Introduction

Of the series of civil wars that marked political life in early republican Colombia during its incarnation as New Granada, the Golpe de Melo of 1854 is generally considered in isolation. In part this is because this war, which began in the streets of Bogotá on April 17 with a popular uprising involving the capital's artisans and ended on December 4 of that same year, offers a relatively straightforward narrative of popular rebellion. But this isolated treatment also reflects a historiographical tendency to emphasize artisan participation in the rebellion as a key moment in Colombia's early labor history, or analyzes the war within specific regional contexts. The conflict is rarely linked to the preceding wars of the early republic; the subsequent Constitution of 1858, which remade the country as the Granadine Confederation; or the War of 1860, which ushered in a quarter century of extreme federalism.

In contrast, in Las palabras de la guerra. Las guerras narradas del siglo XIX, María Teresa Uribe de Hincapie and Liliana López analyze Colombia's first three civil wars, or more precisely, the relevant post-war periods.¹ Though their examination of public memory based on published sources analyzes these wars in sequence rather than synthetically, considering all three poses questions about politics and nation-making in the early republic. It also presents the welcome challenge of employing historical methods to extend their analysis of narratives by incorporating indulto decrees and related petitions as important components of that narrative. Individual petitions are a rich resource for examining how ordinary people understood their rights and responsibilities in the mercurial world of the early republic, and provide a means of forging a better understanding of popular politics during the New Granadan era.² In considering the reckoning that followed 1854, Uribe de Hincapie and López Lopera find little of the thirst for public vengeance that marked the War of the Supremes (1839-1842) or the inclination toward quick reconciliation that followed the War of 1851. Instead, the post-war effort of 1855 was aimed at erasure; public amnesia as nation-building. But reading the flood of petitions from indultados and their families countered this effort and prolonged the public post-war reckoning. The clash over the relevant criteria for receiving an indulto undermined the government's constitutional project and contributed to the unmaking of New Granada as ongoing Liberal factionalism facilitated the election of Mariano Ospina Rodríguez and the Civil War of 1860, thus ushering in the Federal era.³

Republican Pardons

During the colonial era, the power of the monarch had blurred the distinction between grants of clemency as personal acts of grace invoking divine mercy and tactical pardons employed as mechanisms for quelling rebellions. Then, the practice endured through the Wars of Independence.⁴ In both Gran Colombia (1821-1831) and New Granada the practice continued, a common if contradictory feature of the constitutional era across the Atlantic World.⁵ During the presidency of Francisco Paula de Santander (1832-1837) there was little hint that indultos would become so prominent in the decades that followed, though the legal structures supporting their use were put into place with the draft of the country's first legal code that was then signed by Santander's successor José Ignacio de Márquez in 1837.⁶ This continuity was not without its critics. When Congress debated a new indulto for political offenses, El Noticioso in 1835 weighed in against the decree:

"Un indulto tan estenso, tan escandaloso i tan ajeno de las circunstancias actuales, empezaría por disolver la presente administración, porque desde el presidente de la república hasta los jefes políticos patriotas deberían abandonar sus destinos, puesto que el indulto es incompatible con la existencia de majistrados, gobernadores, consejeros, etc."⁷

At the same time, the public expected indultos, as demonstrated by Josefa Antonia Lizarralde de Arjona in a pamphlet published in 1837. Addressing the "Honorables Senadores y Representantes," Lizarralde requested an indulto for her son Alejo who had already served four years in prison in Panama, citing the precedent set by the Spanish crown and numerous contemporary examples.⁸ The possibility that the presidential transition from Santander to José Ignacio de Márquez had ushered in an era of peaceful electoral politics was foreclosed by the War of the Supremes. Though the initial uprising in Pasto was a minor series of protests against a law closing minor convents, in 1840 José María Obando sparked a national war. Facing fresh accusation that he was behind the assassination of Antonio José de Sucre in 1830, and wary of a proffered indulto guaranteeing him a fair trial, Obando declared himself the Supreme Director of the War in Pasto, setting off a national war.⁹ For several months in 1840 it seemed the government might fall, but by mid-1841 it regained the upper hand, and Obando's forces were defeated by an army under the command of Tomás C. de Mosquera. Obando fled into exile, in part because of Mosquera's practice of executing captured officers.¹⁰

