University of Virginia Library

LA POLA.

The Colombians, generally, will long remember La
Pola. With the history of their struggle for freedom,
her story is deeply associated, and the tragical destiny
which followed her love of country, is linked with all
the interest of the most romantic adventure. Her spirit
seemed made of the finest materials, while her patriotism
and courage, to the last, furnish a model which
it would have been well for her country, had it been
more generally adopted and followed by its sons.

Dona Apolinaria Zalabariata, better known by the
name of La Pola, was a young lady of good family in
Bogota, distinguished not less by her personal accomplishments
than her rich and attractive beauty. She was
but a child when Bolivar commenced his struggles with
the ostensible object of freeing his country from the
trammels of its oppressors. Her father, a gentleman of
considerable acquirement as well as wealth, warmly
seconded the designs of the Liberator, though from circumstances
compelled to forbear any active agency,

himself, in their promotion. He was a republican of
considerable resources and sleepless perseverance; and,
without taking up arms himself, he probably contributed
quite as much to the success of the experiment for
liberty, as those who did. In this, he was warmly seconded
by his daughter; who, with that ingenuity of
contrivance, commonly ascribed to her sex, was, perhaps,
the most valuable auxiliar that Bolivar had in
Bogota.

She was but fourteen years of age, when accident
gave her the first glance of the man afterwards the president
of her country. At this time, with few resources
and fewer friends and coadjutors, Bolivar occasioned
little distrust, and, perhaps, commanded as little attention.
Still, he was known, and generally recognised as
an enemy to the existing authorities. Prudence was
necessary, therefore; and it was at midnight, and during
a severe thunder storm, that he entered the city, and
made his way, by arrangement, into the inner apartments
of the house of Zalabariata. A meeting of the
conspirators—for such they were—had been contemplated
on this occasion, and many of them were in attendance.
The circumstances could not be altogether
concealed from the family, and La Pola, who had heard
something of Bolivar which had excited her curiosity,
contrived to be present; though partially concealed by
her habit, and by a recess situation which she had
chosen. The Liberator explained his projects to the
assembly. He was something more than eloquent—he
was impassioned; and the warmth of a southern sun
seemed burning in his words and upon his lips. La Pola
heard him with ill-concealed admiration. Not so her

countrymen. Accustomed to usurpation and overthrow,
they were slow to adventure life and property
upon the predictions of one, who, as yet, had given so
few assurances of success for the game which he had in
hand. They hesitated, they scrupled, and opposed to
his animated exhortations a thousand suggestions of
prudence—a thousand calculations of fear. The Liberator
grew warmer and more vehement. He denounced
in broad language the pusillanimity, which, as much as
the tyranny under which they groaned, was the curse of
his country.

“Am I to go alone,”—he exclaimed passionately—
“am I to breast the enemy singly—will none of you
come forward, and join with me in procuring the liberation
of our people? I ask you not, my countrymen, to
any grievous risk—to any rash adventure. There is
little peril, be assured, in the strife before us. We are
more than a match, united among ourselves and with
determined spirits, for twice—ay thrice—the power
which they can bring into the field. But even were this
not the case—were it that the chances were all decidedly
against us, I cannot see, still, how you can, or why
you should, hesitate to draw the sword in such a strife.
You daily and hourly feel the exactions and witness the
murders and cruelties of your masters. Thousands of
your friends and relatives lie rotting in the common
prisons, denied the most common attentions and necessaries,
and left to perish under innumerable privations.
Thousands have perished in torture; and over the gateway
of your city, but now as I entered, hanging in
chains, the bleaching bones of old Hermano, one of our
best citizens, destroyed because he dared to speak freely

his thought of these doings, attest the uncompromising
and bloody tyranny under which you must momentarily
look for a like fate. If you be men—if you have hearts
or hopes—if you have affections to lose and live for—
you surely will not hesitate as to the choice—the only
choice which a freeman—one worthy and desirous of
the name—should be allowed to make.”

The Liberator paused, as much through exhaustion,
as from a desire to enable his hearers to reply. But,
with this latter object, his pause seemed made entirely in
vain. The faces of all around him were blank and
speechless. They were generally quiet, well meaning
citizens, unaccustomed to any enterprises save those of
trade, and they were slow to risk the wealth which
many of them possessed in abundance, to the certain
confiscation which would follow any overt exhibition
against the existing authorities. While in this state of
hopeless and speechless indecision, the emotions of the
chief were scarcely controllable. His whole frame
trembled with the excitement of his spirit. He paced
their ranks hurriedly—now pausing with this and that
personage—appealing to them singly as he had done
collectively, and suggesting a thousand arguments of
weight for the effecting of his purposes. He became
impatient at length, and again addressed them.

