We will see later who rushed to sit next to these visitors, with the Archbishop and the Marquis of San Jorge, an honor which Galn had not had in his life. Meanwhile, Galn was in route to Zipaquir for a “Special mission not unknown to Berbeo”. He was accompanied by his two brothers Juan Nepomuceno Galn, Hilario Galn, Nicols Vega and sixteen other men. He deviated to Honda to follow the Visitor Florez and in Neiva killed the governor. Berbeo stated that Galn was fleeing from the authorities. Somebody said that Berbeo was to the Comunera Revolution what Pilate was to Christ Berbeo and his men did not shoot once in Nemocon and Zipaquir. Only the comings and goings of the Archbishop Antonio Caballero y Gongora, and Berbeo with the most number of militiamen in Nemocon happened. Meanwhile, Judge Osorio came from Santa Fe with commander and troops to contain the revolt in Puente Real. But, he was defeated and cried with the promise he would like to be the future Regent of the region. The victors of Puente Real had put him in a tight spot.
“In Nemocon, Berbeo and his captains were trying to infuse difdence about going to Santa Fe.They were enemies of the revolution. Maybe they were afraid of the triumph of Galn and two hundred Comuneros in Puente Real. It seems that these captains were trying to avoid new triumphs, especially the entrance of Comuneros to the Capital”. Berbeo did not know what to do with the delegation from Bogot. He would abstain from being seen in public and even less from Galn soldiers who would shout at him: “To Santa Fe! Traitor!” Berbeo moved to Mortintilde, near Zipaquir to be more comfortable. The Mutineers were left alone, tired, hungry and fearful of the savanna’s cold. Berbeo “asked the delegation for a credential stating the number, class and extension of his powers”. Meanwhile, the delegation talked and talked, drinking sacred wine and eating salted potatoes chips with salt from the mines proper. Suddenly, the Marquis of San Jorge read very “advantageous capitulations” contained in thirty-ve points which produced alarm and unhappiness in the Comunero militia. I copy the text formally dispatched by the Judges of the Royal Audiencia met in Royal Agreement and with General Junta of Tribunal. It states: “The gentlemen Don Joaquin Vasco and Don Eustaquio Galavis:With the powers you treat, confer and propose to the towns of San Gil, Socorro and all who came to a Royal Agreement, without reserve of limitation, the General Junta of Tribunals, about the entrance to the Capital of 25,000 men and his chiefs. It is agreed that they are vassals of the King, and that they should not come to the capital to avoid confusion and its fatal effects. This has been informed to the most illustrious Lord Archbishop and all the Ministers of this Royal Agreement and General Junta. May God guard you many years. Santa Fe, May 27, 1781. (signed) Pey, Catani, Silvestre, etc.” Despite the above extraordinary faculties, similar to the Article 121 of our present political Constitution, capitulations went and came from Santa Fe to Mortintilde. They were of economic, ecclesiastic and political administrative character, especially, points 17 and 18 “The silver coins which bought Berbeo”. “17. Creation of the Corregidor District of San Gil and Socorro with a salary of one thousand pesos a year. 18. All the named Commander, Captains, Lieutenants, Ensigns, Sergeants and Corporals will be obligated on Sunday afternoon of every week to drill their companies in arms and ready to be present in the defense of His Majesty against his enemies”.as a proof of their loyalty.