The government responded to the threat of national dissolution with high profile executions and reluctantly granted indultos to some of the condemned.¹¹ Early in 1842 President Herrán explained the logic behind one proposal:

"Os presentó la República unida y tranquila, mas no debo ocultaros que aún es delicada la situación en que se halla. Tenéis que llenar una gran misión: afianzar el reinado de la paz, asegurar para siempre la reconciliación de nuestros hermanos, y creo que la llenaréis concediendo cuanto sea compatible con la seguridad pública en favor de tántos granadinos que sufren las penosas consecuencias de la revolución [...] Si por lo pasado es mi opinión que haya indulgencia, no pienso así para lo futuro. Os pido, pues leyes severísimas y fórmulas abreviadas para reprimir y castigar con prontitud y rigor el delito y aun el conato de rebelión."¹²

An anonymous pamphlet, by "Un amigo personal y político del Jeneral Herran," offered a pessimistic appraisal of the proposal:

"La guerra ha terminado y ahora es que viene bien un acto espléndido de clemencia. Es como si dijera: el imperio de la leí se ha restablecido, y ahora es que conviene no cumplir la leí [...] ¿el mismo Jeneral Herra no concedió à Obando y a todos los rebeldes de Timbio una plena amnistía en enero del año de 40? ¿No aseguró à la nacion, que este acto de beneficencia produciría los mas felices resultados?"¹³

Despite such censure, the use of indultos endured through the passage of the Constitution of 1843; the liberal reforms of mid-century; the formal organization of the Conservative and Liberal parties; and the split of the latter into the elite-led Golgota and Draconian factions. Draconians were less radical in their politics than Golgotas but, with staunch support from artisans in the eastern highlands and from Afro-Colombians in Cauca and the Caribbean, they proved capable of radical action.¹⁴ During the presidential election of 1849 when neither Liberal faction nor the Conservatives won a majority in the first round of voting, artisans packed the congressional galleries in Bogotá, offering vociferous support for or, according to some accounts, threats in favor of the Draconian candidate José Hilario López.¹⁵ López was elected. An indulto followed that allowed Obando to return to New Granada where he served first as governor of Cartagena and then as congressional representative of Bogotá.

The War of 1851, led by Conservative planters from the Cauca Valley, who were aggrieved over the final abolition of slavery, was brief.¹⁶ It was ended with relative ease and was not seen as a fundamental challenge to the republic. The post-war reckoning had little of the vitriol of the War of the Supremes, in part because of the zeal shown by Cauca's Afro-Colombian population in taking up arms against these former slave owners, which posed a greater threat to social order than the rebellion. The war neither slowed the pace of reform, nor ended Liberal factionalism. In 1853 Golgotas in Congress succeeded in ratifying a new constitution and Obando was elected president as a Draconian.

The Golpe de Melo

The rising class tension that was articulated through party factionalism turned into open confrontations in the streets of Bogotá and then exploded under the leadership of General José María Melo on the morning of April 17, 1854.¹⁷ Whether Melo, the commander of the Bogotá garrison, rebelled in order to avoid prosecution after he was accused of complicity in the murder of Corporal Pedro Ramón Quiroz, or in response to congressional plans to reduce the size of the standing army, or in emulation of the European revolutions of 1848, or due to some combination of these factors is still unclear. The uprising enjoyed widespread support among the artisans of Bogotá, many of whom also served in National Guard units and were members of democratic societies. Cali also emerged as a center of rebellion, and there were uprisings and pronouncements of solidarity in other parts of the country as well.

Obando declined the invitation to lead a provisional government, though not with sufficient alacrity to deter subsequent accusations that he had encouraged or even planned the uprising. With Melo in control of Bogotá, the members of Congress who escaped from the capital gathered in Ibagué where, after some disorganization, Vice-President Obaldia led a "Constitutional" government of Golgotas and Conservatives. Generals López, Mosquera, and Pedro Herran led the military effort. The war was relatively short. The Melistas won only a single significant military victory at Zipaquirá. López's forces took control of Cali peacefully in November and an army entered Bogotá in triumph on December 4.