“Men of Bogota, you are not worthy to be free if
you can hesitate longer. Your chains and insecurity
will have been merited, and be assured, when they become
necessary to the wants of your enemy, your present
acquiescence to his power will not avail for the
protection of your lives or property. They are both at
his mercy, and he will not pause, as you have done, to

make use of them. To save them from him, you must
risk them for yourselves. To suppose that his mercies
will keep them for your benefit is to think madly. There
is no security against power, but in power; and to check
the innovating terrors of the one, you must exhibit, at
the threshold, the strong armed vengeance of the other.
A day—an hour—and it may be too late. To-morrow,
unless I am betrayed to-night”—looking with a sarcastic
smile around him as he spoke—“I shall unfurl the
banner of the republic, and if there be no other name
arrayed in arms against the oppressor, the more glory
to that of Bolivar.”

While the chief spoke, the emotions of the youthful
La Pola could not be concealed. The colour came to,
and went from, her cheeks—the tears started to her
eyes—she rose hurriedly from her seat which she unconsciously
again resumed, and, as the Liberator concluded
his address, rushed across the narrow space
which separated her from her father, and seizing him
by the hand, with an action the most passionate, yet
dignified and graceful, she led him to the spot where
Bolivar still held his position; then for the first time
giving utterance to her lips, she exclaimed enquiringly,

“He must not stand alone, my father. You have a
name, and you will give it—you will not withhold it
from your country—and I, too,—I will do what I can,
if”—and her eye sunk before that of the chief as she
spoke,—while her voice trembled with a tone of modest
doubt, the most winning and expressive—“if you will
let me.”

The eloquence of the woman did more than all that
had been uttered either by way of reason or patriotic

impulse and exhortation from the lips of the chief.
The men, touched with a sense of shame, at once came
forward, and entered into the required pledges. There
was no more hesitation—no new scruple; and the
Liberator pressing the hand of the bright-eyed girl to
his, lips called her a spirit worthy of her country, and
such as if possessed generally by its sons, could not
fail, in a short time, most effectually to recover its
liberties.

In another day, and the standard of the republic
was raised. The republicans assembled numerously
beneath it, and but little foresight was necessary to
perceive, that in the end, the cause must eventually
triumph. Still the successes were various. The
Spaniards had too strong a foothold, easily to be driven
from their possessions, and the conflict, as we know,
was for a long time of the most indecisive and various
character. What the Colombians wanted, however,
in the materials for carrying on a protracted warfare,
was more than made up in the patriotism, the talent
and the vigilance of their leaders generally; and however
delayed may have been the event which they
desired and had in view, its certainty of attainment
seems never for a moment to have been questioned,
except by those who vainly continued to keep up an
ineffectual and hopeless conflict against them.

For two years, that the war had been carried on, no
material change had been effected in the position of
the combatants. The Spaniards still maintained their
ground in most respects, except where the Colombians
had been unanimous in their rising; but their resources
were hourly undergoing diminution, and the great lessening

of the productions of the country incident to
its unsettled condition, had subtracted largely from
the inducements held out, individually, to their officers,
for the further prosecution of the war. In the mean
time, the patriots were invigorated with hope in due
proportion with the depression of their opponents;
and the increase of numbers, not to speak of the
added skill and capacity of their arms, following their
long and continuous warfare, not a little contributed to
their further encouragement. But how, in all this
time, had La Pola redeemed her pledge to the Liberator?
It may be supposed that the promise of the girl
of fifteen, was not of such a nature as to warrant a
reasonable hope or prospect of its fulfilment. It certainly
was not regarded by Bolivar, himself, as any
thing more than the hasty utterance of her emotion,
under particular excitement, having no other object,
if it had any, than to provoke, by a sense of shame and
self-rebuke, the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen.
The girl herself did not think so, however. From
that moment she became a woman—a strong minded,
highly persevering, and most attractive woman. All her
soul was bent to the achievement of some plan of co-operation
with the republican chief, and circumstances
largely contributed to the desire thus entertained. She
resided in Bogota—the strong hold of the royalist
forces, under the control of Zamano, a military despot,
who, in process of time, in that country, acquired by his
cruelties a parallel notoriety with some of the foulest
governors of the Roman dependencies. Her family
was wealthy, and though favouring Bolivar's enterprise,
as we have seen, had so conducted, as to remain entirely
unsuspected by the existing powers. This
enviable security, the management of La Pola, herself,
had principally effected; and under its cover she perfected
a scheme of communication with the patriots,
by which she put into their possession all the plans of
the Spaniards. She was the princess of the Tertulias
—a mode of evening entertainment common to the
Spaniards. She presided at these parties with a grace
and influence which brought all their officers to her
house. They listened with delight to the power and
delicacy with which she accommodated her voice—one
of singular compass and melody—to the notes of her
guitar, in the performance upon which she was uncommonly
successful. Unsuspected of any connection
with politics, and regarded only as a fine woman, more
solicitous of a long train of admirers than of any thing
else, she contrived to collect, from the officers themselves,
most of their plans in the prosecution of the
war. She soon learned the force of their several
armaments, their disposition and destination, and, indeed,
in timely advance, all the projected operations
of the Spanish army. She knew all the officers, and
from those present obtained a knowledge of their
absent companions. In this way, she knew the station
of each advanced post—who was in command, and
most of those particulars, the knowledge of which
tended as frequently to the success of Bolivar, as his
own conduct and the courage of his men. All these
particulars were regularly transmitted to him, as soon
as obtained, by a trusty messenger; and the frequent
disappointments of the royalist arms attested the closeness
and general correctness of the information thus
obtained.

