Bernardo de Monteagudo He does not occupy the first ranks among national heroes, although he was one of the important characters in the independence feat. His life was surrounded by mysteries, romances and violence. He managed to rub shoulders with the most prominent of the society of his time, despite his humble origins and his condition of African descent. The novel “The Devil”, (Ed. Planeta) by Florencia Canalerescues him from oblivion, telling not only his political life but also his love experiences, with the focus on the supposed clandestine love between him and Remedios de Escalada, the wife of José de San Martín. Who was this free being, loved and feared by all? Here we tell it.
The biography
Bernardo de Monteagudo was born in Tucumán in 1789. His origins are tinged with mystery. It is known that his father was Miguel de Monteagudo, a Spaniard who came to the colonies to try his luck; and Catalina Cáceres Bramajo from Tucumán. One version maintains that his mother was a priest’s slave who saw in the union with the Spanish the possibility of achieving his freedom.}
Since he was a child, colonial society discriminated against him because of his mestizo condition. He “he was a victim of the most cruel and disastrous racism. He suffered systematic harassment, today we would say ‘bullying’, although he was always proud of his origins,” says Canale about the hero. Despite this, Monteagudo’s determination was stronger: he managed to enter the elitist University of Chuquisaca in Bolivia where he studied Theology and graduated in Law with honors, in 1808, the year in which Napoleon invaded France, putting Fernando’s government in check. VII. At 18 years old he wrote “Dialogue between Atahualpa and Ferdinand VII”, an imaginary conversation between the last monarch of the Inca empire and the displaced king. The text circulated clandestinely, fueling the revolutionary climate of the time.
A year later he participated in the Chuquisaca Rebellion, as a result of which he was imprisoned for the “abominable crime of disloyalty to the king’s cause.” This did not stop him: he managed to escape from the Chuquisaca prison and, later, traveled to Potosí to place himself under the orders of Juan José Castelli, representative of the most radical wing of the revolution. From there he supported the abolition of taxes on indigenous people and the suppression of titles of nobility, among other issues.
He was implacable with his enemies: after suffering defeat at the Battle of Huaqui (1811) he left for Buenos Aires, where he was a prosecutor in the trial of Martín de Álzaga for conspiring against the Revolution. The trial, in which the accused were not allowed to defend themselves, culminated in the execution of Álzaga, among other accused. The event caused a stir in the revolutionary environment, and earned him a reputation for being cruel and ruthless.
He also joined Masonic lodges, such as the Patriotic Society and the Lautaro Lodge. The latter founded by San Martín, whom Monteagudo loved and admired, but with whom he would maintain a relationship that was at times strained, and by Carlos María de Alvear.
He continued his revolutionary struggle through journalism, founding newspapers such as “Mártir o Libre” in 1812. That same year he supported the revolution that deposed the First Triumvirate and anointed the Second, led by members of the Lautaro Lodge such as Alvear, who became in Supreme Director. “There began the big problem of the dispute between San Martín and Alvear. He sends San Martín to Mendoza to get him off his back. Remedios was left very alone and that is when the story between her and Monteagudo, who knew her before, would have occurred,” explains Canale, who says that the idea of this relationship was born thanks to Teresa, her great-aunt. “I was already very advanced in writing when Teresa, a very old woman, told me that this is what she always told herself in her family. I checked it out at that time with a historian with whom she worked, Diego Arguindegui, now deceased, and he told me that it was possible,” she explains.
For the author, “the private carves into the public,” and that is why in her novel she puts the emphasis on the love life of the hero and his countless lovers. Precisely, Ella Canale considers that her success with women was one of the reasons for the hatred of her opponents. “They called him a ‘faggot’, to lower his price, because he bathed, wore perfume, wore pearls on Shabbat, spent what he didn’t have on dressing well,” she details. She also says that The women received Monteagudo “with open arms”, and that he was the first revolutionary to speak to them, “the women of South America”, about their role in the Revolution. “Now some ladies from Tucumán are writing to me assuring me that his grandmothers were descendants of him. “I want to go to Tucumán to talk to them!” She adds, excited.
The end of a hero
In 1815, when Alvear fell, Monteagudo was imprisoned; but he again managed to escape. He fled to Europe where he lived for two years, after which he was allowed to return. He came back changed: he had softened some of his political stances, becoming a supporter of installing a constitutional monarchy.
In 1817 he traveled to Chile and became auditor of the Army of the Andes under the orders of San Martín. A year later, after the defeat at the Battle of Cancha Rayada, he traveled to Mendoza to reorganize the forces. After the patriotic victory in the Battle of Maipú, he participated in the summary execution of the brothers Juan José and Luís Carrera, opposed to the Sanmartinian line. The fact was disapproved by San Martín who ordered him confined in San Luis. However, in 1820, he returned to collaborate with the General in the Liberating Expedition of Peru.
With Peru liberated, in 1821 Monteagudo became Minister of War and Foreign Affairs and, later, took charge of the government of said country. But his monarchical ideas, very unpopular in Peru, and his profile as a “despot” would drive his subsequent downfall. Thus, in 1822, when San Martín left Lima to join Simón Bolívar in Guayaquil, Monteagudo was required to resign. Later the Congress of Peru banished him to Panama. “In Peru they love him and they hate him,” Canale points out.
He managed to return to Peru in 1824, along with Bolívar, with whom he had met in Ecuador. It is there where he is mysteriously murdered a year later, at only 35 years old. His murder gave rise to investigations and controversies, but it is known that the material authors were Candelario Espinoza, a former royalist soldier, and Ramón Moreira, slave and cook of Francisco Moreira y Matute, one of the founders, along with Monteagudo, of the Society. Lima Patriotic. Both received prison sentences: 10 and 6 years respectively.
After a dispute with Peru, his remains rest today in his native Tucumán. “A very free type and for that very reason very dangerous for those who do not truly exercise freedom and only proclaim it. Even though today we talk about ‘freedom, freedom’. Freedom is not proclaimed, one is free or one is not,” says Canale.
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