The Canon and historian Cayo Leonidas Pentildeuela (77) states that “The capitulations were written by the four captains from Tunja and were accepted without modication. In Mortintilde, a mass was celebrated and everyone swore to fulll the document, their safeguard. The Audiencia approved the capitulations but with a secret act in which declared that they have been accepted by force and necessity and it was communicated, thus, to the Viceroy in Cartagena. He sent ve hundred veteran soldiers and judges and published their secret act which did not oblige them to the Berbeo Capitulations”. Thus, Berbeo persuaded the Sangilentildes and Socorranos to go home. The Archbishop did the same in his Te Deum Sermon and celebrated “Thanksgiving” for the great success of the commissioners. Berbeo did not care about Galn and his mission. He already had his saddlebags full of presents, victuals and vestments that he did not even dream of, plus being named Corregidor and Mayor Justice of San Gil and Socorro. When Jose Antonio Galn came back to San Gil, a warrant for his arrest was issued in Socorro. On September 14, 1781, Berbeo made sworn statements for the prosecution “With delity and love for our natural Lord and King”. (78) On October 18, 1781 Berbeo, exercising his position, informed the Viceroy: “After arriving from Santa Fe, I informed the Socorro and town of San Gil Municipal Government that I was going to establish and administer the taxes with promptness”. We have then, that the first one, who violated materially the capitulations, was, the gambler Berbeo. Salvador Plata, another traitor, in his declaration given on May 13, 1793, in Santa Fe, said of his old chief Berbeo: “ This man who has used a brown cape all his life, always in debt, whose occupation was to play cards, who has used most of his wife’s dowry, as a result of the movement, he paid his debts, used elegant clothes of velvet, golden buckles, a saddle which he had bought in Zipaquir worth two hundred pesos, a sixty pesos mule and with his sixty year old wife bought the best house of the town next to the plaza”, as per the historian Indalecio Lievano Aguirre. Before continuing with the story of Comunero hero Galn and his deeds, let us remember something about the other Comunero Captain, the resentful Salvador Plata. If Berbeo occupies a prominent place in the scale of villains, Plata belongs to the region of the morbidity and the dominions of the teratology. Such a Don Salvador, who was exalted to the rank of Captain in the Comunero Movement in his mammoth defense of six hundred and eighty points of precise historical data, the cynic states that he was forced against his will, that he had paid ve hundred pesos to be excused from service, feigned madness and diseases. “He did not retract, he pictured himself” according to Miguel Antonio Caro. Berbeo saved his life but not his honor. He had been unbeatable in the task of reducing to the most minimal expression the revolutionary movement. Berbeo had been sent by Providence to Zipaquir to contain the people’s march to the capital. This idea was shared by Berbeo’s henchmen Monsalve, Rosillo and the other chiefs of Socorro. This subject in his zeal to obtain merit from the Spaniards offered to capture Galn who after the capitulations had returned to his Guanentina region. This jackanapes relates in his memorandum to the Mayors on October 18, 1781, “I want to continue my services and send news to Cartagena, to send on my own expense, the prisoner Jose Antonio Galn from this town to jail. If armed people would try to rescue him, I would like to have the power to maim him if not kill him, to free the kingdom of such a contagious pest”. Galn went from San Gil to Charal to Mogotes when he heard of the persecution to capture him. He went to sleep in Onzaga on October 12, 1781 where in Chaguanete he was seen by Plata, his men and thirty ve hunting dogs, where the hero was shot and injured on his shoulder.
Salvador Plata (79) stated: “I present the Tupac Amaru of our Kingdom, the most famous rebel, the one who with his activity and spirit could destroy (the kingdom) who has caused great evil, who rose the Province of Mariquita, who with two hundred men invaded the town of San Gil”. Such was the report of the gratis police. (80) Galn was interrogated in Socorro, (the only time he was there) on October 9, 1781. From Socorro he would be condemned to capital punishment on January 30, 1782. Galn, proud, did not go as a wheedler to feign delity as the weasels I have just presented described by themselves. He protested against the robberies, incests and depredations of the sentence and all the salaams in force during the final days of the Spanish Dominium in our soil.
We had Galn in route to Facatativ and Honda when Berbeo was capitulating. Let, in honor of brevity, the text of the infamous death sentence pronounced by the Royal Audiencia de Santa Fe, state: “The monstrous crimes committed by Galn at the time of such a peaceful and noble capitulation”. The sentence, according to Marco Fidel Surez, is the best panegyric of the hero. And to parody what had been said of Bolivar: “With the centuries his glory will grow as the shadows grow with the sunset”. From Villeta, Galn and sixteen of his braves went to Guaduas on June 4, 1781, where a bust was erected in his honor, then to Honda on June 15, then to Mariquita and his place. Briefly, I will mention the towns risen by the Comunero Hero. In Neiva, the people headed by Teresa Olaya killed the Governor of the Province Policarpo Fernndez and Gerardo Rodriguez on June 19, 1781. The Governor of Popayn, Jose Ignacio Paredes, was killed in Pasto. Ubate, Tocaima, Piedras, Beltrn, Coyaima, Coello, Espinal, Natagaima, Upito, Puricacion, Ibague, Chaparral, Pasto, Tumaco, Guarne, Cagun, Aipe, Popayn, Barbacoas, Palma Real, Iscuande, Tola, Baqueria, Mlaga, Pamplona, Santa Ana, Giron, Concepcion, Cucuta, San Cristobal, Merida, Caracas, Marcote, Pore, Silos, Valledupar, Pisba, Cocuy, Labranzagrande, Cravo, Santiago, Tmara, Tena, Manuare, Paya y Casanare are places which can be called properly Comunero towns. (81) Galn’s itinerary, from his land in his triumphal career until treason was consummated, was: Charal, San Gil (attacked by two hundred men as the sentence and the communique of his Mayor Diego Melendez de Valdez states), Barichara, Galn, Puente