200 years ago today, one of the most important heroes of independence, Francisco Antonio Zea, from Antioquia, died in Bath, England. In a comprehensive look at Zea’s life, at least three facets of transcendence appear: the first, as a journalist, the second -even more unknown-, as a man of science, and a third, in his luminous work or transit through the public.
Zea, born in Medellín on November 23, 1766, initially advanced his studies in jurisprudence in Popayán, guided by another unique son from Antioquia, José Félix de Restrepo, to whom recognition is due as the greatest apostle of the abolition of slavery, first in Antioquia, in the company of Juan del Corral and, nationally, in the famous debates of the Villa del Rosario de Cúcuta Congress, at the beginning of the political nationality.
Francisco Antonio Zea’s training continued at the San Bartolomé school and shortly therefollowing he was called by the first scientist the country had, José Celestino Mutis, as his second in the Botanical Expedition, an intellectual adventure of the Colombian enlightened ones that he far surpassed. to the other expeditions undertaken in New Spain and in the Viceroyalty of Peru.
At that time, he began his scientific work alongside Mutis, who he accompanied with a fervent journalistic activity, under the pseudonym of Hebephilo, office through which he proposed a revolutionary educational reform. At this time, his work in science is relevant, particularly in botany, a discipline that led him to delve into the properties of the cinchona, so important at that time. These endeavors were interrupted by the so-called Pasquines Process that was brought forward once morest the precursor Antonio Nariño and his close circle, for the translation of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. This process ends with Zea’s banishment to Cadiz, Spain, and with the end of his work on the expedition, but not with his friendship with Mutis.
The prison was benevolent and ended with his rehabilitation and with the subsequent recognition of his socially privileged condition. He moved to Madrid and later to Paris under the auspices of Antonio José Cavanilles, his protector on the peninsula, friend of Mutis and director of the Botanical Garden. The director’s and Mutis’s friendships made it easier for him to establish new relationships and enter the recently founded National Institute of France, in Paris, then the center of Western science and knowledge. He approached Humboldt, Cuvier, Ventenant the botanist, Vauquelil the chemist and La Place and the main representatives of this knowledge.
After two years in Ciudad Luz, he returned to Madrid where he was appointed deputy director of the Botanical Garden and, shortly following, when the director and friend Cavanilles died, he replaced him and served as director on property in the period 1804-1808.
These were years of great intellectual production. His annual opening speeches in which he spoke regarding botany and flora, regarding the need for practical applications of this knowledge, and his proposal to create twenty-four botanical gardens in the peninsula and to reform the New Granada expedition, were part of his work, to which was added once more his journalistic work in La Gaceta and El Mercurio, the main cultured media of Madrid at the beginning of the 19th century.
His tenure as director of the botanical garden of the capital of the kingdom, undoubtedly the most important scientific and cultural authority in the peninsula, ended with the Napoleonic presence in Spain, since the man from Granada and Antioquia participated in the political current of the so-called afrancesados and as Such signed the Constitution of Bayonne. In addition, he was in charge of functions in the Ministry of the Interior and the Government of the Province of Malaga: he was a true protagonist of the peninsular events. At the end of the French presence in Spain, he had to go to England and, finally, as was his patriotic wish, to the Caribbean Islands, Haiti and Jamaica, in search of Bolívar, whom he did not know.. There began his friendship and closeness with the Liberator, which was decisive for his return to Venezuela, following a great personal crisis for the hero.
In the then semi-liberated Captaincy of Venezuela, Zea became the greatest benchmark for the actions of the independentistas. He was even decisive in his encouragement to Bolívar in taking command of the liberating armies. There, in Angostura, this, the most cultured of our forefathers, once once more practiced journalism at the Correo del Orinoco, publication that collected the thought of the revolutionaries. There he became the architect of the Angostura Convention, in which, as Deputy Vice President of Cundinamarca and with Bolívar as President, he signed the Constitution and, in an emotional prayer, proclaimed for the first time the republican existence of Colombia.
Once independence was consolidated, the Liberator appointed him to carry out various tasks of great difficulty abroad, such as obtaining international recognition of the new State, in which he collaborated successfully in England, and in obtaining the necessary loans or credits. , but difficult to manage due to defaults and mismanagement by previous delegates. Santander, little affection for Zea because of his closeness to Bolívar, was critical of his management, and the Liberator, avoiding one more confrontation with his vice president, did not come to his defense. In summary, Zea was a victim of the confrontation between the parents of the nationality.
In the prologue to the magnificent biography of Zea by the historian Roberto Botero S., the great Germán Arciniegas vindicated the actions of this enlightened man from Granada and, in the same sense, the historian Diana Soto Arango spoke in the most complete account of the life of this distinguished Antioquian. The last of the tasks he carried out abroad was the formation of the first scientific mission in the country, made up of scholars such as Boussingault and the Peruvian scientist Mariano Rivero, the Inca intellectual glory of the 19th century.. That mission, which he was able to shape due to his Parisian relations, originated the study of civil engineering and the formation of the National Museum, established in 1823. His exaltation of women cannot be forgotten in his writing regarding Policarpa Salavarrieta, the heroine of Guaduas, as time, the first public writing exalting women of the Republic.
Zea conforms, with José Félix de Restrepo and José Manuel Restrepo, the greatest cultural contribution of the region to independence. Without weapons, only with their appeal to culture, they were standard bearers of freedom. The celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Zea should be the beginning of the rescue of his unjust national and Antioquian oblivion. There is no explanation that the most outstanding man of science of independence, the great initiator of our public law, the insignia of republican journalism, remains in ostracism and in a neglect similar to that of his sculpture, sculpted by the master Marco Tobón M. , that of the street that bears his name, that of his birth house and that of his grave, which lies in other lands
1766
It is the year of birth of the hero, politician and botanist Francisco Antonio Zea.
