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Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y PalaciosTemplate:Efn (24Template:NbspJuly 1783Template:Snd17Template:NbspDecember 1830) was a Venezuelan statesman and military officer who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as El Libertador, or the Liberator of America.
Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy family of American-born Spaniards (criollo) but lost both parents as a child. Bolívar was educated abroad and lived in Spain, as was common for men of upper-class families in his day. While living in Madrid from 1800 to 1802, he was introduced to Enlightenment philosophy and married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa, who died in Venezuela from yellow fever in 1803. From 1803 to 1805, Bolívar embarked on a Grand Tour that ended in Rome, where he swore to end the Spanish rule in the Americas. In 1807, Bolívar returned to Venezuela and promoted Venezuelan independence to other wealthy creoles. When the Spanish authority in the Americas weakened due to Napoleon's Peninsular War, Bolívar became a zealous combatant and politician in the Spanish-American wars of independence.
Bolívar began his military career in 1810 as a militia officer in the Venezuelan War of Independence, fighting Royalist forces for the first and second Venezuelan republics and the United Provinces of New Granada. After Spanish forces subdued New Granada in 1815, Bolívar was forced into exile on Jamaica. In Haiti, Bolívar met and befriended Haitian revolutionary leader Alexandre Pétion. After promising to abolish slavery in Spanish America, Bolívar received military support from Pétion and returned to Venezuela. He established a third republic in 1817 and then crossed the Andes to liberate New Granada in 1819. Bolívar and his allies defeated the Spanish in New Granada in 1819, Venezuela and Panama in 1821, Ecuador in 1822, Peru in 1824, and Bolivia in 1825. Venezuela, New Granada, Ecuador, and Panama were merged into the Republic of Colombia (Gran Colombia), with Bolívar as president there and in Peru and Bolivia.
In his final years, Bolívar became increasingly disillusioned with the South American republics, and distanced from them because of his centralist ideology. He was successively removed from his offices until he resigned the presidency of Colombia and died of tuberculosis in 1830. His legacy is diverse and far-reaching within Latin America and beyond. He is regarded as a hero and national and cultural icon throughout Latin America; the nations of Bolivia and Venezuela (as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) are named after him, and he has been memorialized all over the world in the form of public art or street names and in popular culture.
Early life and familyEdit
Simón Bolívar was born on 24 July 1783 in Caracas, capital of the Captaincy General of Venezuela, the fourth and youngest child of Template:Ill and Template:Ill.Template:Sfnm He was baptized as Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios on 30 July.Template:Sfn The first of Bolívar's family to have emigrated to the Americas was a similarly named minor Spanish governmental official named Simón de Bolívar, who had been a notary in the Spanish Basque region, and who had later arrived in Venezuela in the 1580s.Template:Sfnm The earlier Simón de Bolívar's descendants had served in the colonial bureaucracy and had married into various wealthy Caracas families over the years.Template:Sfnm By the time Simón Bolívar was born, the Bolívar family was one of the wealthiest and most prestigious criollo (creole) families in the Spanish Americas.Template:Sfnm
Simón Bolívar's childhood was described by British historian John Lynch as "at once privileged and deprived."Template:Sfn Juan Vicente died of tuberculosis on 19 January 1786,Template:Sfnm leaving María de la Concepción Palacios and her father, Template:Ill,Template:Sfnm as legal guardians over the Bolívar children's inheritances.Template:Sfnm Those children – Template:Ill (born 1777), Template:Ill (born 1779), Template:Ill (born 1781), and SimónTemplate:Sfn – were raised separately from each other and their mother, and, following colonial custom, by African house slaves;Template:Sfn Simón was raised by a slave named Template:Ill whom he viewed as both a motherly and fatherly figure.Template:Sfnm On 6 July 1792,Template:Sfnm María de la Concepción also died of tuberculosis.Template:Sfnm Believing that his family would inherit the Bolívars' wealth,Template:Sfn Feliciano Palacios arranged marriages for María Antonia and Juana and,Template:Sfnm before dying on 5 December 1793,Template:Sfn assigned custody of Juan Vicente and Simón to his sons, Juan Félix Palacios and Template:Ill, respectively.Template:Sfnm Bolívar came to loathe Carlos Palacios,Template:Sfn who had no interest in the boy other than his inheritance.Template:Sfnm
Education and first journey to Europe: 1793–1802Edit
