Antonio Amador José de Nariño y Álvarez del Casal (April 9, 1765 – December 13, 1823) was a Colombian ideological precursor of the independence movement in New Granada (present-day Colombia) as well as one of its early political and military leaders. In 1793, he published the first French to Spanish translation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in Spain's American colonies.
Born to an aristocratic family in 1760 in Santafe de Bogota, from his youth, Nariño was involved in political activities that he knew how to combine with financial and commercial activities that led him to accumulate a fortune. His foray into politics would see him become mayor of the second vote elected by the council of Santafe in 1789, as well as interim treasurer of tithes of the archbishopric, appointed in July of the same year.
His fortune allowed him to import his own printing press, which allowed him to create the Patriotic Press (Imprenta Patriotica) where he began to publish and distribute clandestinely various texts amongst his literary circle of which many prominent creoles of Santafe were a part of. In 1793 after having acquired a French copy of the History of the Revolution of 1789, Narino translated the portion of the text that contained the Declarations of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from French to Spanish and distributed it among his circle. This event would see his arrest along with other members of his literary society by Spanish authorities.
Between the time of his arrest in his house in Santa Fe, in August 1794 and his release in Cartagena in June 1810, for a period of almost sixteen years, Nariño was imprisoned except for the interval he spent hidden in Europe and America between the moment of his escape to Cádiz (March 17, 1796) and his voluntary surrender in Santa Fe (July 19, 1797).
After his release in Cartagena in June 1810, Nariño returned to Santa Fe in time to collaborate in the organization of the first Neogranadine congress of which he was appointed secretary at the beginning of sessions in December 1810. However, as time passed the unity between the delegates of the various provinces of New Granada would crumble as the argument between Federalism and Centralism arose, Nariño was a staunch centralist and vehemently attacked and criticized his federalist opponents through the press that he owned. This tension would see the federalists split from the centralist congress in Santafe and form a federalist one in Tunja. The two sides engaged in a brief civil war in 1812, where Narino took command of the Centralist military forces and defeated them when they attempted to capture Santafe in early 1813.
Nariño was not originally a military officer by nature, but would take his first steps in that direction in 1813 when he was president of Cundinamarca and he offered to command the united forces of the State that he governed with those of the United Provinces of New Granada, contributed from Tunja by his political rival Camilo Torres Tenorio, in order to march south to recover Popayán and prevent Spanish royalist troops from advancing into the interior of the Republic in an invasion effort ordered by the presidency of Quito.
The initial success of the campaign, which Nariño led victoriously to the gates of the city of Pasto, ended in failure when Nariño was forced to surrender to the military chief of Pasto in May 1814. The following six years were spent again in prison in Spain.
Nariño eventually returned to America in 1820 traveling through the Caribbean and Venezuela. By then his homeland had been liberated from Spanish control and had joined in union with Venezuela to form the Republic of Colombia (Gran Colombia). On February 20, 1821, in recognition of his impact and leadership President Simón Bolívar made him interim vice-president of the new republic. Bolívar also asked Nariño to proceed to install in Villa del Rosario the constitutional congress that would ultimately create the 1821 Constitution and where he ran as a candidate to continue being vice-president of Colombia, however he would ultimately lose the race to General Francisco de Paula Santander.
Defeated politically he was given nominal roles within the government and continued publishing his newspaper "Los Toros de Fucha" (The Bulls from Fucha). Towards the last years of his life he became tired and ill with tuberculosis, he decided to quit his public roles and move to Villa de Leyva. Nariño died there on December 13, 1823. He is considered as one of the founding fathers of modern Republic of Colombia and a hero of the war of independence. Many monuments, towns and provinces carry his name in his honor.
Early life Antonio Amador José de Nariño y Álvarez del Casal was born on April 9, 1765, in Santafe de Bogota, the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada a territorial entity of the Spanish Empire. Born to an aristocratic family, he was the third son of Vicente Nariño y Vásquez, a Spaniard from Galicia, and Catalina Álvarez del Casal a noblewoman from Santafe. His father had moved to New Granada in 1751 as the Official Royal Accountant of New Granada, and headed the first gunpowder factory in Santafé (modern-day Bogotá). He was later promoted to Major Accountant, an important role that he played up to his death in 1778. Nariño's mother was the sister of Manuel Álvarez del Casal, one of the attorneys of the Royal Audience.
