Bolívar in “La Quinta”
At the end of independence war, "La Quinta" was about to disappear for the damage that had suffered. After defeating the Spanish, the Nueva Granada government acquired the property with the purpose of giving it to the Liberator, "As a small gratitude demonstration and recognition in that it is constituted this Department of Cundinamarca for so immense benefits that it has filled his Excellency, restoring him its freedom"
This is what it says the writing, signed by the governor José Tiburcio Echevarría on June 16th, 1820. The house was sold for two thousand five hundred pesos. The document clarifies that this purchase was made by the vice-president Francisco de Paula Santander and the Colombian State. It also says that the house had to be fixed to give it to the Liberator.
Bolívar was the owner of La Quinta about 10 years, but he didn't live there for a long time. In 1821 was the first time he lived there, coinciding with the zenith of his glory: during January, before he goes to the last independence campaign in Venezuela that finished in the Carabobo’s Battle (24-06-1821); and in October, after this victory, before going on December 13rd, to the south Campaign. During his absence, between 1821 and 1826, one of his relative, named Anacleto Clemente, lived in the house and left it in bad conditions that, before the returning of Bolívar to Bogotá, on August 6th, 1826, Santander sent him a letter where he said him:
I spent a lot of pesos repairing la Quinta that Anacleto (Bolivar’s nephew) ruined, and although it won't excellent, it will be elegant and better than ever.
On 21 September he wrote him again:
I have the house repaired and beautiful. We have used some of your late salaries to provide you a better lodging. I will be embarrassed if you come here and stay with borrowed furniture. Juan M. Arrubla helped me a lot in this work.
On November 14th, 1826 Bolívar entered in Bogotá, returning from Peru. Since then, and until his final departure in 1830, he didn’t inhabit this place constantly but it was as a refuge of his trips and of the difficult political atmosphere.
In 1828, while Bolívar deal with political difficulties and the Convenciòn de Ocaña atmosphere, Manuelita Sáenz de Thorne arrived to La Quinta. They had met each other in Quito, her homeland, in June, 1822, during the battle where was celebrated the victory of Pichincha´s Battle (24-05-1822), and since then they fell in love. Manuelita supported him and his friends a lot and became an important adviser for them. Her presence changed La Quinta in a parties and meetings place.
La Quinta was evidence of great events like the Gran Colombia foundation and the end of the South Campaign; parties like that where was celebrated Bolívar's birthday - with his friends on July 24th, 1828 where he didn’t take part - and in which were set of campaign tents on the hills in order to lodge there the Grenadiers Battalion. Among the guests there were the General José María Córdova and his companions, the doctor Estanislao Vergara, the canon Francisco Javier Guerra, the historian José Manuel Restrepo and the general Rafael Urdaneta.
Critical moments were also lived there, because of the serious events that affected the Republic and the defeat, in the Ocaña Convention, of the enemies of the ideas that Bolívar defended. There he took refuge after the attack against his life on September 25th, 1828 and there were also signed the negative the death penalty reprieve of the prisoners due to the conspiracy.
The sixth and last Bolívar lodging took place between January 15th, 1830 and first March, although from January 28th he gave the house to his friend José Ignacio Paris, known for his services to the independence cause and for his loyalty to the Liberator. The gift, in fact, was made to his daughter, Manuela Paris who was still under age, could not received it, so her father made it, through a deed that was signed in the San Carlos' Palace. The donation was about two thousand five hundred pesos.