As a child, Bolívar was notoriously unrulyTemplate:Sfnm and neglected his studies.Template:Sfn Before his mother died, he spent two years under the tutelage of the Venezuelan lawyer Miguel José Sanz at the direction of the Template:Ill, the Spanish court of appeals in Caracas.Template:Sfnm In 1793, Carlos enrolled Bolívar at a Template:Ill run by Venezuelan educator Simón Rodríguez.Template:Sfnm In June 1795, Bolívar fled his uncle's custody for the house of his sister María Antonia and her husband.Template:Sfnm The couple sought formal recognition of his change of residence,Template:Sfn but the Real Audiencia decided the matter in favor of Palacios, who sent Simón to live with Rodríguez.Template:Sfnm
After two months there, the Real Audiencia directed that he be returned to the Palacios family home.Template:Sfnm Bolívar promised the Real Audiencia that he would focus on his education and was subsequently taught full-time by Rodríguez and the Venezuelan intellectuals Andrés Bello and Template:Ill.Template:Sfnm In 1797, Rodríguez's connection to the pro-independence Gual and España conspiracy forced him to go into exile,Template:Sfnm and Bolívar was enrolled in an honorary militia force. When he was commissioned as an officer after a year,Template:Sfnm his uncles Carlos and Template:Ill decided to send Bolívar to join the latter in Madrid.Template:Sfnm There, Esteban was friends with Queen Maria Luisa's favorite, Manuel Mallo.Template:Sfnm
On 19 January 1799, Bolívar boarded the Spanish warship San Ildefonso at the port of La Guaira,Template:Sfnm bound for Cádiz.Template:Sfn He arrived in Santoña, on the northern coast of Spain, in May 1799.Template:Sfnm A little over a week later,Template:Sfnm he arrived in Madrid and joined Esteban,Template:Sfnm who found Bolívar to be "very ignorant."Template:Sfnm Esteban asked Gerónimo Enrique de Uztáriz y Tovar, a Caracas native and government official, to educate Bolívar.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Bolívar moved into Uztáriz's residence in February 1800 and was educated in the Classics, literature, and social studies.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm
At the same time, Mallo fell out of the Queen's favor and Manuel Godoy, her previous favorite, returned to power.Template:Sfnm As members of Mallo's faction at court, Esteban was arrested on pretense,Template:Sfnm and Bolívar was banished from court following a public incident at the Puerta de Toledo over the wearing of diamonds without royal permission.Template:Sfnm Bolívar also at this time met María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa, the daughter of another wealthy Caracas creole.Template:Sfnm They were engaged in August 1800,Template:Sfn but were separated when the del Toros left Madrid for a summer home in Bilbao.Template:Sfnm After Uztáriz left Madrid for a government assignment in Teruel in 1801,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Bolívar himself left for Bilbao and remained there when the del Toros returned to the capital in August 1801.Template:Sfnm Early in 1802, Bolívar traveled to Paris while he awaited permission to return to Madrid, which was granted in April.Template:Sfnm
Return to Venezuela and second journey to Europe: 1802–1805Edit
Bolívar and del Toro, aged 18 and 21 respectively, were married in Madrid on 26 May 1802.Template:Sfnm The couple boarded the San Ildefonso in La CoruñaTemplate:Sfn on 15 June and sailed for La Guaira, where they arrived on 12 July.Template:Sfn They settled in Caracas, where del Toro fell ill and died of yellow fever on 22 January 1803.Template:Sfnm Bolívar was devastated by del Toro's death and later told Louis Peru de Lacroix, one of his generals and biographers, that he swore to never remarry.Template:Sfnm By July 1803,Template:Sfn Bolívar had decided to leave Venezuela for Europe. He entrusted his estates to an agent and his brother and in October boarded a ship bound for Cádiz.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar arrived in Spain in December 1803, then traveled to Madrid to console his father-in-law.Template:Sfnm In March 1804, the municipal authorities of Madrid ordered all non-residents in the city to leave to alleviate a bread shortage brought about by Spain's resumed hostilities with Britain.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm Over April, Bolívar and Template:Ill, a childhood friend and relative of his wife, made their way to Paris and arrived in time for Napoleon to be proclaimed Emperor of the French on 18 May 1804.Template:Sfnm They rented an apartment on the Template:Ill and met with other South Americans such as Carlos de Montúfar, Vicente Rocafuerte, and Simón Rodríguez, who joined Bolívar and del Toro in their apartment. While in Paris, Bolívar began a dalliance with the Countess Dervieu du Villars,Template:Sfnm at whose salon he likely met the naturalists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland, who had traveled through much of Spanish America from 1799 to 1804. Bolívar allegedly discussed Spanish American independence with them.Template:Sfnm
