due to the sovereign and the maintenance of ties with Spain. His first action as a soldier was on October 16, in the royalist victory at the Tarabita of Funes, over the Guáitara River, when 3,000 men from Quito, Ipiales and Túquerres sought to advance on Pasto, razing everything in their path; it is considered by some to be one of the first acts of war in the independence of Hispanic America.

On March 7, 1811, Agualongo volunteered to join the contingent recruited by the Cabildo of his city in order to defend the government of the Spanish King Ferdinand VII, whom Agualongo considered "threatened" by the Governing Junta of Quito. He came under the command of Captain Blas de la Villota of the Third Company of the King's Militias. From then on he was part of all the royalist armies that defended the monarchy from the south of the Viceroyalty of New Granada, eventually reaching the military rank of brigadier general of the Armies of His Majesty King Ferdinand VII.

His physical features were recorded in his military file of the Third Company:

Agualongo was short in stature, for he measured only one meter forty centimeters; he had black hair and eyebrows, brown eyes, a regular nose, little beard and a mark like carate under his eyes; he was full-faced, had a dark complexion and a rather thick upper lip. These characteristics and his surnames of Spanish origin classified him as a mestizo.

The first major actions began on April 2, 1811, when an army of the Confederated Cities of the Cauca Valley and the Supreme Junta of Santafé entered Popayán and the royalists took refuge in Pasto. From then on the Pastusos had to face three thousand enemies in Santiago de Cali to the north and five thousand in Quito to the south. The Quiteños launched their own invasion with 2,000 men (only 200 to 300 armed with muskets and the rest with lances and sabers) under the command of the inexperienced Francisco Javier de Ascázubi. On July 15 they were victorious at Carlosama and the following day they occupied Túquerres. They soon joined the 3,000 men from Cauca and Bogotá who were coming from the north. On September 22, 5,000 men from Cauca and Quito led by Feliciano Checa (1782–1846) and Pedro de Montúfar (1759–1846) brutally sacked Pasto. These events only made the Pastusos' rejection of the pro-independence cause more bitter. On October 13 the independence of the city was proclaimed by means of an act, a document drafted by some priests, notable residents and the notary at the urging of Joaquín de Caizedo y Cuero (1773–1813), leader of Popayán. The act also recognized the government of Bogotá and established an alliance with Cayzedo. Many of the signatories would end up imprisoned in Quito; those who could pay avoided the firing squad.

The remaining royalists took refuge in Patía, where they raised a host of two to three thousand men led by Tacón, but they were defeated at Iscuandé on January 28, 1812, while attempting to take Popayán. The Patianos advanced to avenge the burning of their town by secessionist forces that were heading for Pasto. They were 1,500 men under the command of the self-proclaimed governor of Popayán, Ensign Antonio Tenorio. On April 25 they camped on the ejidos south of Popayán and the following day attempted an assault, but were repelled by the musket fire and artillery of 300 defenders under the command of Governor Cabal. On the 27th the American McAulay assaulted the royalist camp with 400 soldiers and dispersed them at dawn. In the area between the Baudó River and Barbacoas, royalists in canoes captured large ships, planning to take Pasto and then Quito.

In May he fought at Buesaco alongside the Pasto royalists and the Patía peasants of indigenous and mestizo origin, who recovered the city of Pasto from the republicans on May 21, events that ended with the execution by firing squad of the Cali insurgent Caizedo y Cuero and of the American adventurer Alexander McAulay (1787–1813). Faced with the new situation, McAulay convinced the junta of Popayán to send an expedition to Pasto under his command. On August 11 he arrived at the ejido of Pasto and negotiated a treaty with the cabildo. However, by the next day he had not withdrawn as the Pastusos expected, and on the 13th he ordered a secret march south to attack (he even put rags on the horses' hooves so as not to make noise), but at Catambuco he encountered Pasto militiamen. After the failure of the negotiations, combat began and the American was defeated and captured shortly afterwards at Bersaco. From there he was taken to Pasto, where he was tried and shot five months later. Ironically, his death sentence was signed by the president of the Audiencia of Quito, Toribio Montes (1749–1830). McAulay had begun a romance with Montes's daughter, Claudina, in Puerto Rico and secretly accompanied her on the route to Maracaibo. Toribio found out and forced him to leave the ship. McAulay continued the whole way overland to Quito to be reunited with Claudina, but the war stopped him. On August 27, fearful of rumors that 3,000 Pastusos were advancing on Popayán, the republicans withdrew to the Cauca Valley. Only a few Patianos entered the city; the Pastusos returned to their homes. Encouraged by the victories, the Pastusos sent two columns of five hundred men against the Quiteños: the first, under the command of Francisco Delgado, reached El Ángel, near Ibarra, but decided to fall back because of a possible enemy counterattack; the second, led by the Patianos Joaquín de Paz and Casimiro Casanova, reached Pupiales, near Cumbal, but ran into Quito troops and was defeated by the adjutant general and doctor Agustín Salazar y Lozano (1782/1787–1860), a member of the Quito aristocracy, who launched a night attack against their camp. Cabal and the junta took refuge in Quilichao and only recovered Popayán on October 9, 1812.