Details about his early life are scarce, but apparently, he studied in the Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé, a well-known Jesuit school in Bogotá, which had been founded in 1604.
In 1781 during the crisis sparked by Revolt of Comuneros of the Socorro Province, Nariño was enlisted as second lieutenant flag bearer in the Urban Infantry Militia Regiment to defend the viceregal government from the uprising, however he did not take place in any of the confrontations of the revolution.Riaño, Camilo (1973) El Teniente General Don Antonio Nariño. Bogotá. Imprenta y Litografía de las Fuerzas Armadas. p.53. With the rebellion crushed, he returned to civilian life as a merchant establishing business contacts in the important ports of Honda and Cartagena as he dealt in the export of tobacco, cacao, and other crops.Riaño, Camilo (1973) El Teniente General Don Antonio Nariño. Bogotá. Imprenta y Litografía de las Fuerzas Armadas. p.54.
Nariño married Magdalena Ortega y Mesa in 1785, with whom he had six children. By then, he was already a merchant and proactively involved in politics. In 1789, he was appointed ordinary major of Santafé, as well as General Treasurer of Tithes. By 1793, he had opened his own print shop and had obtained a license from the government to be allowed to print, which would later bring him trouble.
Early political activity Nariño was intellectually curious and admired the political ideologies of the leaders of the French and American Revolutions. In his impressive library there was a portrait of Benjamin Franklin above the mantle. In his youth, Nariño was a strong influence among the progressive young people of Bogotá, Colombia, hosting secret political gatherings that he called "The Sanctuary," where the need for independence and the means of achieving it were discussed. Attendees included later notables , , Luis de Rieux, Manuel Torres and Francisco Antonio Zea. Nariño was one of the most outspoken and articulate participants at these meetings and was widely respected by his fellow revolutionaries.
In 1794, Nariño procured a copy of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man", which was being distributed by the French Assembly. He translated the Declaration of the Rights of Man from its original French into Spanish and printed several copies from his own private press.MacFarlane, Anthony. Colombia before Independence: Economy, Society, and Politics under Bourbon Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 284-5. Print. He then circulated these translated pamphlets among his politically like-minded friends. Copies of the pamphlet were distributed to all corners of the continent and created a stirring in the political mentalities of the time. The government soon discovered the material, and any copy that was found was burned. Nariño was arrested on August 29, 1794, as were many of the fellow attendees of his Sanctuary meetings, and underwent trials during the rest of the year and the next one. His attorney, , was arrested as well, so no other lawyer wanted to defend his case, and he and his followers were sentenced to ten years of imprisonment in Africa for his leading role in the political group and was exiled from South America. In addition to this, all his property was confiscated. Nariño had previously worked as a tithe collector (Recaudador de diezmos) and was also accused of fraud resulting from this activity.
Nariño managed to escape in Cádiz, however, and then fled to Paris in 1795, where he devoted himself to the study of the French Revolution and its aftermath. This convinced him of the idea that centralized government was a superior form of government. After spending some time in France, Nariño went to England to look for economic and military support from the British but when he was denied it, he decided to return to Santafé (modern-day Bogotá). He traveled in disguise, but eventually he found himself forced to surrender to the authorities, on July 19, 1797. In prison he contracted tuberculosis. He was finally released in 1803, due to his health, and he recovered little by little.
By 1809, however, following the unrest all around the colonies over the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, many people started to meet clandestinely to discuss independence. Some of these conspirators, among them the priest Andrés Rosillo y Meruelo, started discussing a coup to overthrow the government and establish a republic in its stead, and the name of Nariño started circulating. Hearing of said rumors, viceroy Amar y Borbón decided to crush the rebellion before it started, and Nariño found himself arrested yet again when insurrections started to break all over the American colonies. He was moved to the prison in Cartagena de Indias, although he managed to escape briefly, only to be captured again on December 20, 1809, in Santa Marta. Nariño remained imprisoned in Cartagena, and was about to be sent to Puerto Rico, but he was freed in June 1810, following the city's declaration of independence. Following his release from prison, he had to wait for a few months in Cartagena before returning to his family. In December 1810, Nariño returned to Santafé, and became deeply involved in the creation of a sovereign state, independent from Spain.
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