Chapter 285: A Name for a Nation
At last, Carlos set the matter aside.
For the moment, there was little to be gained by forcing a decision upon the question of trade. The families, though dissatisfied, could endure reduced prices for a time—perhaps even for several years. To employ his proposed strategy now, while Venezuela and the surrounding colonies still supplied the markets with sufficient goods, would yield little advantage and carry unnecessary risk.
No—such measures would have their time.
When their territory expanded... when Maracaibo was secured... then, with greater control over supply, they might begin to shape the market itself.
For now, there were more immediate concerns.
He turned from the table, his thoughts settling upon a different problem—one less tangible, yet no less urgent.
They had no name.
It was a simple deficiency, but a dangerous one. Without a name, there could be no identity—only labels imposed by others. To the Crown, they were rebels. To the people, they were merely "Carlos’s faction." Neither inspired loyalty. Neither invited belief.
A cause without a name was a cause without form.
Carlos exhaled slowly.
"Go among the people," he said at last, addressing one of his aides. "Speak with them—listen. I want to know how they see us... and what they expect from us. From that, we may begin to understand what name we ought to bear."
The aide nodded and withdrew.
Carlos remained where he stood, considering.
"Colombia..." he murmured after a moment. "In the name of Colón..."
It had a certain weight to it. A familiarity. And yet—
He hesitated.
One of his advisors stepped forward.
"Sir," the man said carefully, "if we call it Colombia, or anything derived from Columbus, we do little more than rename the King’s property. We honor the man who opened these lands to conquest. The people do not seek a new master under a different name—they seek something... distinct."
Carlos inclined his head slightly.
Yes.
He did not wish to build a nation haunted by the shadows of Genoa or Spain. What he envisioned required something firmer—something rooted not in discovery, but in presence.
In the land itself.
In the mountains.
"A new name," he said quietly. "A new identity."
He paused, choosing his words with care.
"It is not a rejection of our Spanish blood. But neither can we deny what else we are. We come from Spain, yes—but also from these lands, from the people who lived here long before us. We are not one or the other."
He turned slightly, his gaze distant.
"We are something new."
Another advisor spoke then, more cautiously than the first.
"With respect, sir... the elites remain essential. They provide capital, knowledge of law, and connections abroad. If we elevate the mestizos too quickly—if we unsettle the balance—you may provoke resistance among the criollos before we have even established a state. The families of Bogotá and Cartagena do not see themselves as equals. They see themselves as heirs."
"Heirs," he repeated, more softly.
"To power."
Carlos said nothing at first. Instead, he moved toward the window overlooking the docks of Mompox.
Below, the river moved as it always had—slow, constant. Along its edge, the true labor of the colony unfolded. Mestizo workers bore crates along narrow planks. Indigenous rowers guided boats against the current. Mulatto porters moved in practiced rhythm, carrying burdens that sustained the entire system.
They did not speak of inheritance.
They carried it.
"My son once told me something," Carlos said at length, without turning. "Something I have found difficult to forget."
A pause.
"He said: the criollos are the head—but the mestizos are the heart and the hands. And a head that believes it can live without the hands... will soon find itself alone."
He rested his hand lightly against the window frame.
"Francisco has said much the same, though in different terms. A nation’s strength lies in its cohesion. And the Spanish system, for all its flaws, has given us something unexpected—a majority both capable and alienated. They do not defend the old order, because the old order never belonged to them."
Silence settled briefly in the room.
"What we require," Carlos continued, more firmly now, "is a system in which they are equal—yet one that allows the criollos sufficient space to retain their influence. If we maintain the notion that the criollos are the rightful inheritors of Spain, then even if we declare a republic, it will be one in name alone."
He turned slightly, his expression composed.
"A handful of families will dominate its offices. Power will circulate among them. And whenever the interests of one group—be it criollo or mestizo—are threatened, rebellion will follow."
He paused.
"And so the cycle begins."
There was no heat in his tone—only a quiet certainty.
"A nation divided in such a manner does not find stability. It finds conflict. Again and again—until it destroys itself."
For a moment, he fell silent.
In truth, he did not fully believe every word he had spoken. Not entirely. But he understood the logic behind it—the reasoning that men like Francisco followed so rigorously. A country founded upon visible divisions would carry those divisions forward, even if the language changed.
And if, in the end, power merely shifted from Madrid to a handful of local families—
Then what had truly changed?
He exhaled, slowly.
"If that is to be our fate," he said at last, almost to himself, "then we may as well declare a kingdom—and be done with it."