Unfortunately, one of her communications was intercepted,
and the cowardly bearer, intimidated by the
terror of impending death, was persuaded to betray his
employer. She was arrested in the midst of an assembled
throng, to whom her voice and guitar were imparting
a mingled melody of most attractive romance.
She was nothing alarmed at this event, but was hurried
before a military court—martial law then prevailing in
the capital—with a rapidity corresponding with the
supposed enormity of her offence. Her lover—a noble
youth named Gomero—though perfectly innocent of
any connection with her acts on this occasion, was
tried along with her, and both condemned—for, at this
time, condemnation and trial were words of synonymous
import—to be shot. Zamano the viceroy, desirous
of more victims and hoping to discover her
accomplices, granted them a respite of twelve hours
before execution, sparing no effort in all this time to
bring about a confession. The friar sent to confess
her, threatened her, if she ventured upon any concealments
from him, with eternal punishment hereafter;
while promises of pardon and reward assailed both
herself and her betrothed, in the hope of effecting the
same object—but all equally in vain. She resolutely
denied having any other accomplice than the messenger
she had employed, and prayed a release from the
persecution of all further enquiries. Perceiving that
Gomero, her intended husband, was about to speak
and probably confess, through a very natural dread of
the death he saw so near—she seized his arm impressively,
and fixing her dark eyes reproachfully upon
him, she exclaimed,—

“Gomero, did I love you for this? Beware lest I
hate and curse you as I die. What! is life so dear to
you that you would dishonour us both to live? Is
there no consolation in the thought that we shall die
together?”

“But we shall both be saved!” rejoined her lover.

“It is false! The tyrant Zamano spares none; our
lives are forfeit, and all that you could say would be
unavailing to avert either your fate or mine. He only
desires new victims, and will not release his grasp
upon those in his doom. If you have ever loved me,
Gomero, speak no more after this fashion. Show yourself
worthy of the choice which I have made, in the
manner of your death.”

The lover persevered in silence, and they were led
forth to execution. The friars retired from the hapless
pair, and the firing party made ready. Then, for
the first time, did the spirit of this noble woman shrink
impulsively from the approach of death.

“Butcher!” she exclaimed to the viceroy, who stood
in his balcony overlooking the scene of execution—
“Butcher—you have then the heart to kill a woman”
—and as she spoke, she covered her face with the saya
or veil which she wore, and on drawing it aside for
the purpose, the words “Vive la Patria,” embroidered
in gold were discovered on the basquina. As the signal
for execution was given a distant hum as of an advancing
army was heard upon the ear.

“It is he—he comes—it is Bolivar—it is the Liberator!”
she exclaimed with a tone of triumph, which
found its echo in the bosoms of thousands who looked
with horror on the scene of blood before them. Bolivar

it was—he came with all speed to the work of deliverance—the
city was stormed sword in hand—a
summary atonement was taken in the blood of the
cruel viceroy and his flying partisans. But the Deliverer
came too late to the rescue of the beautiful La
Pola. The fatal bullet had penetrated her heart, but
a few moments before the appearance of the liberating
army upon the works, and in sight of the place of execution.
Thus perished a woman, worthy to be remembered
with the purest and the proudest who have
elevated and done honour to nature and her sex—one
who, with all the feelings and affections of the woman,
possessed all the patriotism, the pride, the courage,
and the daring of the man!