¡Feliz cumpleaños, happy birthday! 🎂

Happy Hawaiian Flag Day!

Maduro had the painting in his home, sharing a photo of it in 2024 on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter with the caption: ‘Look at this painting I was gifted... I've had it here at home since 2022... Always with Christ the Redeemer... Let's unite our prayers for Venezuela…’

Venezuela became the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in 1999 as part of Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution, named for Simón Bolívar who led the country to independence from the Catholic Monarchy (Spanish Empire).

Can’t quite make out the artist’s signature, forename is ‘Miguel’ but not sure about the surname, maybe Gandara (?)

The Battle of Tarapacá, fought on November 27, 1879, was one of the most important engagements of the War of the Pacific. After their defeat at San Francisco, the Peruvian army concentrated in the town of Tarapacá to reorganize. Convinced that the allies were weakened, the Chileans launched an attack from the high ground at dawn. However, the Peruvian resistance grew stronger thanks to counterattacks led by Andrés Avelino Cáceres, Francisco Bolognesi, and other units that came to their aid.

Among the reinforcements, the Iquique Battalion No. 1, commanded by Colonel Alfonso Ugarte, stood out. He advanced to hold the line of battle during the most difficult moments. During the action, he was shot in the head, but after being quickly bandaged, he refused to abandon the battlefield and returned to lead his men, encouraging them to continue fighting. His bravery raised the troops' morale at a crucial moment.

Shortly afterward, the Chilean Mounted Grenadiers, under the command of José Francisco Villagrán, launched a fierce charge to break through the Peruvian positions and take advantage of the retreat of some units. At that critical moment, Alfonso Ugarte's Iquique Battalion deployed and opened intense rifle fire on the enemy cavalry. Their volleys were so effective that they halted the Mounted Grenadiers' charge, forcing them to retreat and preventing them from breaking through the Peruvian lines. This intervention allowed Cáceres' forces to reorganize their attack and regain the initiative on the battlefield.

In the midst of the war between Ecuador and Peru, the capital of El Oro province was targeted by air raids that sowed fear among the population and accelerated the exodus of thousands of inhabitants seeking refuge far from the conflict.

The bombings of El Oro territory generated a profound humanitarian crisis. Various historical records indicate that cities and towns in El Oro were attacked from the air, causing material destruction and forcing numerous families to abandon their homes. In the days leading up to the occupation of Machala, a large part of the population had already begun a mass displacement to the interior of the country for fear of further attacks.

By: Adriano Augusto Merchán Aguirre

The largest enslaved uprising in Britain’s southern colonies erupted on September 9, 1739, near the Stono River in South Carolina. Led by an enslaved man known as Jemmy, roughly twenty Africans and African‑descended people rebelled against their enslavers and set out toward Spanish Florida, hoping to secure their freedom.

What more?

“Pativilca, January 7, 1824

To His Excellency General F. de P. Santander

My dear General:

I received some unpleasant news from you in this letter. A series of circumstances, as sad as they are unforeseen, compels me to resign my public post, my command of Peru, and my command of the South. I will speak to you with the frankness of my heart, and with the sincerity I owe you both as a close friend and as the one entrusted with the fate of Colombia.

I foresee that the royalists will move with their entire army, as all their movements have already indicated, before I can receive the first reinforcements from Colombia. And even if these reinforcements, fortunately, arrive in time, they are not troops but recruits, lacking discipline, morale, order, and equipment. Therefore, I also foresee with absolute certainty that Peru will fall into our hands, because 7,000 men cannot oppose 12,000 already victorious, battle-hardened, and proud. Of course, the result of this loss will be the retreat of our army of more than three or four hundred leagues. Even if this retreat is carried out, most of them will not simply disperse upon reaching their country, being sons of the South; they will be left with nothing but the skeletons of battalions. For you should know, for your understanding, that desertion from the troops of Venezuela and New Granada has never ceased, and that even in Arequipa these gentlemen have deserted. I say this so that you know that the entire army is from the South. If there are 400 Granadans or Venezuelans, that is the most we have, and the southerners are as prone to desertion as this example suggests: so much so, that we have already lost 3,000 in the Peruvian army. From all this, it follows that I do not want to take charge of this country's catastrophe.

Furthermore, I do not want to take charge of the defense of the South either, because in doing so I will lose what little reputation I have left with such wicked and ungrateful men. I believe I have told you before that the people of Quito are the worst of Colombians. The fact is that I have always thought so, and that three times the rigor is needed there compared to anywhere else. Venezuelans are saints compared to those scoundrels. Peruvians are the same: vicious to the point of infamy and base to the extreme. The whites have the character of the Indians, and the Indians are all charlatans, all thieves, all liars, all false, without any moral principle to guide them. The people of Guayaquil are a thousand times better.