In April 1805, Bolívar left Paris with Rodríguez and del Toro on a Grand Tour to Italy.Template:Sfnm Beginning in Lyon, they traveled through the Savoy Alps and then to Milan.Template:Sfnm The trio arrived on 26 May 1805 and witnessed Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy.Template:Sfnm From Milan, they traveled down the Po Valley to Venice, then to Florence, and then finally Rome,Template:Sfnm where Bolívar met, among others, Pope Pius VII, French writer Germaine de Staël, and Humboldt again.Template:Sfnm Rome's sites and history excited Bolívar. On 18 August 1805, when he, del Toro, and Rodríguez traveled to the Mons Sacer, where the plebs had seceded from Rome in the 4th century BC, Bolívar swore to end Spanish rule in the Americas.Template:Sfnm
Political and military careerEdit
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By April 1806, Bolívar had returned to Paris and desired passage to Venezuela,Template:Sfn where Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda had just attempted an invasion with American volunteers.Template:Sfnm Britain's command of the sea after the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar obliged Bolívar to board an American ship in Hamburg in October 1806. Bolívar arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in January 1807,Template:Sfnm and from there traveled to Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston.Template:Sfnm After six months in the United States,Template:Sfn Bolívar returned to Philadelphia and sailed for Venezuela, where he arrived in June 1807. He began to meet with other creole elites to discuss independence from Spain.Template:Sfnm Finding himself to be far more radical than the rest of Caracas high society,Template:Sfnm however, Bolívar occupied himself with a property dispute with a neighbor, Template:Ill.Template:Sfnm
In 1807–08, Napoleon invaded the Iberian peninsula and replaced the rulers of Spain with his brother, Joseph.Template:Sfnm This news arrived in Venezuela in July 1808.Template:Sfnm Napoleonic rule was rejected and Venezuelan creoles, though still loyal to Ferdinand VII of Spain, sought to form their own local government in place of the existing Spanish government.Template:Sfnm On 24 November 1808, a group of creoles presented a petition demanding an independent government to Juan de Casas, the Captain-General of Venezuela, and were arrested.Template:Sfnm Bolívar, though he did not sign the petition and thus was not arrested, was warned to cease hosting or attending seditious meetings.Template:Sfnm In May 1809, Casas was replaced by Vicente Emparán and his staff, which included Fernando Rodríguez del Toro. The creoles also resisted Emparán's government, despite his friendlier disposition towards them.Template:Sfnm
By February 1810, French victories in Spain prompted the dissolution of the anti-French Spanish government in favor of a five-man regency council for Ferdinand VII.Template:Sfnm This news, and two delegates that included Carlos de Montúfar, arrived in Venezuela on 17 April 1810.Template:Sfnm Two days later, the creoles succeeded in deposing and then expelling Emparán,Template:Sfnm and created the Supreme Junta of Caracas, independent from the Spanish regency but not Ferdinand VII.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Absent from Caracas for the coup,Template:Sfnm Bolívar and his brother returned to the city and offered their services to the Supreme Junta as diplomats.Template:Sfnm In May 1810, Juan Vicente was sent to the United States to buy weapons,Template:Sfn while Simón secured a place in a diplomatic mission to Britain with the lawyer Template:Ill and Andrés Bello by paying for the mission. The trio boarded a British ship in June 1810 and arrived at Portsmouth on 10 July 1810.Template:Sfnm
The three delegates first met Miranda at his London residence, despite instructions from the Supreme Junta to avoid him, and thereafter received the benefit of his connections and consultation.Template:Sfnm On 16 July 1810, the Venezuelan delegation met Britain's foreign secretary, Richard Wellesley, at Apsley House. Led by Bolívar, the Venezuelans argued in favor of Venezuelan independence, which Wellesley stated that it was intolerable for Anglo-Spanish relations.Template:Sfnm Subsequent meetings produced no recognition or concrete support from Britain.Template:Sfnm Finding that he had many shared beliefs with Miranda, however, Bolívar convinced him to come back to Venezuela.Template:Sfnm On 22 September 1810,Template:Sfnm Bolívar left for Venezuela while López and Bello remained in London as diplomats,Template:Sfnm and arrived in La Guaira on 5 December.Template:Sfnm Although the British government wanted Miranda to remain in Britain, they could not prevent his departure,Template:Sfnm and he arrived in Venezuela later in December.Template:SfnmTemplate:Efn
Venezuela: 1811–1812Edit
