Sword, Pen and Cordillera

Latin American independence beyond the heroic statues

Camila Restrepo2 episodes3 min of audio229 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2Aug 1, 20261:15141 plays Preview

Petion's Price: Haiti Arms the Venezuelan Campaign

In 1816 a defeated Bolivar sailed to Haiti and left with ships, guns, money and a condition: abolish slavery. Camila examines what Haiti gave, what was promised, and what was delivered.

S1 · E1May 11, 20261:2588 plays Members

La Pola and the Spy Network of Bogota

Policarpa Salavarrieta ran intelligence for the patriots inside royalist Bogota until her execution at twenty-two. Camila follows the network, the sewing jobs that covered it, and her last words.

About the show

Camila Restrepo grew up in Bogota a short walk from a statue of Bolivar and never once heard, at school, about the women, the enslaved soldiers, the Indigenous communities or the British mercenaries who were also in the wars. Sword, Pen and Cordillera is her weekly narrated history of the independence of Latin America, from Haiti in 1791 to the last Spanish garrison in 1826, with each episode of around forty minutes built around one person, one battle or one document. Policarpa Salavarrieta and the spy network of Bogota, the Llaneros who crossed the Andes with Bolivar, San Martin's crossing from Argentina, the Haitian support that armed the Venezuelan campaign, the Cadiz constitution, the loan that put Gran Colombia in debt to London. Camila reads the Spanish sources herself, is honest about what the heroes got wrong, and keeps asking whose independence it was. For listeners across the Americas and the diaspora, and for anyone who wants more than a name on a square.

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