As he sailed from the island he saw the
mountain-tops blazing with the beacon-fires of joy kindled by the blacks.
From that day to this the island of Hayti has remained in the hands of the
negro race.
BOLIVAR THE LIBERATOR, AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW GRANADA.
One dark night in the year 1813 a negro murderer crept stealthily into a
house in Jamaica, where slept a man in a swinging hammock. Stealing
silently to the side of the sleeper, the assassin plunged his knife into
his breast, then turned and fled. Fortunately for American independence he
had slain the wrong man. The one whom he had been hired to kill was Simon
Bolivar, the great leader of the patriots of Spanish America. But on that
night Bolivar's secretary occupied his hammock, and the "Liberator"
escaped.
Bolivar was then a refugee in the English island, after the failure of his
early attempt to win freedom for his native land of Venezuela. He was soon
back there again, however, with recruited forces, and for years afterwards
the war went on, with variations of failure and success, the Spanish
general Morillo treating the people who fell into his hands with revolting
cruelty.
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