While Bolívar was in England, the Supreme Junta passed liberal economic reformsTemplate:Sfnm and began to hold elections for representatives to a congress to be held in Caracas.Template:Sfn It had also alienated Caracas from the Venezuelan provinces of Coro, Maracaibo, and Guayana, which professed loyalty to the regency council,Template:Sfnm and began hostilities with them.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Co-founding the Patriotic Society, a political organization advocating for independence from Spain, Bolívar and Miranda campaigned for and secured the latter's election to the congress.Template:Sfnm The congress first met on 2 March 1811 and declared its allegiance to Ferdinand VII.Template:Sfnm After it was discovered that one of the men leading the congress was a Spanish agent who had escaped with military documents, however,Template:Sfn discourse – which Bolívar was prominent in – changed decidedly in favor of independence over 3 and 4 July.Template:Sfnm Finally, on 5 July, the congress declared Venezuela's independence.Template:Sfnm
The declaration of independence created the first Republic of Venezuela. It had a weak base of support and enemies in conservative whites, disenfranchised people of color, and the already hostile Venezuelan provinces, which received troops and supplies from the Captaincy-Generals of Puerto Rico and Cuba.Template:Sfn On 13 July 1811, the republic raised militias to fight the pro-Spanish Royalists.Template:Sfn The congress appointed Template:Ill, the Template:Ill, to command these forces,Template:Sfn which opened a breach between Bolívar and Miranda. Bolívar and del Toro were close friends, while del Toro and Miranda and their families were enemies.Template:Sfnm After he failed to suppress a Royalist uprising in the city of Valencia later in July,Template:Sfnm the congress replaced del Toro with Miranda, and he Template:Ill on 13 August.Template:Sfn As a condition of assuming command of the Republican forces, Miranda had Bolívar stripped of his command of a militia unit.Template:Sfnm Bolívar nonetheless fought in the Valencia campaign as part of del Toro's militiaTemplate:Sfnm and was selected by Miranda to bring news of its recapture to Caracas,Template:Sfnm where he argued for more punitive and forceful campaigning against the Royalists.Template:Sfnm
Beginning in November 1811, Royalist forces began pushing back the Republicans from the north and east.Template:Sfn On 26 March 1812, a powerful earthquake devastated Republican Venezuela; Caracas itself was almost totally destroyed.Template:Sfnm Bolívar, who was still near Caracas,Template:Sfn rushed into the city to participate in the rescue of survivors and exhumation of the dead.Template:Sfn The earthquake destroyed public support for the republic, as it was believed to have been divine retribution for declaring independence from Spain.Template:Sfnm By April, a Royalist army under the Spanish naval officer Juan Domingo de Monteverde overran western Venezuela. Miranda,Template:Sfn retreating east with a disintegrating army,Template:Sfn ordered Bolívar to assume command of the coastal city of Puerto Cabello and its fortress,Template:Sfnm which contained Royalist prisoners and most of the republic's remaining arms and ammunition.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar arrived at Puerto Cabello on 4 May 1812.Template:Sfnm On 30 June, an officer of the fort's garrison loyal to the Royalists released its prisoners, armed them, and turned its cannons on Puerto Cabello.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm Weakened by shelling, defections, and lack of supplies, Bolívar and his remaining troops fled for La Guaira on 6 July.Template:Sfnm Believing the republic to be doomed,Template:Sfn Miranda decided to capitulate,Template:Sfnm shocking Bolívar and other Republican officers.Template:Sfnm After formally surrendering his command to Monteverde on 25 July,Template:Sfnm Miranda made his way to La Guaira, where a group of officers including Bolívar arrested Miranda on 30 July on charges of treason against the republic.Template:Sfnm La Guaira declared for the Royalists the next day and closed its port on Monteverde's orders.Template:Sfnm Miranda was taken into Spanish custody and moved to a prison in Cádiz, where he died on 16 July 1816.Template:Sfnm
New Granada and Venezuela: 1812–1815Edit
Bolívar escaped La Guaira early on 31 July 1812 and rode to Caracas,Template:Sfnm where he hid from arrest in the home of Template:Ill, the Template:Ill. Bolívar and Casa León convinced Francisco Iturbe, a friend of the Bolívar family and of Monteverde, to intercede on Bolívar's behalf and secure escape from Venezuela for him. Iturbe persuaded Monteverde to issue Bolívar a passport for his role in Miranda's arrest,Template:Sfnm and on 27 August he sailed for the island of Curaçao. He and his uncles' Francisco and José Félix Ribas arrived on 1 September. Late in October, the exiles arranged for passage west to the city of Cartagena to offer their services as military leaders to the United Provinces of New Granada against the Royalists.Template:Sfnm They arrived in November and were welcomed by Manuel Rodríguez Torices, president of the Template:Ill,Template:Sfnm who instructed his commanding general, Pierre Labatut, to give Bolívar a military command. Labatut, a former partisan of Miranda, begrudgingly obliged and on 1 December 1812 placed Bolívar in command of the 70-man garrison of a town on the lower Magdalena River.Template:Sfnm