For his services, Agualongo was promoted to corporal. Key to the Pastusos' success was the fall of the State of Quito in December of that year to the forces of the Viceroyalty of Peru (reinforced by two thousand militiamen from Guayaquil, Cuenca and Loja). This allowed the arrival of numerous reinforcements from the southern royalist territories.

Taking advantage of the fact that the danger from Quito had been averted and that the New Granadan revolutionaries were killing each other, Juan de Sámano (1753–1821), with 2,000 Quiteños and Pastusos, recovered Popayán on July 1, 1813, even though the federalists tried to gather more than 3,000 men to stop him. He then advanced further into the interior to reconquer the Free State of Cundinamarca.

Nariño's campaign and the Reconquest

Antonio Nariño (1765–1823), President of Cundinamarca, reacted to the threat by raising an army of 1,200 infantry with 200 horsemen and marching south. Sámano was defeated at Alto Palacé (December 30, 1813) and Calibío (January 15, 1814), escaping to Pasto and then to Quito, and was replaced by Melchor Aymerich (1754–1836), who still had 2,000 men under his command. Nariño, for his part, had been in Popayán since December 31; only on March 22, after receiving reinforcements that raised his force to 1,800 men, did the expedition to Pasto begin. Of Sámano's disciplined forces it is said: "among them there were 'morlacos' or Cuencanos, Limeños, Pastusos, Patianos; only among the officers were there a few peninsulars." They were organized into the Lima division of Colonel Ignacio Asín: a company of cazadores, another from the Royal Artillery Regiment of Lima, dragoons, disciplined militias of Spaniards from Lima, Piura, Guayaquil and Cuenca, grenadiers from Guayaquil and Cuenca, and militias of pardos from Lima and Guayaquil. In the Cuenca division were two battalions of Pasto militias, two companies of Patía lancers (more than sixty horsemen each) and the Quito volunteers. The Pasto battalions were divided into six companies of about a hundred men, and the two Patía companies had about sixty each. According to some authors there were fewer than 200 line troops from Guayaquil and Lima, 700 Pasto militiamen in two battalions, 150 Patía lancers and 150 Quito volunteers. In total, his division must have numbered some 2,000 soldiers, mainly Pastusos and Patianos.

After weeks of hard fighting, Nariño and his soldiers reached the vicinity of Pasto, decimated by the guerrillas and the climate. On May 10 the Battle of the Ejidos of Pasto took place; there Nariño was wounded and abandoned by his troops, who believed him dead, and four days later he surrendered to Aymerich. Only 900 soldiers of the ill-fated expedition returned to Santafé de Bogotá. At that time Agualongo was already a first sergeant, and he took part in the royalist militias that defeated General Nariño at Alto del Calvario, when Pasto was on the point of being recovered by the secessionist army.

On May 8, 1815, Sámano left Pasto with 1,000 soldiers, reinforced in Patía by the royalist guerrillas, heading north. He was defeated on July 20 at Popayán by José María Cabal (1770–1816) and the Frenchman Manuel Roergas Serviez (1785–1816). In August, Agualongo arrived in Quito, bringing as prisoners the priests José Casimiro de la Barrera and Fernando Zambrano, accused of preaching in favor of General Nariño and independence. In 1816 he joined the Pasto Battalion as a second lieutenant and marched with Sámano's troops to the reconquest of Popayán, entering the city on June 1. The Pasto Battalion annihilated the enemy at the Battle of Cuchilla del Tambo on June 29, ending the last armed resistance of the United Provinces of New Granada.

