Anita Arnon

And Bolivar, you can see responding, opening up like a flower, suddenly thinking, oh, Haiti, he writes, is not only a refuge for the oppressed, it is a lighthouse of freedom.

So finally, there is this, where it was all kind of around the Creole cause, it is something bigger than this.

Yeah, I mean, basically Haiti is this beacon of hope for all those fighting against colonial oppression in the Americas, he writes.

And race and equality definitely come into this now.

In a letter to Pétion, he starts talking about his desire, which was missing in the Jamaica letters, an actual plan to eradicate racial discrimination, saying, we must march forward together, free men of all colours, to build a new America.

So you've got this transition from slavery is really bad.

Actually, they are brothers in arms.

They are equals.

And that vision of unity among diverse people, that becomes a central ideology for Bolivar at this point, I would argue, because he sees it in Haiti.

And he hears them saying the same things, you know, freedom, justice, universal rights, no more colonialism.

And he sees brothers in arms.

So I think it's at this point in Haiti-

actually that abolitionism becomes part of his republican project it may not have been before but it is now but but but we will see in the remaining episodes whether he actually follows this up whether this actually means anything and what his record is he is a roller coaster yeah yeah yeah so look um he's he's sort of had a chance to regroup and rethink let's go to 1817 where now an educated bolivar decides he's going to try a new strategy

So instead of attacking coastal cities where the Spanish forces are particularly strong, he's like, okay, hang on.

Louverture, guerrilla warfare, going into interiors.

Okay, could learn something from this.

How could he not?

Because it was the Louverture playbook, right?

Yeah, he used the mountains and the rivers.

So he goes to a place called Angostura.