A congressional commission had prepared charges against Obando during the war and he was tried twice. In one trial, remarkably, he was found innocent of the crime of failing to fulfill his office. In the second case, he was found guilty of "traición y rebelión," and sentenced to twelve years of exile and fined one-eighth of his wealth.¹⁸ This verdict was overturned on appeal and Obando retired to Pasto shortly thereafter. The case against Melo was clearer. He was found guilty of rebellion in civil court and sentenced to eight years of exile and the forfeiture of all of his property. The accusation concerning Corporal Quiroz still stood, so he was excluded from receiving an indulto as these decrees did not apply to common crimes. Free on bond, Melo accepted the sentence of exile and fled before he could be tried for murder.¹⁹ The trials of Obando and the prosecution of Melo were exceptional because of their notoriety, but they were nothing out of the ordinary as legal processes against accused rebels. For two years the national government, and some provincial governments, worked to hold all rebels legally accountable, but formal trials were rare. Generally, the government sought to circumvent individual trials with decrees of indulto. In the sort of irony that typified public life in New Granada, these decrees extended the post-war reckoning as they encouraged further petitions and appeals.

Indultos had been issued during the war when both sides used them to tempt enemy soldiers to desert.²⁰ But the decrees that came after the fighting was over were more significant. The first followed the entry of Constitutionalist forces into Cali. While there was not much fighting in Cauca, Melistas had controlled the city for several months and tensions between Afro-Colombian Draconians and the Conservative elite, echoes of 1851, had run high. López took control of the city peacefully, in part because his status as a popular Draconian was taken as a sign that a rapprochement would follow. Instead, he treated prominent Melistas harshly, issuing indultos that carried lengthy sentences of exile.²¹

The reckoning which took place in Bogotá two months later followed suit. Contemporary accounts and historical studies agree that somewhere between two hundred and four hundred Melistas were rounded up on the night of December 4 and marched off to exile in Panama before dawn the next day.²² Published lists confirm that 341 accused Melistas from Bogotá were forced to accept sentences of three or four years of military service in Panama as a condition of their indulto.²³ The attempt to cleanse the taint of rebellion and circumvent a flood of trials simultaneously failed. In part this was because national and provincial officials continued to compile lists of suspected rebels and indultados throughout 1855. By September, 1,949 people had been named in such lists: 1,094 from in or around Bogotá, 636 from Cauca, 168 from Santander, and 51 from the rest of the country.²⁴ More than half of those named were declared innocent or granted unconditional pardons. The rest were denied clemency or, more frequently, offered indultos that carried sentences of provincial exile, often combined with military service (see Table 1).

At first, decrees of indulto were presented as part of a triumphant restoration. Obaldia, still the acting executive, began his address to Congress on February 1, 1855 by saying: "'La República se salvará:' fueron las últimas palabras de mi Mensaje de 22 de setiembre de 1854, al memorable Congreso de Ibagué; i no habían trascurrido dos meses i medio, cuando los defensores de la causa constitucional, radiantes de gloria, me abrían las puertas de la capital para que dirijiese pacíficamente los destinos de Nueva Granada."²⁵ For many, such pronouncements rang hollow. Though the death penalty had been abolished for political crimes in 1849, for residents of Bogotá, exile to Panama was a death sentence.²⁶ The official assertion that such sentences had been accepted by the accused rang hollow, in part because anyone who rejected the terms of this indulto would be transported to Panama for their trial.²⁷

Early in 1855 rumors spread through the capital that prisoners had been executed on the road to Panama, accompanied by lists of the dead; an echo of the government's published lists.²⁸ The poem San Bartolomé en 1855, written by the well-known literary figure Lorenzo M. Lleras while he was held in the prison of that same name, also demonstrates that exile to the isthmus was understood as a death sentence:

"Mas, no finjas, no finjas, Obaldía,/Que la hija del pueblo al pueblo mate:/ Si es que manda la lei, la leí se acate; /I si no manda, escusa la ironía. /Cuando pregonas tú, que perdonas, /¿Por qué amarrados, entre soldados, /De los vencidos los desvalidos, /Por centenares, de sus hogares/ A tierra ajena parten, en pena/ De ese delito no comprobado,/ I que indultado dices que está? /I si hai quien, inocente, rechace tu clemencia, /¿Por qué, contra las leyes, tras de su muerte vá? /¿Protejes su inocencia privándole de amigos, /De pruebas, de testigos, i de su Juez acá? (4)[...]