With the arrival of Pablo Morillo (1775–1837) in mid-1815 began the second stage of New Granadan independence, characterized by a rapid Reconquest and the survival of some guerrillas on the plains of Casanare. This stage would last until the campaign of 1819. Unlike other faithfully royalist territories, Pasto obtained no rewards for its effort: President Montes of the Quito Audiencia did not send the King the first letters mentioning the bloodletting suffered by Pasto, since it was in a remote area and its economic importance was minimal.

Southern Campaigns

Iconic portrait of the hero Juan Agustín Agualongo, leader of the Pasto rebellion in 1822, by Maestro José Eduardo Ordoñez Ordoñez

Later Agualongo accompanied Sámano to Bogotá as his trusted guard, with the rank of lieutenant. When he returned to Popayán, he did so in the second Company of Pasto Militias. Sámano remained as Viceroy in the New Granadan capital with three Venezuelan battalions (the 1st and 2nd of Numancia and the 1st of the King) and one of men recruited along the road from Pasto to Popayán, called del Tambo. They formed the third division of the Expeditionary Army and numbered 3,861 men.

After the Battle of Boyacá on August 7, 1819, the defeated Spanish commanders headed for Pasto, "the refuge of the monarchy in great reverses" and "nucleus of royalist positions." This victory allowed the formation of the Republic of Gran Colombia. From this moment the last phase of the conflict took place; until 1824 the insurgents fought to put an end to the last royalist strongholds in the country. Lieutenant Agualongo returned to his homeland and regrouped the men of the royalist army. There General Sebastián de la Calzada (1770–1824) managed to gather four thousand men, recovering Popayán on January 24, 1820, taking advantage of the fact that Bolívar was more occupied attacking Chocó; however, the royalist offensive was halted in April, and on July 14 Popayán was lost to Manuel Valdés (1780–1845). The latter wanted to continue on to Pasto but was defeated at Genoy on February 22, 1821.

I already have my division well advanced: its total strength will amount to 2,000 men, more or less: 1,300 with muskets, 150 cavalry, and the rest of the people without arms, (...).
December 28, 1819, San Juan de Pasto. Letter from La Calzada to Sámano.

When Aymerich, from Quito, asked the Governor and commanding general in Pasto, Don Basilio Modesto García (1791–1844), for help to suppress the Guayaquil insurgents of October 9, 1820, Agualongo had to march to the Real Audiencia of Quito as an officer of the Dragones de Granada battalion. Bolívar also decided to intervene, supporting the insurgents; first he sent a contingent led by Antonio José de Sucre (1795–1830) in May 1821, but it proved insufficient to defeat Aymerich. It was then that Bolívar attempted to send 4,000 soldiers and 3,000 muskets under the command of Francisco de Paula Santander (1792–1840), a force that would go by sea, but when he arrived at the port of Buenaventura he found a royalist squadron blockading it, and he decided to march overland, crossing Pasto territory.

No one wanted to go to Pasto, because the risk of being annihilated was well known. Bolívar himself estimated that the Pastusos and Patianos numbered more than 4,000 combatants. Obando put them at no fewer than 3,000 infantry and 1,000 horsemen, a figure considered exaggerated by later historians; in reality they did not exceed half that, and it is even possible that they numbered barely 1,200. Already in January and August of that same year two expeditions setting out from Popayán had been constantly harassed by the Patianos, only to be repelled with heavy losses by the Pastusos. On top of that, the royalist guerrillas had expanded their area of activity as far as Popayán and the Cauca.

