Eduardo Lemaitre’s Breve historia de Cartagena, reviewed in the May 1982 HAHR, is a very small and general book. Now the author, with the assistance of his two friends Donaldo Bossa Herazo and Francisco Sebá Patrón, has in a remarkably short time brought forth this impressive work.
The first volume has brief chapters on the indigenous population, the controversy over which Spanish explorer originated the name Cartagena, and early coastal explorations. He then makes the volume virtually a biography of the founder Pedro de Heredia, discussing his governorship, his several residencias and brief imprisonment, and the fascinating story of the expeditions into the Sinú country with their discovery of quantities of gold and the intriguing rumors of great wealth to be found to the south. Lemaitre poses the interesting thought that had the Sinú gold been discovered before Pizarro’s Peruvian conquest, the majority of the conquistadors probably would have come to Colombia. The second volume still finds us in the sixteenth century, dealing first with the sack of the city by corsair Martin Côte, the brief bombardment by John Hawkins, and the famous capture and ransom by Francis Drake. A brief chapter on the growth of Cartagena and its trade in the seventeenth century is followed by one on the beginnings of the city’s famous fortifications in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Chapters on Cartagena’s tribunal of the Holy Office, the city as a major entrepôt of the slave trade, and the “Saint of the Slaves,” Pedro Claver, and another cleric, follow. The important Dique Canal, connecting Cartagena with the Magdalena River, a serious rift between the bishop and several successive governors, and the history of several refugee colonies of runaway slaves (palenques) are examined. Then come several important chapters on major foreign intrusions: that of the Baron de Pointis (1697), the Scots’ colony in Darien, and after a brief digression on Cartagena life in the eighteenth century, the great siege of Admiral Vernon in 1741. The major fortifications constructed in the eighteenth century, a brief look at missionary work out in the province, and a long chapter on the Cartagena of the viceroys constitute the final chapters of this volume.
The third volume, La independencia, gives a good picture of Cartagena’s role in this era and ably sets these events in the broader historical epic of the colonial separation from Spain. It is the most detailed coverage of the coastal phases of the wars that I have ever seen. One gets a sense of the confusion and internecine strife of the Patria Boba period, not only in the animosity between the rival ports, independent Cartagena and royalist Santa Marta, but also the conflict between families and factions within Cartagena, in which the appearances of Bolívar were not a negligible factor. A very long chapter gives a thorough coverage of the horrors of Morillo’s siege and aftermath, followed by one devoted to Cartagena’s sacred “Nueve Mártires.” But of course there is a happy ending.
The final volume, a massive 714 pages, covers La república, the years from the 1820s to the 1940s. It will be very useful to the student for many aspects of Colombian history other than just the one city; it helps to clarify the confusing politics and civil wars of the nineteenth century. The role of President Núñez, a cartagenero himself, is well depicted. The four foreign threats of blockade and possible naval bombardment (the Barrot [French], Russell and McIntosh [English], and Cerruti [Italian] crises), so well covered in the author’s La bolsa o la vida (Bogotá, 1974) and summarized in the Breve historia, are here covered in depth. Lemaitre also shows the twentieth-century decline of Cartagena in contrast to the rise of Barranquilla, but ends on a happier note with the rising trade, tourism, industrialization, and urbanization of recent times. He declines to pursue his subject in depth past the 1940s, saying that this would not be history but reminiscing.” An appendix provides a brief bibliography, a list of governors and alcaldes throughout history, and a discussion of the city’s most prominent bishops.
Eduardo Lemaitre is an affable cartagenero, now in his seventieth year, who has energetically combined several remarkable careers, including industrialist, historian, civic leader, reviver of the Palace of the Inquisition and creator of its fascinating museum, columnist and book reviewer of Bogotá’s El Tiempo, and producer of a historical television program. His book on Panama, published in 1972, is excellent. He does not pretend that his Historia general is based on archival research. He lists a number of topics that he admits merit greater depth of treatment. The volumes are not fully footnoted, each chapter having a few end-notes. He is unsurpassed as a historian of Cartagena, but when dealing with a broader scope he is not always accurate: the Spanish fleet system did not normally involve one great flota sailing to the Lesser Antilles, but two, sailing at different times of the year, and combining only for the return journey. The first tribunal of the Inquisition in the New World was created in 1570, not 1600. Lawrence Washington did not command four thousand colonial troops during Vernon’s attack; the twenty-three-year-old captain merely commanded one of four Virginia companies. Lemaitre is probably on weakest ground in relying on some rather popular works for the English side of the English attacks, especially missing some of the major English-language sources on Drake’s and Vernon’s forays and the Scots at Darien. But in general his depiction of early Anglo-Spanish rivalry is masterful. He has done a very good job of mining the several published collections of documents on Cartagena, and it is doubtful that he has missed many relevant Spanish-language monographs or secondary works. His writing style is superb. In spite of its somewhat popular nature, this is the best book ever written on the history of Cartagena, and it is a valuable addition to Colombian and Caribbean historiography.