While en route to his posting, Bolívar issued the Cartagena Manifesto, outlining what he believed to be the causes of the Venezuelan republic's defeat and his political program. In particular, Bolívar called for the disparate New Granadan republics to help him invade Venezuela to prevent a Royalist invasion of New Granada.Template:Sfnm Bolívar arrived on the Magdalena River on 21 December and,Template:Sfn in spite of orders from Labatut to not act without his direction,Template:Sfnm launched an offensive that secured control of the Magdalena River from Royalist forces by 8 January 1813.Template:Sfnm In February, he joined forces with Republican colonel Manuel del Castillo y Rada, who requested Bolívar's assistance with stopping a Royalist advance into New Granada from Venezuela, and captured the city of Cúcuta from the Royalists.Template:Sfnm
In early March 1813, Bolívar set up his headquarters in Cúcuta and sent José Félix Ribas to request permission to invade Venezuela.Template:Sfnm Though rewarded with honorary citizenship in New Granada and a promotion to the rank of brigadier general,Template:Sfnm that permission did not come until 7 May because of del Castillo's opposition to the invasion. When a limited invasion was permitted, Castillo resigned his command and was succeeded by Francisco de Paula Santander.Template:Sfnm On 14 May, Bolívar launched the Admirable Campaign,Template:Sfn in which he issued the Decree of War to the Death, ordering the death of all Spaniards in South America not actively aiding his forces.Template:Sfnm Within six months, Bolívar pushed all the way to Caracas,Template:Sfn which he entered on 6 August,Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn and then drove Monteverde out of Venezuela in October.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Bolívar returned to Caracas on 14 October and was named "The Liberator" (El Libertador) by its town council,Template:Sfnm a title first given to him by the citizens of the Venezuelan town of Mérida on 23 May.Template:Sfnm
On 2 January 1814, Bolívar was made the dictator of a Second Republic of Venezuela,Template:Sfn which retained the weaknesses of the first republic.Template:Sfn Though all of Venezuela but Maracaibo, Coro, and Guayana was controlled by Republicans,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Bolívar only governed western Venezuela. The east was controlled by Santiago Mariño, a Venezuelan Republican who had fought Monteverde in the east throughout 1813Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn and was unwilling to subordinate himself to Bolívar.Template:Sfnm Venezuela was economically devastated and could not support the republic's armies,Template:Sfnm and people of color remained disenfranchised and thus unsupportive of the republic.Template:Sfnm The republic was assailed from all sides by slave revolts and Royalist forces,Template:Sfn especially the Legion of Hell, an army of llaneros – the horsemen of the Llanos, to the south – led by the Spanish warlord José Tomás Boves.Template:Sfnm Beginning in February 1814, Boves surged out of the Llanos and overwhelmed the republic, occupying Caracas on 16 July and then destroying Mariño's powerbase on 5 December at the Battle of Urica, where Boves died.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn
As Boves approached Caracas, Bolívar ordered the city stripped of its gold and silver,Template:Sfnm which was moved through La Guaira to Barcelona, Venezuela,Template:Sfn and from there to Cumaná.Template:Sfn Bolívar then led 20,000 of its citizens east.Template:Sfnm He arrived in Barcelona on 2 August,Template:Sfnm but following another defeat at the Battle of Aragua de Barcelona on 17 August 1814, he moved to Cumaná.Template:Sfnm On 26 August, he sailed with Mariño to Margarita Island with the treasure. The officer in control of the island, Manuel Piar, declared Bolívar and Mariño to be traitors and forced them to return to the mainland.Template:Sfnm There, Ribas also accused Bolívar and Mariño of treachery, confiscated the treasure,Template:Sfnm and then exiled the two on 8 September.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar arrived in Cartagena on 19 September and then met with the New Granadan congress in Tunja,Template:Sfnm which tasked him with subduing the rival Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca.Template:Sfnm On 12 December, Bolívar captured Cundinamarca's capital, Bogotá, and was given command of New Granada's armies in January 1815.Template:Sfnm Bolívar next grappled with del Castillo, who had taken control of Cartagena.Template:Sfnm Bolívar Template:Ill for six weeks. His change of focus allowed the Royalist forces to regain control of the Magdalena.Template:Sfnm On 8 May, Bolívar made a truce with del Castillo, resigned his command, and sailed for self-exile on Jamaica as a result of this error.Template:Sfnm In July, 8,000 Spanish soldiers commanded by Spanish general Pablo Morillo landed at Santa Marta and then Template:Ill, which capitulated on 6 December; del Castillo was executed.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn
Jamaica, Haiti, Venezuela, and New Granada: 1815–1819Edit
Bolívar arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, on 14 May 1815 and,Template:Sfnm as in his earlier exile on Curaçao, ruminated on the fall of the Venezuelan and New Granadan republics. He wrote extensively, requesting assistance from Britain and corresponding with merchants based in the Caribbean. This culminated in September 1815 with the Jamaica Letter, in which Bolívar again laid out his ideology and vision of the future of the Americas.Template:Sfnm On 9 December, the Venezuelan pirate Renato Beluche brought Bolívar news from New Granada and asked him to join the Republican community in exile in Haiti.Template:Sfn Bolívar tentatively accepted and escaped assassination that night when his manservant mistakenly killed his paymaster as part of a Spanish plot.Template:Sfnm He left Jamaica eight days later,Template:Sfnm arrived in Les Cayes on 24 December,Template:Sfnm and on 2 January 1816 was introduced to Alexandre Pétion, President of the Republic of Haiti by a mutual friend.Template:Sfnm Bolívar and Pétion impressed and befriended each other and,Template:Sfnm after Bolívar pledged to free every slave in the areas he occupied, Pétion gave him money and military supplies.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn
Returning to Les Cayes, Bolívar held a conference with the Republican leaders in Haiti and was made supreme leader with Mariño as his chief of staff.Template:Sfnm The Republicans departed Les Cayes for Venezuela on 31 March 1816 and followed the Antilles eastward.Template:Sfnm After a delay to allow a lover of Bolívar's to join the fleet, it arrived on 2 May at Margarita Island, controlled by Republican commander Juan Bautista Arismendi.Template:Sfnm Bolívar next moved to the mainland, where he declared the emancipation of all slaves and annulled of the Decree of War to the Death.Template:SfnmTemplate:Efn He seized Carúpano on 31 May and sent Mariño and Piar into Guayana to build their own army,Template:Sfnm then took and held Ocumare de la Costa from 6 to 14 July, when it was recaptured by the Royalists.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Bolívar fled by sea to Güiria where, on 22 August, he was deposed by Mariño and Venezuelan Republican José Francisco Bermúdez.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar returned to Haiti by early September,Template:Sfnm where Pétion again agreed to assist him.Template:Sfnm In his absence, the Republican leaders scattered across Venezuela, concentrating in the Llanos, and became disunited warlords.Template:Sfnm Unwilling to recognize Mariño's leadership,Template:Sfnm Arismendi wrote to Bolívar and dispatched New Granadan Republican Francisco Antonio Zea to convince him to return. Bolívar and Zea set sail for Venezuela on 21 December with Luis Brión, a Dutch merchant,Template:Sfnm and arrived ten days later at Barcelona. There, Bolívar announced his return and called for a congress for a new, third republic.Template:Sfnm He wrote to the Republican leaders, especially José Antonio Páez, who controlled most of the western Llanos, to unite under his leadership.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn On 8 January 1817, Bolívar marched towards Caracas but was defeated at the Battle of Clarines and pursued to Barcelona by a larger Royalist force.Template:Sfnm At Bolívar's request, Mariño arrived on 8 February with Bermúdez, who then reconciled with Bolívar, and forced a Royalist withdrawal.Template:Sfnm
Even with their combined forces, however, Bolívar, Mariño, and Bermúdez could not hold Barcelona.Template:Sfnm Instead, on 25 March 1817,Template:Sfnm Bolívar began moving south to join Piar in Guayana, Piar's power base, and establish his own economic and political base there.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Bolívar met Piar on 4 April,Template:Sfnm promoted him to the rank of general of the army, and then joined a force of Piar's troops besieging the city of Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar) on 2 May.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, Mariño went east to reestablish his power base and on 8 May convened a congress of ten men, including Brión and Zea, that named Mariño as supreme commander of the Republican forces.Template:Sfnm This backfired and provoked the defection of 30 officers, including Rafael Urdaneta and Antonio José de Sucre, to Bolívar.Template:Sfnm On 30 June, Bolívar granted Piar leave of absence at his request,Template:Sfnm and then issued an arrest warrant on 23 July after Piar began fomenting rebellion, alleging that Bolívar had dismissed him because of his mulatto heritage. Piar was captured on 27 September as he fled to join Mariño and was brought to Angostura, where he was executed by firing squad on 16 October.Template:Sfnm Bolívar then sent Sucre to reconcile with Mariño,Template:Sfnm who pledged loyalty to Bolívar on 26 January 1818.Template:Sfn