Meanwhile Agualongo, after the victory at the Battle of Huachi, became a Captain (September 12). At the end of the same year he was appointed civil and military chief of the city of Cuenca, for about a year. In 1822 he did not take part in the Battle of Pichincha because he was at the Iñaquito camp with the Constitución Battalion. After the battle Colonel Calzada joined his battalion to the Tiradores de Cádiz and the remnants of the Cataluña and returned by forced marches to Pasto, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

That city was resisting the siege of Bolívar's forces. In March of that year Bolívar had begun his march with more than three thousand men; he suffered a hard setback at Bomboná (April 7) with numerous casualties, despite which he decided to continue the march, arriving at San Juan de Pasto on June 8. He found the city deserted (its people had fled to the mountains), which did not prevent him from forcibly recruiting a thousand Pastusos, who joined the same number of veterans with whom he continued the journey to Quito, a journey that ended on June 16 with his entry into that city. In less than a year, of the more than seven thousand five hundred republican soldiers sent against Pasto, three thousand five hundred had died. Pasto seemed finally subdued, with a small republican garrison installed in it, but this event only gave rise to two violent popular rebellions. Agualongo had been captured after the royalist defeat at Pichincha, which allowed General Antonio José de Sucre to take Quito.

The essential change that allowed the occupation of Pasto in mid-1822 was the earlier fall of Quito to Sucre on May 25; finding themselves surrounded by Gran Colombian forces to the north and south, the members of the Pasto elite considered themselves defeated and surrendered, something the popular masses did not do, as they considered it a betrayal. This ended the period begun in 1809, during which the war had been directed by the Cabildo of Pasto and its community had acted in unison, regardless of economic or ethnic differences. From then on, mestizos and Indians would lead and make up the guerrillas, motivated exclusively by the abuses they suffered at the hands of the occupying troops. Colonel and Governor García and the Bishop of Popayán, Salvador Jiménez de Enciso y Cobos Padilla (1765–1841), signed the peace. Bolívar had changed many of his anticlerical positions in order to win the support of the Bishop, who was very influential among the local monarchists. The terms of the agreement were particularly favorable to the Pastusos; Bolívar regarded them as fearsome enemies capable of holding back pro-independence armies for a decade. Signed on June 6 at Berruecos between the representatives Pantaleón del Hierro and Miguel Retamal (royalists) and José Gabriel Pérez and Vicente González (secessionists), the capitulation was ratified two days later by Bolívar and La Calzada. It established that the region would come under republican control but that no repression would be exercised against the former members of the monarchist army, there would be no forced levies of Spaniards or locals, Catholic customs would be respected, and the property of the residents would be respected.

Thus, the military chief of Pasto, José María Obando (1795–1861), a figure who drew numerous Pasto leaders along with him. Bolívar, shrewdly, ended up entrusting him with the pacification of the region. The republicans knew that Pasto and Patía had to be subdued or the land route to the south would always be cut: "The capitulation of Pasto is the most important event of the war in the South (…) it is preferable to ten victories." Obando would prove throughout his life to be a skillful and ambitious caudillo.

In 1826–1827 he managed to take control of Pasto, displacing rivals such as his cousin, Tomás Cipriano Mosquera (1798–1878), and the governor appointed by Bolívar in 1824, Juan José Flores (1800–1864). As one author described him: "Obando frequently changed cause, sphere and master." A royalist officer until 1822 and then a republican, in 1828 he rose up with José Hilario López (1798–1869) against Bolívar; in 1829 he became Bolívar's lieutenant; in 1830 he was an autonomist allied with López's Quiteños; and from 1831 he was a New Granadan centralist who secured the sovereignty of the Cauca for Bogotá. Obando, supported by López, rose in 1830 against the dictatorship of Urdaneta, arming 1,000 former Pasto and Patía guerrillas on his haciendas in the Cauca, his "'Liberating Army'".

In 1831 he fought to prevent his enemy, General Flores, from taking Popayán and Pasto, turning his caudillo power in the area into the guarantee that prevented an Ecuadorian invasion. Indeed, in 1832 he succeeded in expelling the Ecuadorians who had occupied Pasto.

The indomitable Agualongo, while a prisoner in the Panecillo fort in Quito, managed to escape with Colonel Benito Remigio Boves, and together they raised the insurrection of Pasto at the end of 1822.

Pasto rebellions

The first anti-republican rebellion began on October 22, 1822, under the orders of the Spanish Colonel Boves, nephew of the aforementioned caudillo. First he defeated Colonel and intendant Antonio Obando (1788–1849) at Túquerres. The insurgents were entrenched south of the Guáitara and numbered 40 veterans and 300 militiamen. Boves attacked with 700 guerrillas and, thanks to his numerical superiority, broke through the defenses. Obando fled to Tulcán.

