Bolivar proclaimed "War to Death to the Spaniards," considering the conduct
of Monteverde, the savage crimes committed in the interior cities of
Venezuela, the many instances in which the Spanish authorities had shown an
utter disrespect for the sanctity of treaties and the lives and properties
of enemies who had surrendered, and even of peaceful natives, these acts
coupled with documents like the proclamation published by a Spanish
governor of a province in which he stated that his troops would not
give quarter to those who surrendered. The documents proving that this
proclamation had been issued were received by Bolivar in Trujillo. In
Bolivar's mind this idea was a permanent obsession: "Americans are dying
because they are Americans, whether or not they fight for American
freedom." He took into account the long list of crimes committed, the
harmless citizens, women and children who had died, the barbarous
asphyxiation of the prisoners in Puerto Cabello, the horrors committed on
the peaceful inhabitants of Caracas, and even the atrocities perpetrated by
the royalist armies in Mexico and other parts of the continent. He recalled
the leniency and mercy of the first independent government of Venezuela
and the cruelty of the Spanish authorities, and thought, not only of the
reprisals necessary to punish and, if possible, to stop these cruel deeds,
but also of the salutary effect of a rigorous attitude on hesitating men,
and the necessity that those who had not taken part on one side or another
should declare themselves immediately, whether they sympathized with and
were ready to help the cause of liberty, or favored a foreign regime.
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