Real (Puente Nacional), Chiquinquir, Nemocon, Zipaquir, Facatativ, Villeta, Guaduas, Honda, Neiva, Mariquita and Ambalema. Such towns saw the stirring presence of the Comunero, shook under his feet and felt the most noble assault of his Guane soldiers. Galn’s panegyric or his death sentence (82) reads in its most important parts: “The scandalous deeds and enormous infamies which he executed in all the places and towns in his way sacking the Royal interest, outraging the administration, demanding penalties of His Majesty’s vassals, naming captains and raising troops to commit excesses against the King and the Country, scandalous with women, incestuous with a daughter, deserter of the Fijo Regiment of Cartagena, a monster of evil and object of abomination whose name and memory must be erased from those happy vassals of the King, the most pious, benign, lovable, worthy of being loved by all his subjects. This prisoner has forgotten the piety and grace due to his stupidity and lack of religion. To stop sedition and to give an example so that everybody understands the obligation to defend, help and protect in the King’s Service, we condemn that Jose Antonio Galn be taken from jail, dragged to the site of execution and hanged until death, his head cut off, body cut into pieces and burnt. His head will be sent to Guaduas site of his insults, the right hand to Socorro, the left hand to the town of San Gil, the right foot to Charal his birthplace and his left foot to Mogotes. His descendency will be declared infamous. His belongings will be conscated to the Royal Exchequer. His name and detestable memory erased. Likewise, because of the alliance that the following individuals had with the prisoner, we condemn Isidro Molina, Lorenzo Alcantuz and Manuel Ortiz who have insisted in carrying the re of rebellion, will be taken from jail, dragged to the site of execution and hanged until death. Then, their heads will be cut off and Manuel Ortiz’s will go to Socorro where he was doorman of the Municipal Government Building, Lorenzo Alcantuz’s and Isidro de Molina’s to San Gil, their town, their possessions conscated, their houses demolished, their descendants declared infamous so that the spectacle will serve as shame and confusion to all of those who have followed these heads. To inspire horror that it is due to those who have looked with indifference these infamous vassals of the Catholic King, bastard sons of the country Hipolito Galn, Jose Velandia, Toms Velandia, Francisco Pintildeuela, Agustin Plata, Carlos Plata, Hipolito Martin, Pedro Delgado, Jose Joaquin Porras, Jose Martin y Rugeles, Ignacio Parada, Ignacio Jimenez, Antonio Pabon, Antonio Diaz, Blas Antonio Torres and Baltazar de los Reyes to be taken to the public streets and given two hundred lashes and attend the hangings of their captains, their possessions conscated and they sent to prison to Africa for their natural lives, in the meantime sent to one of Cartagena’s castles for security and custody.These sentences must be executed”. This compilied sentence was read in all the districts and towns of the Viceroyship and displayed in public places.
Galn was dragged on February 2, 1782 at 8 a. m. with his head shaven accompanied with one guard, two priests, a Royal crier, four black hooks and an escort with two drums covered with black crepe. A cord tied to his neck was used to pull him to the Santander Park of Bogot. According to Constancio Franco, the priests intoned the De Profundis Psalm and the bells of the San Francisco, La Tercera and Veracruz Temples rang until death. The historian Groot states that after the execution by hanging, the Franciscan Priest Acero “made a speech about the justice of this cause and the obligation of the people to obey and respect the government”. A witness, the chronicler Jose Maria Caballero, (83) states that Galn, Molina, Alcantuz and Ortiz were shot with arquebus and then hanged because the executioner, a Negro, was not expert in hanging and the other seventeen prisoners were sent to Africa. The hanging was symbolic to comply with the rite ordered in the sentence. This happened to Marshal Goering, a Nazi war criminal, in Nuremberg. Thus, Galn died betrayed by the Comunero Captains Berbeo, Nieto, Azuero and Ardila. He was apprehended and delivered by Plata, Monsalve, Rosillo and de la Prada, all Socorrentildes. Thus Galn ended, abandoned by the people, and sacriced by the same who swore during solemn mass celebrated near Zipaquir to respect and comply what has been stipulated in the June capitulations. Let us return to remember Salvador Plata (84) to nish this long story to number Galn’s possessions at the time of his capture. They were not the product of robbery, ransack and plunder of the sentence, but his meager resources used for the cause: “A horse, three mules, and a pair of leather trunks with clothes and other personal items valued at two hundred and seventy pesos” The famous captains of the Comunero Movement and Galn comrades were Hipolito and Hilario Galn, Andres and Joaquin Porras (Charalentildes) Jose and Toms Velandia, Pedro Jose Martinez Rugeles, Blas Antonio Torres and Fulgencio Vargas (Mogotanos) Lorenzo Alcantuz, Vicente Gomez, Melchor de Rueda, Apolinar Buenahora, Ignacio Fernndez Saavedra and Miguel Reyes (Sangilentildes) Isidro Molina (Curitentilde) Jacinto Arteaga, Pascual Castantildeeda, Antonio Romero (Baricharas) Manuel Ortiz (Vallero) Francisco Pintildeuela, Agustin and Carlos Plata (Galaneros) Hipolito Martin, Pedro Delgado, Jose Joaquin Porras (Onzaguentildes) Antonio Pabon, Antonio Diaz, Ignacio Parada, Ignacio Jimenez and Baltazar de los Reyes (Zapatocas)
Here, I have exposed, briefly, as an honest professor of Colombian history in a primary school would have done it, the itinerary of the Comunera Revolution, who were his true promoters, its results and its errors to rectify. Fortunately, there are some history texts which have corrected the errors. Some have replevied Bolivar and not San Martin as the Liberator of Peru and Bolivia. Today, many historians ignore the correct spelling of the Fathers of the Country Policarpa Salabarrieta, Jose Maria Cordova, Antonio Ovando etc. There have been governments which have prohibited “historical legends” like William Tell made articially by expert novelists according to A. Abella and Lievano Aguirre.