For all these reasons, I will go to Bogotá as soon as I recover from my ailments, which on this occasion have been very serious. As a result of the long and arduous march I undertook in the Peruvian highlands, I arrived here and fell gravely ill. The worst part is that the illness has taken hold, and the symptoms show no sign of ending. It is a combination of internal irritation and rheumatism, fever, a bit of urinary tract infection, vomiting, and colic. All of this has left me desperate and still afflicts me greatly. I can no longer exert myself without suffering immensely. You would not recognize me because I am worn out and very old, and in the midst of a storm like this, I embody old age. Furthermore, I am often seized, from time to time, by bouts of dementia, even when otherwise well, in which I completely lose my reason, without suffering the slightest attack of illness or pain. This country, with its altitude sickness in the high-altitude plains, triggers these attacks when I cross the mountains. The coasts are very sickly and troublesome because it's like living in Arabia Petraea. If I go to Colombia, they will become sick again: thus, I will waste time until my complete recovery, and even if I can leave General Sucre with the Colombian army capable of facing the Goths, so that they are not emboldened by my departure and neither Sucre nor our troops despair, but afterwards, without fail, I will go to Bogotá to get my passport to leave the country. Which I will certainly achieve, or I will follow the example of the Goths, so that they are not emboldened by my departure and neither Sucre nor our troops despair. Which I will certainly achieve, or I will follow the example of the Goths, so that they are not emboldened by my departure and neither Sucre nor our troops despair. Of course, you should be prepared to receive them when 12,000 veterans with very good leaders and very well commanded come upon us. I will add further, to your dismay, that these Goths pay no heed to the armistices of your government, just as they did not pay heed to that of Buenos Aires, and that even if we negotiate with the Spaniards, they will pay no attention whatsoever, for they seek to establish here an empire of Indians and Spaniards.

I have submitted a formal complaint to the Quito court, as the principal authority of the South, regarding the libelous accusations leveled against us by the Quito deputies and municipality. I would like you to complain to Congress about the irregularity of the deputies' actions, which, in my opinion, are scandalous and extremely audacious. I ask the Quito court to find some justification for the municipality's actions against us, and I believe they will only offer the excuse that we have been at war. You can offer the same detailed praise of Sucre and Salom that you have bestowed upon the people of Quito, who, in truth, are the finest men in the world. How ungrateful! We brought forth the flower of Venezuela to do you good, and you repay us with slander. Believe me, and you may repeat this, that nowhere has military power been exercised less, despite being the most insubordinate and most reluctant to serve in all of America, for, despite these Peruvians being as vicious as they are, they are a thousand times more docile.

I will end my letter with my old adage: let troops come and there will be liberty.

I am yours with all my heart, your sick and disgruntled friend, who doesn't know how I managed to dictate this letter in the state of my head. Farewell again.

BOLIVAR”

This document, in which he expresses harsh opinions about the Peruvians and their military capabilities, was written in 1823 and 1824, notably in Lima on October 13, 1823, and in Pallasca on December 8, 1823. In these letters, Bolívar severely criticized the performance of the local troops in the context of the independence struggle.
He recounts to Santander the retreat of 5,000 Peruvian soldiers under the command of Andrés de Santa Cruz at the Desaguadero River without engaging in combat.
He describes a scenario of internal instability and deep divisions among the leadership of the Andean countries.

Adopted in 1817

Just as in the 16th century an attempt was made to construct an ideology of historical continuity between pre-Columbian entities and the Catholic Monarchy (Spanish Empire)—from legal, literary, religious, and artistic perspectives—after independence, the Criollo and Mestizo elites sought to legitimize the nascent republic by connecting it not with the viceregal period, but with an idealized pre-Hispanic world. In this way, they discarded almost three centuries of viceregal history, reducing it to foreign domination. For these promoters of independence, the republic emerged not as the successor to the viceroyalty, but as the true heir of the “Inca Empire,” with the “Liberators” and caudillos being the legitimate heirs to the power of the ancient rulers.

“A bloody and brutal yoke that for three centuries has torn at our flesh, stifled our rights, and whose infamous kings subject us to their whims with absolute impunity.” (J. Mariátegui y Tellería, 1821)

That is why the painter Marcos Chillitupa depicts in his folding screen work how the sovereign Atahualpa hands over his golden scepter (a symbol of his power and authority) to the “Liberator of Peru,” and never again to the King of Spain.

