Simón Bolívar had journeyed back from Peru…

Simón Bolívar had journeyed back from Peru to Colombia in September-November 1826.

He found little real support for introducing his constitutional panacea, but he solved the Venezuelan rebellion by meeting with General Paez in Venezuela in January 1827 and pardoning him, as well as by promising to call a convention to reform the existing constitution in some way.

That September Bolivar had returned to Bogota and resumed the presidency of Colombia.

However, the Congress of Ocana, which meets in April-June 1828, ultimately dissolves with nothing accomplished.

Bolivar now yields to demands that he assume a personal dictatorship "to save the republic."

It is a mild dictatorship, which has strong support from the military, especially the Venezuelan officers who dominate the upper ranks.

He further enjoys support from the church, which hopes that he will reverse recent anticlerical measures and is not disappointed.

Although there is no clear-cut division along social lines, Bolivar's chief civilian supporters tend to come from long-established, aristocratic families, in effect his own class, whereas more of his opponents represent an emerging upper class of previously peripheral regions, such as Antioquia and eastern New Granada.