No basta, no, la muerte preparada,/De fiebre i hambre, en la desierta arena,/ Ó en el raudal del ancho Magdalena/ Por balsa aleve, incógnita, llevada; (6)/ Ni que asesino, por el camino, /O en el poblado, desatentado/ Su daga vibre, i el pueblo libre/ El valle hermoso que el espumoso/ Cáuca serpea, diezmado sea,/ I tinto el Cáuca con sangre suya, /Rápido huya hasta su fin; [...]"²⁹

The government, meanwhile, continued to publish lists of indultados, using the Gaceta Oficial as a tool for demonstrating the workings of a dispassionate legal culture. Though historically, governmental reliance on indultos was engendered by a regime's weak position vis-à-vis rebellion; in the European tradition, pardons were ritualized as grants of mercy invoking divine grace in order to reify a ruler's authority. New Granadan governments, and Obaldia's in particular, eschewed such charismatic displays in order to emphasize the constitutional basis for clemency. In fact, the charges against Obando prepared by a congressional commission were published in October 1854 as Causa de responsabilidad contra el ciudadano presidente.³⁰

Such efforts had no discernable impact on the public at large, in part because the presentation of a rational post-war legal reckoning was undermined by the state's limited capacity. This was evident in the inability of officials to track the accused and the indultados. Notably, none of the lists of indultados that were published were numbered. In February 1855, Secretary of State Pastor Ospina could only estimate that these decrees applied to thousands of individuals.³¹ He wrote that as many as 500 prisoners awaited trial in Bogotá with more in other cities or at large who might receive indultos. No other figures were published. From mid-December 1854 through February 1855, the Gazette published lists generated by the national government.³² Then, in response to a query from the governor of Cundinamarca about whether his recommendations were approved, Obaldia empowered provincial governors to grant indultos, though Bogotá maintained oversight.³³ The change reflected the regime's flagging will to manage the post-war process, rather than the sense that the task had been accomplished.

Perhaps another reason to decentralize the power of indulto, as Bogotá had done with various colonial taxes a few years earlier, was the continuing criticism of the practice. In January an anonymous essay credited to "Unos Jovenes," in the short-lived paper, Ultima Campanada attacked indultos, "[...] los prisioneros no tienen derecho a ninguna indulgencia, ni al asilo en las naciones estranjeros," though the author, or authors, allowed that subalterns might be pardoned.³⁴ Such condemnations were not confined to the free-wheeling press, as demonstrated in the correspondence about Raimundo Grillo's appeal. Grillo had worked provisioning Melo's forces, though he had neither participated in the events of April 17 nor taken up arms against the government and, he claimed, had only dealt with cattle that had already been seized. This, he asserted, allowed him to seek an indulto with complete confidence.³⁵ Fiscal F. E. Álvarez broke with the neutral tone of official correspondence to condemn Grillo's appeal and the overall use of indultos in the justice system. He argued that the laws encouraged miscreants to commit greater crimes in order to qualify for indultos. This, he argued, undermined public morals and created an atmosphere of impunity. If things went on in this fashion, he explained, the History of New Granada would be written by groups of bandits claiming to represent political parties.³⁶ Álvarez was not simply voicing his own frustrations. When Obaldia granted Joaquín Posada, the publisher of the satirical El Alacrán, an indulto that same month, Álvarez resigned in protest.³⁷

As governors took up the task of deciding which accused rebels merited clemency, indultos were granted with less stringent terms than those set by the national government.³⁸ Bogotá maintained final say and rejected at least one provincial indulto, overruling a Popayan decree sentencing the priest Manuel María Alaix to a two-year exile and insisting instead on a sentence of six.³⁹ But this reversal was an exception in a trend toward leniency. In the months that followed, the Gaceta published fourteen provincial decrees listing 800 indultos,⁴⁰ with some like an April decree that reduced seventy-three existing sentences,⁴¹ while another granted full pardons to twenty-five who had been sent to Panama immediately after December 4.⁴²