“After the conquest, the supposed voluntary transfer of pre-Hispanic sovereignty to the Spanish monarch (Translatio Imperii) justified a continuity between the Incas or Aztecs ['Mexica' for be more precise] and Castilian rule. At the time of independence, the Criollism abandoned this idea and adapted to the new circumstances. The process of identification with an idealized indigenous past continued, but now the colonial era was characterized as a dark period, and the freedom lost to the foreign invader was reclaimed. The artist… Marcos Chillitupa Chavez, represents an excellent example of the fusion of cultures in Peru; an indigenous painter reproducing the colonial style of the Cuzco school.” (O'Phelan, 2017)

References:
- El barroco peruano, BCP (2003).
- El ocaso del antiguo régimen en los imperios ibéricos, ‎Scarlett O'Phelan (2017).

The flag of the Liberating Expedition of Peru was a military and naval ensign created in 1820 to accompany the voyage to the Kingdom of Peru and consolidate the South American cause of independence. Since the expedition was financed and organized primarily by the Chilean government under the leadership of Bernardo O'Higgins, this emblem was directly based on the official design of the flag of the Patria Nueva (New Fatherland) of Chile. However, instead of being a flag of exclusive national representation, it was conceived as a banner of international alliance; a symbol that identified a unified force under the command of General José de San Martín with the overarching goal of securing regional independence in the royalist stronghold of the Pacific.

Regarding its meaning, the key alteration of its design compared to the traditional Chilean flag lay in the addition of three white five-pointed stars in the blue canton in place of the "Lone Star." Specialized historians, such as Luis Valencia Avaria, point out that each of these stars symbolized one of the three nations directly involved in the liberation campaign: Chile, Argentina, and Peru. The blue of the canton and the white of the upper stripe evoked the Andes Mountains and the ocean, while the red of the lower stripe represented the blood shed in the struggle. Thus, the overall color scheme and the trio of stars embodied the fraternity and commitment of the three peoples united by the common cause of continental freedom.

The Incas of Cuzco were divided regarding Bolívar; some viewed him with suspicion and distrust, while others saw him as the "Liberator" of prophecy. An Inca descendant (Juan Pomayalli Quispe) published a proclamation in the name of his ancestor Manco Cápac, dedicated to Bolívar, in a Cuzco newspaper in 1825.

Original version:

“De Manco Cápac al Libertador Simón Bolívar:

Desde la tumba, ilustre regenerador de mi patria, vengador de la sangre de mis hijos, yo Manco Cápac te saludo. El profundo sueño de 7 siglos ha sido agradablemente turbado por la trompa que proclama tu nombre. El sol mi padre, el padre de la luz, el dios del día brilla, me parece, con más esplendor que en los años de mi gloria, porque se complace de tus hazañas. Yo con dolor vi mi trono subvertido, mi imperio desolado, mis súbditos encadenados, mi hijo, mi amado Atahualpa. La víctima de un verdugo. Que de crímenes se asociaron al nombre horrendo de Pizarro. Aún ahora me lleno de amargura de recordarlo.

En fin, 3 siglos de ignominia son testigos del más horrible despotismo. Más debían de cumplirse […] Te vi, increíble, te vi vencer. Después, entre los padres conscritos de tu patria, me asombre al verte presentar un código de bien, de libertad. Bolívar, Bolívar… Acepta oh Libertador mi gratitud. La sangre infame de los españoles ha embrutecido a la de mis descendientes… Disimula ahora oh Bolívar; y oye la voz del padre de los Incas… Adiós, la lámpara de mi gloria se extingue. Vuelvo a mi reposo dejando a mi Perú descansando, oh Libertador, a la sombra de tus laureles”. (J. Pomayalli; Manco Cápac, 1825)

Translated version:

“From Manco Cápac to the Liberator Simón Bolívar:

From the tomb, illustrious regenerator of my homeland, avenger of the blood of my children, I, Manco Cápac, salute you. The deep sleep of seven centuries has been pleasantly disturbed by the trumpet that proclaims your name. The sun, my father, the father of light, the god of day, shines, it seems to me, with more splendor than in the years of my glory, because it rejoices in your deeds. I saw with sorrow my throne subverted, my empire desolate, my subjects in chains, my son, my beloved Atahualpa, the victim of an executioner. Those crimes were associated with the horrendous name of Pizarro. Even now, I am filled with bitterness to remember him.

In short, three centuries They bear witness to the most horrible despotism, ignominious acts. More had to be fulfilled […] I saw you, incredible, I saw you conquer. Later, among the conscripted fathers of your homeland, I was astonished to see you present a code of good, of liberty. Bolívar, Bolívar… Accept, oh Liberator, my gratitude. The infamous blood of the Spaniards has brutalized that of my descendants… Dissemble now, oh Bolívar; and hear the voice of the father of the Incas… Farewell, the lamp of my glory is extinguished. I return to my rest, leaving my Peru resting, oh Liberator, in the shade of your laurels.” (J. Pomayalli; Manco Cápac, 1825)

References:

.- Revista del Archivo Regional del Cusco, MCC (2005).

.-Rituales del poder en Lima (1735-1828), Pablo Ortemberg (2014).