But that was not the vision Francisco had spoken of.
And, whether he agreed in full or not, Carlos understood one thing clearly:
If this new nation were to endure, it could not begin from unequal ground.
It would have to start anew.
Carlos straightened.
The decision, once uncertain, now settled firmly within him.
"La Mancomunidad de los Andes," he said, the words carrying through the humid stillness of the room.
He repeated them, more slowly this time, as if testing their weight.
"La Mancomunidad de los Andes."
There was something in the sound of it—measured, deliberate. Not new, but reclaimed. It did not feel borrowed. It felt... grounded.
The liberal criollos exchanged glances. Their expressions revealed a mixture of curiosity and restraint. To a learned man of the age, the word Commonwealth was not neutral. It carried associations—dangerous ones. It recalled English debates, coffeehouses thick with pamphlets, and the radical upheavals of the previous century.
One of the younger advisors adjusted his spectacles before speaking. He was known for his taste in contraband texts—The Spectator, Locke, and others best read discreetly.
"Excellency," he began, his voice careful, though not without a trace of excitement, "to invoke a Commonwealth is to speak in the language of the English Civil War. You call to mind the Commonwealth of England itself."
He hesitated briefly.
"Are we to understand that we seek our own ’common weal’—apart from the King’s authority? The traditionalists will not see nuance. They will call it... Cromwellian regicide by another name. And, if I may speak plainly, the use of such a term—foreign, English—may raise suspicion. Some may believe we place New Granada under British influence... or that you speak on their behalf."
A quiet murmur followed.
Carlos frowned, though not in anger. The concern was valid. In the present climate, anything that bore the scent of England invited distrust. He understood that well enough.
But he also understood something more.
He began to pace slowly across the room, his boots striking the wooden floor in a steady rhythm. He allowed the silence to stretch, to settle—until the attention of every man present fixed upon him.
When he spoke, his voice was calm, but carried a restrained force.
"You speak of suspicion," he said, turning toward the advisor. "Yet you forget something essential."
A brief pause.
"The English did not invent the idea of a people bound in common purpose. They merely gave it a name."
He stepped closer to the table, placing both hands upon its surface.
"That truth existed long before them. It existed before their wars, before their philosophers—and it existed within Spain itself."
His gaze sharpened.
"Before the Bourbons ever sat upon the throne in Madrid, the Comuneros of Castile rose against an Emperor. They understood that the reino—the kingdom—belonged not solely to the Crown, but to the people who sustained it."
A few of the older men shifted slightly. The reference was not unfamiliar.
"They fought," Carlos continued, "for the behetrías—for the right of towns to choose their own lords, their own governance. When I speak of a Mancomunidad, I do not look to London."
He straightened.
"I look to Castile. To the Comunidades of 1520."
His voice lowered, but gained depth.
"I speak of liberties that were taken from the Spanish people themselves—long before they were denied to us here. Liberties buried beneath decree and distance, carried across the ocean, and forgotten in the administration of empire."
He allowed the words to settle.
For the criollo elite, the memory of the Comuneros was not insignificant. It was a reminder—uncomfortable, but undeniable—that resistance to absolute authority was not foreign to Spanish history.
Carlos’s tone softened slightly, though it did not lose its conviction.
"But we are not heirs to Castile alone."
He gestured faintly toward the open window, beyond which the distant movement of the river and the docks could still be heard.
"Look beyond these walls. Look at the people. Look at the mountains."
A brief pause.
He extended his hand toward the southern horizon, as though the mountains themselves lay just beyond the walls.
"The Tahuantinsuyo—the Incan Empire—was built upon the ayllu," Carlos said, his voice steady, deliberate. "A system in which each man and woman labored not only for themselves, but for the common good. They required no foreign term to understand that a bridge over a canyon belongs to all, or that a granary filled in summer must sustain the hungry in winter."
He paused briefly.
"They lived the mancomunidad—not as theory, but as practice. In their blood. In their stone."
The room remained silent.
Carlos let his hand fall back to the table, his gaze moving across the assembled men.
"By naming this land the Andean Commonwealth," he continued, "we do not imitate—we unite. We take the legal traditions of the Castilian towns—their rights, their institutions—and join them with the collective strength that once sustained these mountains."
His tone did not rise, but it deepened.
"We are not placing this land in English hands. We are not borrowing their identity."
A slight pause.
"We are reclaiming something older—and making it our own."
He straightened.
"For the people who built it."