One reason for the increasingly relaxed terms was the challenge of keeping the accused imprisoned. In Bogotá, they were held in the typhus-ravaged prison in the Colegio de San Bartolomé, a flash point for criticism and a symbol of the government's disorganization.⁴³ In April, Ramon Ardila, a well-known Melista, wrote to protest the conditions of his imprisonment, claiming that he was held shackled in a crowded cell with fifty-six others.⁴⁴ Officials dismissed his complaints, but they could not ignore the public outcry or the challenge of holding suspects. In June, as three prisoners were being transferred from San Bartolomé to the Charity Hospital, Ardila and Jenero Gaitan took advantage of the disorder to escape.⁴⁵ Their pending indulto was cancelled.⁴⁶

Other signs of the regime's inability to manage a formal judicial review proliferated. That same month, officials reported that Luis Estrada, sentenced to four years of military service in Panama, had been seen moving freely around Bogotá.⁴⁷ The governor also compiled a list of 55 men who had been sentenced to exile in Panama, noting that five had fled.⁴⁸ In July, officials called attention to the petition of Martín Mogollon, largely because his name appeared on a number of lists and they could not determine his actual sentence.⁴⁹ There were no published lists in 1856. Instead, the year was punctuated by decrees marking the regime's flagging will to deal with the remaining accused rebels or to enforce existing sentences. One decree in January reduced existing sentences; another in July voided earlier conditions except for those who had served in the military prior to April 17.⁵⁰ On September 30, 1856 a final decree pardoned former members of the military, though they were obliged to present themselves to their respective governors, remain outside of the province where they had committed their crime for a year, and provide a bond as a guarantee of good behavior.⁵¹ Legally, the rebellion was over.

Individual Appeals

Working against the ordered pretensions of these decrees was the steady stream of individual petitions submitted by accused rebels and their families. Though the decrees were intended to circumvent time-consuming trials, officials reviewed petitions that had been prompted by successive decrees as if they were formal legal appeals, gathering information through reports, letters of support, and sworn testimony given in front of local judges. The result was an unwieldy process that drew in more and more people. Consider the appeal of Modesto Barbosa to shorten the four-year sentence of exile that was a condition of his indulto.⁵² Barbosa wrote from prison in Bogotá, arguing that even though he had served as a judge in the town of Choachí during the rebellion, he had always acted honorably. He asked the presiding judge of Choachí at that time to take testimony to confirm this claim. Six men were questioned in the court offices of the town and testimony was then taken from Felipe Sandino at his home, where he was confined due to poor health. Anyone in Choachí who was not already following this drama surely learned of the affair as the judge, notary, witnesses, and others walked from the court office to Sandino's home to pose, in the formal rhythms of a court procedure, questions relating to Barbosa's actions. One appeal touched dozens of lives and created countless moments for participants and observers to reflect on the responsibilities of citizens to defend a regime incapable of maintaining control over society.

Writing about Tudor England, K. J. Kesselring notes that a pardon "has no intrinsic meaning," that it is the presentation of mercy, the humility of the supplicant, and the participation of an audience that imbue the act with significance.⁵³ In New Granada, the rationalist intentions of the regime foundered in a splintering administrative effort that produced hundreds, if not thousands, of mercurial public performances, in part because petitioners turned to traditional juridical culture. When Juan Nepomuceno Franqui wrote from prison in 1855, he invoked regal, Christian mercy in seeking the "gracia" of an indulto, a fairly common usage.⁵⁴ In contrast, very few petitioners employed the republican rhetoric of appealing to the "Citizen" Vice-President.