On 17 July 1817, Angostura fell to Bolívar's forces, which gained control of the Orinoco River in early August.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Angostura became the provisional Republican capital and in September,Template:Sfn Bolívar began creating formal political and military structures for the republic.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Following a meeting at San Juan de Payara on 30 January 1818, Páez recognized Bolívar as supreme leader.Template:Sfnm In February 1818, the Republicans moved north and took Calabozo, where Template:Ill,Template:Sfnm who had returned to Venezuela a year earlier after conquering Republican New Granada.Template:Sfn Bolívar next advanced towards Caracas, but was defeated while en route at the Template:Ill on 16 March.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn He escaped assassination by Spanish infiltrators in April. Illness and additional Republican defeats obliged Bolívar to return to Angostura in May. For the rest of the year, he focused on administering the republic, rebuilding its armed forces,Template:Sfnm and organizing elections for a national congress that would meet in 1819.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn
Gran Colombia: 1819–1830Edit
The congress met in Angostura on 15 February 1819.Template:Sfnm There, Bolívar gave a speech in which he advocated for a centralized government modeled on the British government and racial equality,Template:Sfnm and relinquished civil authority to the congress.Template:Sfnm On 16 February, the congress elected Bolívar as president and Zea as vice president.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm On 27 February,Template:Sfn Bolívar left Angostura to rejoin Páez in the west and Template:Ill against Morillo, albeit ineffectively.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm In May, as the annual wet season was beginning in the Llanos, Bolívar met with his officers and revealed his intention to invade and liberate New Granada from Royalist occupation,Template:Sfnm which he had prepared for by sending Santander to build up Republican forces in Casanare Province in August 1818.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn On 27 May,Template:Sfnm Bolívar marched with more than 2,000 soldiers toward the AndesTemplate:SfnmTemplate:Sfn and left Páez, Mariño, Urdaneta, and Bermúdez to tie down Morillo's forces in Venezuela.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar entered Casanare Province with his army on 4 June 1819,Template:Sfnm then met up with Santander at Tame, Arauca, on 11 June.Template:Sfnm The combined Republican force reached the Eastern Range of the Andes on 22 June and began a grueling crossing.Template:Sfnm On 6 July, the Republicans descended from the Andes at Socha and into the plains of New Granada.Template:Sfnm After a brief convalescence, the Republicans made rapid progress against the forces of Spanish colonel José María Barreiro Manjón until, on 7 August, the Royalists were routed at the Battle of Boyacá. On 10 August, Bolívar entered Bogotá, which the Spanish officials had hastily abandoned,Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn and captured the viceregal treasury and armories.Template:Sfnm After sending forces to secure Republican control of central New Granada,Template:Sfnm Bolívar paraded through Bogotá on 18 September with Santander.Template:Sfnm
Desiring to merge New Granada and Venezuela into a "greater republic of Colombia", Bolívar first established a provisional government in Bogotá with Santander,Template:Sfnm and then left to resume campaigning against the Royalists in Venezuela on 20 September 1819.Template:Sfnm En route, he learned that Zea had been replaced as vice president in September 1819 by Arismendi, who was conspiring with Mariño against Urdaneta and Bermúdez. Bolívar arrived in Angostura on 11 December and, by being conciliatory, defused the plot.Template:Sfnm He then proposed the merging of New Granada and Venezuela to the congress on 14 December,Template:Sfnm which was approved. On 17 December, the congress issued a decree creating the Republic of Colombia, including the regions of Venezuela, New Granada, and the still Spanish-controlled Real Audiencia of Quito, and elected Bolívar and Zea president and vice president respectively.Template:Sfnm
