Viscardo and Guzman: 210 years after his death

February 10 marks the 210 anniversary of the death of John Paul Viscardo and Guzman, the largest Latin American died in London. He is the author of the famous "Letter to the Spanish Americans?, Text that was used by Francisco de Miranda and Simon Bolivar as a record of independence of several South American republics.

He was a nexus between the defeated Indian rebellion of Tupac Amaru and Tupac Katari (in the 1870's) and the victorious revolutions Creole early nineteenth century. He theorized that Hispanic Americans should break with the crown of Madrid and not seek to reform it.

Viscardo was the first major pan-Latin American patriot who lived and died in London, where they take refuge also Miranda, Bolivar, Bernardo O'Higgins.

In the eighteenth century London was the capital of the largest overseas empire in history. Then all of Latin America was under the yoke of European and lived in London just a few mestizos. 210 years after 99% of the Americas has sovereign governments and London has a vibrant community of half a million Hispanic and Luso speakers.

Viscardo died half a century to fulfill. However, such was their misery is not known who was buried or if he was buried. Moreover, it is said that his body was found in his room but only after the smell of decomposition of this caused pain in his residence.

He was exiled from his native Peru for Jesuit. He had a life of sacrifice. He did not die on the cross, but anonymous. However, some perish, Miranda immortalized when he published his "Letter?, Which would become one of the most explosive weapons the separatists.

Miranda used the "Charter? to campaign for the creation of the Gran Colombia (which originally referred to throughout the continent discovered by Columbus, which is then reduced to four countries-Venezuela, Panama, New Granada and Ecuador, and finally to one).

As we approach the bicentennial of the founding of the first Latin American republics to pay tribute to who was one of its managers and who is also the symbol of sacrifice and the patriarch of hundreds of thousands of Latino immigrants in the UK.

Isaac Bigio