The most profound appeal to tradition was when petitioners invoked family and familial obligations. These appeals also tended to reflect on the hardship of exile.⁵⁵ Juan Nepomuceno Garcia invoked this theme when writing to the governor of Cauca on behalf of his son Miguel who was in exile for having served as the mayor of Buchitolo during the rebellion. He was living in Jamaica, serving an eight-year sentence of exile, already halved from the original sentence of sixteen.⁵⁶ The appeal was short and poignant. Garcia wrote that he would not live until his son's scheduled return in 1863, "porque la vida es un vapor que se disipa."⁵⁷ He reflected on the petitioning process:

"De todas partes os dirijirán memoriales padres, hermanos, esposas, amigos i aun los mismos enemigos políticos para conseguir la libertad de hijos, esposos, amigos, hermanos i enemigos. Los gemidos del dolor i los gritos de la desesperación se oyen en tu resinto a todas horas i los gritos del goza si hay algunos no serán la expresión de la felicidad sino de la antipatía que gozo del mal de sus víctimas."⁵⁸

His son had paid for his deeds, "esos brazos los reclaman la agricultura, las ciencias, las artes, el comercio i en fin la patria misma." García included no testimonies to his son's honorable character. The basis of the petition was that his need and those of the nation, even the rising passion for economic development, were intertwined. In a variation on this theme, Maria de Jesus Ordoñez petitioned on behalf of her son, José Trinidad Forero, arguing that he had suffered through internal exile while attempting to avoid impressment by Melistas during the war. Only sixteen years old, he had sought shelter in various locations and deserted after being forced to serve.⁵⁹ Ordoñez asked if the government would subject her son to a second exodus? Marginal notes in her appeal indicate that officials were sympathetic, and Forero was among those who received an unconditional pardon in April.⁶⁰

When Jenaro Mendoza, "ciudadano pacifico, buen padre de familia, honrado, sumiso y obediente a las autoridades," appealed to the governor of Pamplona for an indulto in January of 1855, he situated family within a more significant context.⁶¹ In Mendoza's account, when Melista forces entered Pamplona in August 1854, they claimed the town's central plaza without opposition from the retreating government forces. Soon after, the rebels appeared at Mendoza's home near that plaza and demanded that he continue his military service, threatening his family should he refuse. How, he asked rhetorically, could he have abandoned his wife and children after the battle was lost? Mendoza's precise description of the plaza, the cathedral, and his home juxtaposed spaces where sacred, patrimonial authority girded the moral functioning of the republic. In vacating the plaza, the government allowed the web of obligation binding social order to unravel. As a "padre de familia," Mendoza fulfilled his obligation to protect those under his authority in the sacrosanct domestic space, while those who had abnegated a similar responsibility now stood in judgment over him. The governor of Pamplona acknowledged Mendoza's upstanding character but, as the appeal was submitted prior to the decree of February 28, could only recommend that he be granted an unconditional pardon.⁶² Until the decrees of 1856, members of the military who had continued to serve were ineligible for pardons, so the petition was refused and Mendoza's critique ignored.

Pedro Neira Acevedo also invoked family in seeking a pardon, though in a different fashion than Mendoza.⁶³ Neira was the son of General Juan José Neira, a veteran of the Wars of Independence who had come out of retirement to lead the defense of Bogotá at a precarious moment during the War of the Supremes. The general saved the city in 1840 and died shortly after from wounds received in battle. His son served as governor of Boyacá during the rebellion and was accused of holding a command during the final defense of Bogotá. In February 1855, perhaps free on bail, Neira defended his actions and pre-emptively appealed for an indulto in the pamphlet "Manifiesto a la nación." In it he offered one of the few unabashed defenses of the rebellion offered by any accused Melista, arguing that the uprising was an inevitable, even desirable, product of the nation's growing democratic spirit.⁶⁴ Most of the pamphlet reflected on the heroic life of his father, but not even the general's martyrdom could protect his son. In a postscript added on February 13, Neira informed readers, "se me ha vuelto a reducir a prisión, violando escandalosamente todas las leyes que garantizan la libertad individual. Cuando la tiranía impera debe callar la voz de razón."⁶⁵

