"There Wasn't the Revisionist Zeal for History in the Past as There Is Now"

After forcing Bonaparte's armies to withdraw from the peninsula, General Pablo Morillo was tasked by the King to set sail with 10,000 men and forty ships to America, to confront the independence fighters led by Simón Bolívar. This uncertain expedition, which also aimed to bring reason to the Creole armies defending the crown and to subdue the rebels, is the axis of the historical novel 'The Peacemaker' (Alfa publishing), which narrates, from the perspective of the Spanish military, the American War of Independence. Written by Francisco Suniaga, a Venezuelan born in 1954 and recently settled in Spain, the plot is enriched by detailed research on the events experienced by Morillo, from his departure from Cádiz, where the King's trap to counteract his dangerous popularity is sensed, to his death.

'The Peacemaker' recounts the arrival at Margarita Island, the last rebel stronghold, which he reconquers without fighting, the explosion of his flagship, the clashes with the bloodthirsty royalist General Morales, without losing a narrative skill that includes fictional licenses, such as the meeting of two enemies, the Peacemaker and Francisco de Miranda, imprisoned in La Carraca, and later with Bolívar, a couple of years later. He returned defeated.

–Why did you choose the perspective of the Spanish characters to narrate the American independence?

–I concluded that the Venezuelan national myth, although patriotic, exaggerated the independence epic and had been vilely used by the autocrats of Venezuela's republican period. With The Peacemaker, Morillo's voice, duly documented by historiography, joins, from literary fiction, what is already obvious: that there is a rectifying effort of the national myth by historians (Latin American).

–Is this point of view novel or is it inspired by similar narratives?

–Not novel at all, because nothing is in literature. It could be said that there wasn't the revisionist zeal for history in the past as there is now. Hopefully, literary criticism would dedicate some pages to answering that question. From my perspective as an ordinary reader, I can only speculate.

–Seeing what has happened centuries later, would remaining in the kingdom have been positive for the Americans?

–In Venezuela, that seems to be a recent truth. A few decades ago, no one would have even thought about it. People didn't go to Spain in the seventies or eighties, nor copiously in the nineties of the last century. The exodus became massive at the beginning of this century, the reason is obvious. However, I believe that the desire to come to Spain could reverse in a short time with a political change.

–You maintain through several characters that the war of independence erupts due to racial tensions. Can you summarize this idea?

–The socio-political system implemented by the white Creoles for almost three centuries resembled South Africa's apartheid. It was an impenetrable caste. If you didn't belong to it, you couldn't enter the militia as an officer or the university. These insurmountable differences between the different social groups made those who were not white—the pardos, blacks, and Indians, the majority of the inhabitants—preferentially support the royalist party.

–The plot seems to be very aware of the Venezuelan developments with Chávez and his Bolivarianism. How did the current Venezuelan situation influence this novel?

–That is one of the novel's intentional subtexts: Venezuelan society has had a notorious presence of violence against people and properties since its genesis, and a marked disdain for legitimacy derived from laws. The novel exposes past conduct, and the contrast with the present is made by the reader themselves.

–Who are the heroes in this work?

–The heroes are many of those who starred in the bloodiest war of independence on the continent. The two main ones are Pablo Morillo and Simón Bolívar, as a quote, prior to the novel, taken from a text by Daniel O'Leary warns: "Bolívar was as loyal to his homeland as Morillo was to his king." I believe they are not only heroes of the novel but also of the history of that period. A chapter that left an imprint we still suffer from. Heroism, initially covered with suicidal voluntarism, became culture. The last hero was Chávez, who also assumed himself as such; he acted himself, which is why he spoke of himself in the third person singular. That's why he caught on so quickly and passionately among the people.