Simón Bolívar

Simón Bolívar Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), known as El Libertador, the Liberator, was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led the successful struggles for independence of several South American nations against Spanish rule. He founded and guided the republics of Gran Colombia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, and his vision of continental unity made him the central figure in the emancipation of Spanish America.

Youth and the Spanish Empire

Bolívar was born on 24 July 1783 in Caracas, in the Captaincy General of Venezuela, to a wealthy creole family of Spanish descent. He lost both parents while young and was raised by relatives and by tutors, among them the scholar and revolutionary Simón Rodríguez, who introduced him to the ideas of the Enlightenment. He completed his education in Spain and travelled in Europe, where he observed the upheavals of the Napoleonic age.

In Paris and Rome he absorbed the republican and liberal thought of the period, and in 1805, on the Monte Sacro in Rome, he is said to have sworn to free the Spanish colonies of the Americas. He returned to Venezuela in 1807 and threw himself into the growing movement for self-government as the Spanish monarchy weakened under French occupation.

Venezuela declared independence in 1811, and Bolívar took up arms. The first republic was crushed within a year, and Bolívar fled into exile. From Cartagena he issued the Cartagena Manifesto of 1812, a searching critique of the weaknesses of the new republic that made his name, and in 1813 he launched the campaign that retook Caracas and won him the title of Liberator.

The Wars of Independence

The struggle was long and brutal. The second republic fell in 1814, and Bolívar spent years in exile and in exile-fighting, including a period in Jamaica. His Letter from Jamaica of 1815 set out his vision of the future: a series of independent republics, united in a league for mutual defence, with constitutions suited to the conditions of the Americas rather than borrowed blindly from the United States or Europe.

In 1816, with support from Haiti and from the Haitian president Alexandre Pétion, Bolívar returned and gradually gained control of the lower Orinoco. He assembled an army of Venezuelans, New Granadans, British and Irish volunteers and plainsmen known as llaneros, whose leader José Antonio Páez became his greatest cavalry commander. The turn came with the daring march across the icy Andes in 1819.

That crossing brought the patriot army into New Granada by surprise; the victory at the Battle of Boyacá in August 1819 secured the capital Bogotá and led to the creation of the Republic of Gran Colombia, uniting present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama under Bolívar's presidency. Further campaigns completed the liberation of Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, culminating in the battles of Carabobo in 1821 and Pichincha in 1822.

In the south Bolívar coordinated with the Argentine liberator José de San Martín, who withdrew after their meeting at Guayaquil in 1822 and left the completion of the campaign to Bolívar. The victories of Junín and Ayacucho in 1824 finally broke Spanish power in South America, and Upper Peru, renamed Bolivia in his honour, received a constitution written largely by him in 1826.

Political Vision and Gran Colombia

Bolívar's political thought combined liberal ideals with a realist's sense of the difficulties facing new states. He favoured the abolition of slavery, which he decreed in his armies and supported in the new constitutions, and he advocated equality before the law, education and fair treatment of the indigenous peoples. He also distrusted pure federalism and direct democracy in societies marked by deep inequality and weak institutions, and he sought strong executive government to hold the young republics together.

Gran Colombia was his masterpiece and his disappointment. The union of the liberated territories proved unstable, torn by personal rivalries, regional interests and the sheer distances involved. Venezuela and Ecuador separated in 1830, and Bolívar resigned the presidency, convinced that his efforts at continental unity had failed. His last public message urged his countrymen to preserve the union if they could, and warned of the dangers of faction and of foreign interference.

He convened the Congress of Panama in 1826, an early attempt at a league of American states, which anticipated later efforts at regional cooperation. Although the congress achieved little, it expressed Bolívar's conviction that the former colonies must stand together if they were to defend their independence and their interests. His name became attached to the ideal of Latin American solidarity.

Death and Reputation

Heartbroken by the collapse of Gran Colombia and by the deaths of allies and the defection of friends, Bolívar left Bogotá in 1830 intending to go into exile. He died on 17 December 1830 at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino near Santa Marta, in Colombia, at the age of forty-seven. His last words are reported to have expressed his despair for his country and his hope that his death would serve unity.

He is commemorated as the great liberator of South America. Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia all honour him as the founder of their independence, and his statue and name stand in the squares of countless towns. The country of Bolivia, the currency of Venezuela and numerous institutions carry his name. He is one of the very few figures who can be said to have changed the political map of a continent.

Historians continue to debate his legacy. Some emphasise his authoritarian leanings and the failure of his union; others stress his lifelong commitment to emancipation, his skill as a strategist and his courage. What is undisputed is the scale of his achievement: his campaigns ended three centuries of Spanish rule in South America and gave rise to six independent nations. He remains the most important political figure in the history of the region.

See also

• José de San Martín
• Gran Colombia
• Latin American wars of independence
• Battle of Ayacucho