Between the time of his arrest and the Decree of February 28, which denied him any form of clemency, he was transferred to the Charity Hospital in Bogotá and then to Boyacá for trial.⁶⁶ On March 3 his mother, Liborio Acevedo de Neira, sought an indulto on the grounds of his poor health. When this attempt failed, she asked that his trial be moved to Bogotá since his enemies would never permit a fair hearing in Tunja.⁶⁷ Her intervention had little impact. An April decree banished Neira Acevedo from New Granada.⁶⁸ There is no reference to how he served out his exile, but by 1857 he had returned and resumed writing. In Representación al Congreso de 1857, he extended his earlier arguments by combining a biography of his father with an appeal for the restoration of his own share of the pension awarded to the family after the general's death:

"Desterrado de la República en 1854 porque la venda de la imparcialidad, que cubre los ojos de la justicia, había desaparecido, porque los platos de su balanza no estaban en equilibrio, pues uno de ellos lleno de odio implacable, era tan pesado como la espada de Breno en la balanza romana: marchaba al estranjero i al dejar las playas de mi patria, una resolucion del Sr. José de Obaldía, Vicepresidente de la República [...] me privó del goze de la pension vitalicia que como hijo de Neira me corresponde por decreto del Senado i Cámara de Representantes de 1841, inserto en la Recopilación Granadina."⁶⁹

As in other cases, familial references had little effect. Another common theme was the financial concerns engendered by the rebellion and subsequent dislocation. Such concerns point to a facet of indultos that has generally received little scholarly attention: they functioned as fines for criminal offenses under the guise of a pardon. After each civil war, the effort to determine who was guilty of political crimes merged with the task of sorting out who had used the rebellion for illicit gain, particularly those who had abused their official positions or engaged in looting. Decrees were explicit in the fact that indultos did not cover common criminal acts. This distinction between acts of rebellion and common crimes was an acknowledgement that rebellion was a political act, not merely a criminal scheme. But this subtle distinction was obscured in the rhetorical conflation of the two categories. Petitions for indulto frequently cited accusations of livestock theft, which endangered a valuable resource in such a cash-poor society.

Petitioners tended to emphasize that they had used their positions of authority to prevent abuses by hardened Melistas, that they had not profited when forced to accept a post during the rebellion. The unsuccessful petition of José Delfin Caballero elaborated on this point. His advocates described him as an orphan with a young wife and children, an honorable artisan who was so humble he could not address the magistrate directly, and had been forced into military service and the unfortunate job of seizing cattle.⁷⁰ Furthermore, the petition was supported by a number of self-identified foreigners who wrote that:

"[...] como hombres tenemos para abogar, donde quiera que vivamos por los derechos imprescindibles de la humanidad comprometidos toda vez que haya una persona que sufra [...] si el pacto fundamental de la N. Granada no prohíbe nuestra pretención el gran libro de la justicia cuyos principios universales establece la equidad i la razón si la favorece i apoya i por ese creemos que no será invalido que elevemos a un Gobno. Ilustrado como el de la nación, nuestra voz, para pediros la libertad de un granadino."⁷¹

But requisitioning cattle was too much to forgive. Even under a subsequent decree, Caballero was exiled.⁷² Less explicit were indultos with financial penalties attached. Only one decree from Velez went so far as to list fines as a condition of clemency.⁷³ One of these indultados, Julian Herrera, sought a reduction of the fine of 320 pesos. His petition included a veritable litany of excuses for his role during the rebellion, which he had been forced to assume since his wife's condition following childbirth had prevented his flight when Melistas took over. He admitted serving as a judge during the rebellion, but claimed he had used the position to protect the public.⁷⁴ He had released imprisoned constitutionalists, refused immoral assignments, and shielded people from abuse by Ramon Ardila when he toured the province levying a forced loan. Herrera sought to have his fine reduced:

"[...] yo solicito el indulto por mis compromisos políticos en la revolución, porque necesito urjentemente de mi libertad, la necesito porque tengo acreedores i debo rendirles cuentas, porque tengo esposa, i debo ampararla, i porque tengo hijos que ya piden pan i debo trabajar para proporcionárselo.

