Todays’ word of the day is promulgate, thanks to the New York Times. To promulgate is “to make known by public statement or announcement” or “to put a law into effect by formal declaration.” According to etymonline.com, the word first appears in English in the “1520s, from Latin promulgatus, past participle of promulgare ‘make publicly known, propose openly, publish,’ probably from pro ‘forth’ (see pro-) + mulgere ‘to milk’ (see milk (n.)), used metaphorically for ‘cause to emerge.’ In that case the word is ‘a picturesque farmers’ term used originally of squeezing the milk from the udder’ [L. R. Palmer, The Latin Language].”

On this date in 1831, according to the On This Day people, Venezuela and Ecuador separated from the Republic of Gran Colombia. It’s kind of a long story, but let me see if I can share just the basics.

The Spanish, of course, colonized much of South America (except for modern-day Brazil, which was colonized by the Portugese). In the early years of the 19^th century, the people in many places of South America wanted independence. They had witnessed, and some had even participated in, the American Revolution, and they wanted independence, too.

The greatest of the leaders of South American independence was undoubtedly Simon Bolivar. He was officially named “The Liberator” (El Libertador). While the second decade of the 19^th century saw Bolivar have mixed success, in the first half of the third decade, he defeated the Spanish on his way to liberating several countries.

The result of these revolutions against Spanish control was the formation of the Republic of Gran Colombia, which included modern-day Venezuela and Ecuador as well as Colombia and Panama. This republic lasted from about 1819 to about 1830, or so. But there was a problem in Gran Colombia, a political problem. Some of the political leaders wanted a relatively loose confederation of somewhat autonomous, independent states. Bolivar, on the other hand, held a centralist political philosophy.

In 1828, to the dismay of some, in August of 1828 Bolivar accepted an invitation to have absolute power over Colombia as the country’s president-liberator. A constitution was put together that gave the president a lifetime appointment with the power to hand pick their successor. At one point in 1829, a council of ministers, left in charge while Bolivar fought against insurgents in Peru, negotiated with the French to make a Bourbon the successor to Bolivar and call the successor King of Colombia.

But the emphasis on central control caused discontent in Venezuela and Ecuador. Bolivar, while an admirer of the American Revolution, believed that a government like that in the USA would no work in New Granada or Gran Colombia. He believed that the heterogeneous nature of Colombia and Venezuela and Peru would require a “firmer” hand. According to one scholar, “He felt that the U.S. had been established in land especially fertile for democracy. By contrast, he referred to Spanish America as having been subject to the ‘triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice.’”

Within a couple of years of Bolivar’s acceptance of the dictatorship over Gran Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela were ready to leave the “republic,” and they did. Some of the sources I looked at said that the departure from Gran Colombia occurred in 1830, but On This Day has it on this day in 1831.

The debate over whether a country should be controlled by a powerful central government or distribute the power among smaller governmental entities is one that is still going on in many places around the world. One might even see such a conflict in the country I live in. One wonders if some parts of the USA would want to take the route of Venezuela and Ecuador. Who would promulgate such a move?

Today’s image is a portrait, painted by José Toro Moreno in 1922, of El Libertador, Simon Bolivar.