I consider that the recent placement of the statue of the Comunero hero Jose Antonio Galn in the main plaza of the City of Socorro in the place of the anti-aesthetic monument to Manuela Beltrn, the cigar maker of March 16, 1781, (declared National Holiday by Decree Law of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla) is a proper public repair of the Socorranos, today, to the injustice and treason of their ancestors “Who did not give the first cry of Colombian Independence nor punish the tyranny of the Iberian Lion” according to the repeated Santandereana historical phrase. If traitors do not have a country, let Galn’s bronze in Socorro erase the memory of the felons and maintain the town of Nuestra Sentildera del Socorro in his popularized title of The City of the Comuneros.
The name of Jose Antonio Galn will become through time, despite the few remembered material symbols, the greatest in the Colombian Colonial Period. The slapping from a Creole to a Chapeton in a store on the First Royal Street of Santa Fe in July of 1810, is second to those whippings from Chapetones to Creole in the Mogotes Plaza in October of 1870. San Gil is the center of the initial movement of the Comunero Galn, at the time when Santa Fe was the theater of the stertors of the Spanish Government. In Sangilentildea Antonia Santos’ flesh grows the bloody rose of martyrdom. Another Sangilentildes, Jose de Acevedo y Gomez’s throat gives the note of the immortal instant. Pedro Fermin de Vargas and Ignacio Snchez de Tejada complete the great work of liberty. The thankful generations have consecrated in the memory of the Comunero hero bronzes in Socorro, Charal, Bucaramanga and Guaduas. An Artillery Regiment of the Colombian Army carries the name of the great Comunero. Such homage is the minimum of the official and private acknowledgment. In 1905, General Reyes had created a Department in honor of the colonial revolutionary head of our greatest nationalist endeavor. Half a century ago, his descendants were very proud of calling themselves Galn’s sons. But with a political stroke of a pen the best of the country’s ovolos to the Santandereano Martyr was nished.

SAN GIL, COMUNERA CITY

With the exception of a bridge there is no symbolic memorial, in San Gil, to the Comunera Revolution, especially of the fact that the heads of Captains Lorenzo Alcantuz and Isidro Molina, insurrected the town and the left hand of Commandant Jose Antonio Galn who assaulted it.
The sentence ordered to exhibit Alcantuz’s head and Galn’s left hand, because Molina’s head was destined to Santa Fe. But at the last minute they changed their plans to give a macabre spectacle of scoff to the Vice royal Capital and instead sent both heads to San Gil with the hand of the Comunero Chief. (85) The remittance was placed on pikes on the famous San Gil’s “Esquina de la Cruz” (Cross’ Corner). with constables’ permanent security. The traditions say that such a most pathetic show of civilization, humanitarian and Christian spirit of the Archbishop Viceroy stayed on that Sangilentildea Corner for a few days, because pious people withdrew, from the spiteful guards, what was left of the feast of vultures, rats and flies and gave them sepulchre, in a secret place, as it is done to guerrillas today.
Where there is a cross today, there was a stone with the inscription: “ In this place were exposed the mortal remains of the Comuneros Jose Antonio Galn, Lorenzo Alcantuz and Isidro Molina, 1872”. This stone ended up in the Entralgo home. The Sangilentildes who claim to be democrats and free have the civic and patriotic obligation to erect statutes of Galn, Alcantuz and Molina, Heroine Santos and the Father of the Country Vargas in the “La Libertad” (Liberty) Park. These symbols should be the base of our spiritual NOBILITY, and our positive PRIDE.