[...] Soi pobre Sor. Gobernado tengo orgullo en confesarlo, después que el sacudimiento que acaba de conmover el orden social ha desnivelado tanto la propiedad arruinando a unos i enriqueciendo a otros [...] I acaso los pecados de los pobres son irremisibles? Si el Gobno quiere olvidar mis comprometimientos i asegurarse de mi conducta para el provenir puede exijirme una fianza i someterme a una condición que no tenga el carácter de una multa de una pena."⁷⁵

To circumvent his enemies in Velez, the appeal, along with a letter of support from several congressmen, was sent to the governor of Cundinamarca, who forwarded it to the national government with a note of support. The appeal was nonetheless denied. Herrera's petition is a remarkable presentation of the story of a merchant's honest toil and honorable poverty. The reference to profiteering invoked the tensions that had triggered the war and implied that the constitutional order trumpeted by the victors masked naked self-interest.

The financial obligations of indultados were rarely articulated so clearly. What was more widespread, though less frequently documented in official correspondence, was the practice of requiring indultados to post a bond as a guarantee of future behavior.⁷⁶ When Pedro Martin Consuegra returned from exile in New York in 1857 he appeared in Sabanilla, just outside of Barranquilla, and presented a bond from José Collanate as a guarantee of his good conduct, though the amount was not specified.⁷⁷ Such scenarios presented abundant opportunities for corruption and coercion.

The Return of Party Politics

As post-war legal processes stretched through 1856, politics returned to more predictable patterns, wherein Liberals and Conservatives competed for power while managing internal factionalism. In the presidential elections of that year, the first held since the Constitution of 1853 had established universal male suffrage, Golgotas sought Draconian support for the candidacy of Manuel Murillo Toro. The work of Pedro Neiro is enlightening as to how such appeals were received. In July he published La bandera de la rejeneración, meditating on April 17:

"[El pueblo] estaba cansado de sufrir, no ignoraba que la lucha podria ser, dudosa i sangrienta; sabia que la guerra seria larga, i difícil el triunfo. Sin embargo, estaba resuelto a vencer o morir, i se sacrificó con heroismo: pero se sacrificó casi solo, con unos pocos amigos condenados luego a la prisión i al destierro. Al destierro! •••• prision mas grande pero no ménos triste que la otra! Nos suicidamos, es verdad, pero este suicidio será nuestra gloria. Fuertes por nuestra conciencia, seguros de nuestros principios, i tranquilos sobre el porvenir, hemos muerto por una noble causa, nos hemos sepultado vivos en la Tumba de la República como víctimas espiatorias inmoladas en las aras de la Libertad."⁷⁸

Following this exalted rhetoric, he urged his comrades to abstain from voting in the upcoming election. In response, fifteen self-identified Draconians published A los revolucionarios de 17 de Abril, in which they acknowledged Neira's argument and then urged their comrades to vote for Murillo Toro in the upcoming election.⁷⁹ For some, the division of 1854 was less important than the politics of the moment.

This attitude did not prevail. Both Murillo Toro and Mosquera (who was running as an independent) lost to the Conservative Mariano Ospina Rodríguez, who oversaw the establishment of a new constitution in 1858 that created the Granadine Confederation, a transitional step toward federalism. Two years later Mosquera, now positioned as a Draconian Liberal, led a rebellion against Ospina's government, arguably the only successful national insurrection of the nineteenth century. He followed his triumph with an indulto for all who had served the defeated regime.⁸⁰ Obando took up arms under his old rival, dying in the name of the federal cause he had cynically championed two decades before. Melo had made his way to Mexico where he was killed fighting in defense of Benito Juarez's liberal government in 1860.

Conclusion

The post-war reckoning that followed the Golpe de Melo centered on the presentation of legal accountability as a rational process, but a flood of petitions for individual indultos laid bare the fundamental contradictions of republican constitutionalism. The restored regime sought to circumvent a lengthy process of public trials and, contradictorily, present indultos as elements of a constitutional process beyond familial considerations, surpassing contemporary Atlantic regimes in promoting legal rationalism.⁸¹ In the place of charismatic displays of mercy, the regime published accounts of Obando's trial and decrees listing the indultados. Undermining this effort, officials considered hundreds, if not thousands, of individual appeals based on more traditional criteria of family, honor, and public morality than those recognized by the government. This unresolved tension ensured that despite the restored regime's best efforts, the memory of this war could not be erased.