On October 28 Boves took San Juan and proclaimed himself "Commanding General of the Militias of the King of Spain"; Agustín Agualongo became second in command and Merchán Cano political-military governor of Pasto. A "royalist counter-state" was born, a movement with "something of aristocratic and popular political and social vindication"; "Pasto became an island in a republican sea" that occupied the area between the Juanambú and the Guáitara, where they collected taxes. The monarchists controlled a territory that extended south as far as Ibarra, east to the eastern slopes of the Andes and north to the Patía River (south of Popayán). Within their domains were Tumaco, Pasto and Patía.

On entering Pasto in 1822 Bolívar had published the proclamations To the inhabitants of the south and To the Patianos, Pastusos and Spaniards, promising "repose and liberty", but in the period between 1822 and 1825 he would show himself willing to eliminate the royalists who prevented him from consolidating his power in New Granada and advancing toward Peru. According to historian Armando Montenegro Trujillo, it was these rebellions that made Pasto stand out in the memory of the wars of independence. During those years, the rebels of Pasto and Patía would also take over the Pacific coastline of the area through their alliance with the rebel slaves of Buenaventura and Barbacoas. The republicans understood very soon that the Andean and coastal regions were strongly linked and that, to dominate one, they had to strive to control the other.

However, Sucre and troops from Quito were sent to suppress the movement. Túquerres became the center where the royalist troops concentrated in November. The defeated Spanish soldiers had scattered throughout the region to form guerrillas, but with cries of "Long live the King!" the Colonel organized a host of 2,000 Pasto and Patía guerrillas. The figures vary between the 1,500 given by Restrepo and the 3,000 royalists of Obando's account. Boves had occupied the heights overlooking the Guáitara River, but the republican general was able to force his defenses at the pass of Cuchilla de Taindalá (November 24). However, considering himself vulnerable, he withdrew to Túquerres. After receiving reinforcements from Quito, Sucre, Mires and Obando defeated Boves at Cuchilla de Taindalá (December 22) and Guáitara (December 23). Sucre ended up sacking San Juan de Pasto in the so-called Black Christmas (December 23 to 25), murdering some four hundred people on the orders of Bolívar himself; acts that would only be redressed on June 4, 1830, when Sucre was assassinated in an ambush at Berruecos.

Boves took refuge with the guerrillas of the Amazonian areas. On January 2, 1823, Bolívar returned to Pasto and the punishments continued: a thousand of its sons were forcibly recruited and sent to Peru, another three hundred were exiled to Quito and Guayaquil (many died during the journey or in mutinies), prisoners were executed, rebel leaders were put to death, and a large quantity of property was confiscated. They also used the "civic marriage", throwing couples of Indians into the waters of the Guáitara to save ammunition. By that time the Gran Colombian leaders saw the extermination of its population as the only possible solution to the Pasto problem. Even the intellectual José Manuel Restrepo (1781–1863) observed the scarcity of the male population in the locality and considered it necessary to "vary" the Pasto population because of its tenacious resistance and to destroy those who had not yet submitted, something difficult because of the terrain, as he himself acknowledged.

The Pastusos must be annihilated, and their women and children transported elsewhere, giving that country a military colony. Otherwise, Colombia will remember the Pastusos whenever there is the slightest disturbance or difficulty, even if it is a hundred years from now, because they will never forget our ravages, even though they were more than deserved (Letter from Simón Bolívar to Francisco de Paula Santander, Potosí, October 21, 1825).

Bolívar justified himself by means of a decree on January 13 in which he accused the Pastusos of rising up without reason and breaking what had been agreed in the previous capitulation. It was decided to confiscate the property of everyone involved with the guerrillas.

In any case, the merciless way in which the city and its inhabitants were treated only led to an ephemeral peace, for in mid-1823 another uprising began, this time commanded by Agualongo and Estanislao Merchán Cano. Eight hundred to twelve hundred Pastusos on foot gathered at Túquerres and Ipiales and defeated the garrison of Colonel Flores, made up of six hundred men (a hundred of them mounted), took the city and restored royalist government (June 12). They were armed with sticks, pikes and repaired muskets. 300 corpses were left in the city, of which 150 defenders and 200 to 300 republicans were taken prisoner. Along with them, 500 muskets fell into the hands of the monarchists. Flores took refuge at Juanambú with some survivors. Lieutenant Colonel Merchán Cano was appointed as the last governor in the name of the King and Colonel Agualongo as commanding general. As if that were not enough, the Pastusos assembled an army of 2,000 combatants that began an unexpected triumphal march on Ibarra, where they hoped to find significant political and military backing. Bolívar speaks of 3,000 in his letters. Others put them at no fewer than fifteen hundred Pasto infantry and a hundred horsemen. Simón Bolívar was in Babahoyo, occupied with the expedition to Peru, and, setting aside the plans for that campaign, he traveled to Quito, while Agualongo entered Ibarra victorious on July 12.

