On July 25, 1819, while marching towards Santafé, the Republican army of Simón Bolívar, exhausted after passing across the Pisba paramount, faced a Spanish regular army commanded by Colonel José María Barreiro in what would be known as the Battle of Vargas Swamp. Bolivar's forces included the Llanero cavalry squadron of Llano Arriba armed with lances.
The terrain was better suited for the Spanish troops, and Bolívar's army faced adverse odds. After initial clashes between the infantry of both sides, the Spanish cavalry attempted a flanking attack on the republicans. At this moment Colonel Juan José Rondón a hero of the Battle of Queseras del Medio led his small detachment of 14 lancers and charged Barreiro's horsemen at a point where the Spanish regulars were crowded onto a narrow track through swampland. This sudden counter-attack by the lancers of the Llano Arriba squadron, as portrayed in the sculpture, was a decisive point in the winning of the battle. Bolívar's main force moved up in support of the lancers and Barreiro's army, after suffering 500 casualties, fell back covered by the 2nd Numanicia Battalion as a rearguard.[1]
The monument designed by Arenas Betancourt and Colombian engineer Guillermo Gonzalez Zuleta, is a bronze sculpture, depicting the 14 soldiers and their horses, suspended in the air and framed in a concrete sculpture.
References
^Hooker, Terry. The Armies of Bolivar and San Martin. pp. 10–11. ISBN1-85532-128-9.
^Riaño, Camilo (1969) La Campaña Libertadora de 1819, Bogotá, Editorial Andes, p. 235.
Source: Wills, Fernando; et al. (2001). Nuestro patrimonio – 100 tesoros de Colombia [Our heritage – 100 treasures of Colombia] (in Spanish). El Tiempo. pp. 1–311. ISBN958-8089-16-6.
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