The gringos killed Bolívar! Dan Brown sucks!

Did this happen?

Venezuelan state television channel VTV had a historian (?), Mier Hoffman, stating Bolívar was killed under the orders of the US government. Mier claims to possess US declassified material from a US ship that was in the Colombian coast at the same moment Bolívar was there in 1830.

If you speak Spanish, go here. It is a long video.

Spanish Florida had declared independence from Spain in the 1818-1820 period. Bolívar sent some troops under his friend and right-hand man, British general Gregor MacGregor. The US Americans invaded Florida under pretense they wanted to end the conflict with the revolting Indians and slaves who were taking refuge there. Andrew Jackson, a military commander and later US president, invaded Florida, attacked Indian tribes, burnt down the villages. Many US American books just say "and Spain sold Florida to the US". In reality Spain was forced to sell Florida and signed the Adams-Onís Treaty, one receding empire giving place to a new one. So far, I follow it. Now...

Andrew Jackson invaded Florida.

Here is where Mier starts to get weirder and weirder. He says Andrew Jackson had a problem with Bolívar since the time Bolívar had sent those troops to help with Florida's independence. Mier says in 1830 Bolívar was going to go back to Venezuela, where Páez had declared independence from Great Colombia. He said Bolívar was going to Venezuela with 2000 soldiers. Andrew Jackson - Mier dixit - was afraid of what Bolívar could do with those troops in Venezuela if he could do what he did (?) in Florida.

Florida as mapped by the US Americans, West Florida had been taken over already

The traditional account tells us there was a US American boat in the port of Cartagena by chance and that a US American physician was said to have helped Bolívar. Mier's account is that Andrew Jackson sent that ship there on 7 September "on a special mission". According to records, Jackson had sent the boat because Great Colombia was "unstable". The boat arrived firstly to Santo Domingo. From there it went to Cartagena on the 29th. Now the incredible:

• the murder of Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar's best friend, some months earlier, was part of a bigger conspiracy to make Bolívar weak and lure him to go to the coast (cough, cough)
  

Sucre murdered in Ecuador

• Bolívar became so distressed that he fell ill and went to the coast to rest and then took a boat, instead of following his soldiers who were going to Santa Marta by an inland road (!!!)
  
• The boat Bolívar took was owned by an ancestor of Mier, member of a well-known conquistador family. The Mier ancestor was taking part in the big conspiracy
  
• the US boat gave one cannon shot that according to Mier was not to salute but to threaten
• US soldiers got into the South American ship and took Bolívar as prisoner
• Bolívar wrote a last letter in which he gave some information in "Masonic code" revealing what was really happening
• the bones at the Panteon Nacional are not really Bolívar's bones and this is something even late president Rafael Caldera thought so
  

It is a matter of semantics: understand the special symbols, read between lines!







The whole interview is very chaotic, to put it mildly. Mier says there have been many groups trying to cover up the story, that even Mossad tried now to do something about that (yeah), that Bolívar could not have died from tuberculosis because his tuberculosis was inherited from his mother, apparently making him into some sort of Superman, and that he must have been poisoned. Mier also says Bolívar did not really die in the Santa Marta hacienda as I read about when I was a child. There was a really big complot, Mier says. The documents are being handed over to the Asamblea Nacional.

Mier does not explain why on Earth Bolívar was actually planning to leave Venezuela for Europe or how this complot stretched for so long. It would be nice if we could see him discuss in front of historians such as Manuel Caballero. Oh, debates, how much we need you in Venezuela!

This was Venezuela's state TV, the only one you can watch in every village or town in Venezuela.

Who needs Dan Brown when we have Venezuelan historians?

Stay tuned.