Bolívar confronted him on the 17th with a powerful cavalry force, expelling him from Ibarra. More than eight hundred royalists were killed. Agualongo grouped his men on the right bank of the nearby Tahuando River, but he could not have the bridge cut, and the insurgents were able to cross it in time; thus, closely pursued, although he tried to regroup his army in the locality of Aloburo, he did not succeed, and with two hundred of his most loyal men he returned to the Pasto Region, where the civilian population was enduring the most degrading humiliations at the hands of the insurgents who had retaken it. On his return he managed to reorganize the survivors and recruit new men. A few months later, Santander would offer him and Merchán Caro an honorable peace, which would be rejected, according to the Colombian vice president, because of the "obstinacy and blindness" of the Pastusos.

General Bartolomé Salom (1780–1863) was sent to subdue the rebels, but, as he himself acknowledged, his punishments (including the deportation of another thousand locals) only hardened the Pastusos, who unanimously supported Agualongo's monarchists. By the end of January the "despotic dictatorship of Salom" had requisitioned 11,620 pesos, 1,500 to 2,000 horses and 3,000 head of cattle. On August 18, when they least expected it, Agualongo entered the village of Anganoy with three thousand men under his command, and when Salom learned of it he escaped to Catambuco, where sporadic fighting took place. General Flores followed him a few days later. On this occasion Agualongo caught up with the pro-independence general Pedro Alcántara Herrán (1800–1872), who, on his knees and with his hands clasped, begged him not to kill him, since he had been his former comrade in arms. The Colonel replied with contempt: "I do not kill those who have surrendered."

In any case, generals José Mires (1785–1829) and José María Córdova (1799–1829) surrounded and defeated the last royalist bands at Alto de Cebollas (September 13), Juanambú (October 13) and Tacines (October 23), pacifying the region. On December 14 Mires entered Pasto with 500 infantry, 100 horsemen and 2 cannons; he was relieved by Córdova and then traveled to Quito. On December 23, 1823, Boves surrendered to the Commander of the Rifles battalion, the Irish Brigadier Arthur Sandes (1773–1832). Although Agualongo had to vacate Pasto, his men remained active in the mountains as guerrillas; they unsuccessfully attacked Pasto on January 3 and 6, 1824, were defeated at Catambuco on the 7th, but in mid-May advanced on Pasto for the last time.

Weeks later, the pro-independence troops retook Pasto. Agualongo and his main chiefs remained inside the Convent of the Conceptionist Nuns, which Flores surrounded, but following the intervention of the vicar of the city, talks began that lasted only two days, since Agualongo and his men fled to Barbacoas. The caudillo's intention was to seize the treasure the republicans were gathering there and to have a base from which to attack Tumaco, a vital point for establishing communications with the Spanish and Peruvian privateers operating in the Pacific. His followers numbered barely a hundred combatants.

However, Colonel Mosquera was able to defeat them. On May 31 a royalist advance party tried to slip between the royalist positions in a barge, but it was destroyed by a cannon shot. A day later, the bulk of the Pastusos tried to assault the town but were repelled, and they proceeded to surround it and burn it. Agualongo was wounded in one leg; his rival suffered a serious and painful wound to the jaw, which left an indelible mark on his face, and from then on he was called Mascachochas. The surviving royalists withdrew to Patía and scattered throughout the region. The Pastusos' defeat was probably due to their unfamiliarity with the coastal terrain where the encounter took place, very different from their native lands.

The Pasto guerrillas ceased to represent a threat in mid-1824, with the capture of their main leaders, although between May and October 1825 an irregular band survived at Juanambú under the command of the cleric José Benavides, with the support of the Indians of Nariño and the Blacks of Patía; it was finally annihilated by Flores. Key to this was that Flores, in alliance with the local elite, formed counterinsurgent bands under the command of Nicolás Chaves and Tomás Miguel Santacruz. Pasto was left bled dry and ruined by more than a decade of constant war, and ultimately lost. The same fate befell the agriculture, livestock raising and textile manufactures of the province. More than two thousand men had been forcibly recruited by the victors during the preceding years.

Last days

After the fighting at Barbacoas, Colonel Mosquera set out in pursuit of him, sowing terror and executing the inhabitants of the villages he found along his way, accusing them of treason for not harassing the defeated caudillo. However, it was not he who put an end to the Pastuso's military career.

José María Obando had shortly before received the intendant's order to march south to capture Agualongo. The caudillo's old comrade in arms had seen his opportunity to gain military prestige among the insurgents by betraying Agualongo. He took Captain Manuel María Córdoba (another former royalist officer) and 200 well-armed men to the encounter. On June 24 Agualongo arrived at the locality of El Castigo, and the next day José María Obando appeared. Finally, Agualongo was captured by Obando and his Colombian soldiers, after the latter deceived him by promising support in his struggle.

He was taken to Popayán, where he arrived on July 8. Obando had gone ahead to bring the news to the city, leaving Captain Córdoba in charge of his transfer. In Popayán people were astonished at Agualongo's physical appearance when they saw him for the first time, since his small stature did not fit the image of the caudillo who had caused the insurgents so many headaches. The English Colonel John Potter Hamilton, who was fighting in the service of the pro-independence cause, described him as a physically short and ugly man, but with a fierce gaze and possessed of a strong character, stating that "great men are also found among the aborigines of America."

The former monarchist officer released most of the hundred prisoners at the caudillo's request, although colonels Joaquín Enríquez, Francisco Terán and Manuel Insuasti, his closest associates, followed him to Popayán. The first two suffered the same fate as their commander. His comrade in arms, Merchán Cano, was murdered in a Pasto jail, probably on Flores's orders.

In Popayán he was offered his life on condition that he swear allegiance to the Constitution of Cúcuta. His answer was a categorical "Never!" He was then tried and sentenced to death by firing squad. On being sentenced to death, he asked for, and was granted, the favor of wearing the uniform of a royalist colonel. On July 13, 1824, before the firing squad, he exclaimed:

If I had twenty lives, I would be ready to sacrifice them for the Catholic religion and for the King of Spain.

He demanded not to be blindfolded, because he wanted to die looking death in the face.

"I want to die facing the sun, looking death in the face; I am a son of my lineage; I want to die in my uniform; do not blindfold me, I want to die facing forward."

In his last moments he faced the firing squad serenely and shouted: "Long live the King!"

Crypt of General Agualongo, Chapel of the Christ of the Agony, Church of San Juan Bautista.

Agualongo died without learning that King Ferdinand VII had issued a Royal Cédula conferring on him the rank of Brigadier General of the King's Armies.

The kidnapping of his remains

Agualongo's remains rested in the crypt of the Church of San Francisco in Popayán until they were identified by the historian Emiliano Díaz del Castillo Zarama. On October 11, 1983, they were solemnly taken to the city that Agualongo had sworn to protect and were placed in the Chapel of the Christ of the Agony, on the left side of the Church of San Juan Bautista.

In 1987 they were taken by a cell of the guerrilla group M-19, under the command of Antonio Navarro Wolf, and were returned in 1990 (in the mountains of Cauca Department), as a symbolic act simultaneous with that group's laying down of arms. Finally they were placed in the left wing of the same church, together with the remains of Hernando Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada (1510–1570) ―brother of Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582)―, who was Regidor and "encomendero" of the City of Pasto in the 16th century.

See also

• Antonio Huachaca, Peruvian royalist military officer.
• José Dionisio Cisneros, Venezuelan royalist military officer.
• Vicente Benavides, Chilean royalist military officer.
• José Camacho, Ecuadorian royalist military officer.
• Western Campaign, last royalist resistance in the Caribbean.
• Southern Campaigns, secessionist military expedition in Pasto and Quito.
• Pasto Campaign, military operations in Pasto.

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External links

• A 200 años del mayor crimen ocultado de la historia de la independencia (in Spanish)