After Christmas Day, 1819,Template:Sfnm Bolívar left Angostura to direct campaigns against Royalist forces along the Caribbean coasts of Venezuela and New Granada.Template:Sfnm He met with Santander in Bogotá in March 1820, then rode to Cúcuta and inspected Republican forces in northern Colombia over April and May 1820.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, Morillo's military and political position was fatally undermined by Template:Ill, which forced Ferdinand VII to accept a liberal constitution in March.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn News of the mutiny and its consequences arrived in Colombia in March and was followed by orders from Spain to Morillo to publicize the constitution and negotiate a peace that would return Colombia to the Spanish Empire. Bolívar and Morillo, seeking to gain leverage over each other,Template:Sfnm delayed talks until 21 November, when Colombian and Royalist delegates met in Trujillo, Venezuela.Template:Sfnm The delegates completed Template:Ill on 25 November, establishing a six-month truce, a prisoner exchange, and basic rights for combatants. Bolívar and Morillo signed the treaties on 25 and 26 November, then met the next day at Template:Ill.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn After this meeting, Morillo turned his command over to Spanish general Miguel de la Torre and departed for Spain on 17 December.Template:Sfnm
In February 1821, as Bolívar was traveling from Bogotá to Cúcuta in anticipation of the opening of a new congress there,Template:Sfnm he learned that Royalist-controlled Maracaibo had defected to Colombia and been occupied by Urdaneta.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn La Torre protested to Bolívar, who refused to return Maracaibo, leading to a renewal of hostilities on 28 April.Template:Sfnm Over May and June, Colombia's armies made rapid progress until, on 24 June, Bolívar and Páez decisively defeated La Torre at the Battle of Carabobo.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn All Royalist forces remaining in Venezuela were eliminated by August 1823.Template:Sfn Bolívar entered Caracas in triumph on 29 June,Template:Sfnm and issued a decree on 16 July dividing Venezuela into three military zones governed by Páez, Bermúdez, and Mariño.Template:Sfnm Bolívar then met with the Congress of Cúcuta,Template:Sfnm which had ratified the formation of Gran Colombia and elected him as president and Santander as vice president in September. Bolívar accepted and was sworn in on 3 October, although he protested the establishment of a precedent of military leaders as head of the Colombian state.Template:Sfnm
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia: 1821–1826Edit
After the Battle of Carabobo, Bolívar turned his attention south, to Pasto, Colombia; Quito and the Free Province of Guayaquil, Ecuador; and the Viceroyalty of Peru. Pasto and Quito were Royalist strongholds,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm while Guayaquil had declared its independence on 9 October 1820Template:Sfn and had been garrisoned by Sucre on Bolívar's orders in January 1821.Template:Sfnm Panama declared its independence on 28 November 1821 and joined Colombia.Template:Sfnm Peru had been invaded by a Republican army led by Argentine general José de San Martín, who had liberated Chile and Peru,Template:Sfnm and Bolívar feared San Martín would absorb Ecuador into Peru.Template:Sfnm In October 1821, after congress empowered him to secure Ecuador for Colombia,Template:Sfnm Bolívar assembled an army in Bogotá that departed on 13 December 1821.Template:Sfnm His advance was halted by illness and a Pyrrhic victory at the Template:Ill in southern Colombia on 7 April 1822.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm
To the south, Sucre, who had been trapped in Guayaquil by Royalist advances from Quito,Template:Sfnm now advanced, decisively defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Pichincha on 24 May 1822, and occupied Quito.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm On 6 June, Pasto surrendered,Template:Sfnm and ten days later Bolívar paraded through Quito with Sucre.Template:Sfnm He also met the Ecuadorian Republican Manuela Sáenz, the wife of an English doctor, with whom he began a lasting affair.Template:Sfnm From Quito, Bolívar traveled to Guayaquil in anticipation of a meeting with San Martín to discuss the city's status and to rally support for its annexation by Colombia.Template:Sfnm When San Martín arrived in Guayaquil on 26 July,Template:Sfnm Bolívar had already secured Guayaquil for Colombia,Template:Sfnm and the two-day Guayaquil Conference produced no agreement between Bolívar and San Martín. Ill, politically isolated, and disillusioned, San Martín resigned from his offices and went into exile.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn
Over the rest of 1822, Bolívar traveled around Ecuador to complete its annexation while dispatching officers to suppress repeated rebellions in Pasto and resisting calls to return to Bogotá or Venezuela.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, Royalist forces under general José de Canterac Template:Ill.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn After initially refusing Colombian assistance,Template:Sfnm the Peruvian congress asked Bolívar several times in 1823 to assume command of their forces. Bolívar responded by sending an army under Sucre to assist,Template:Sfnm then delayed his own departure to Peru until he obtained permission from the Colombian congress on 3 August.Template:Sfnm When Bolívar arrived in Lima, Peru's capital, on 1 September,Template:Sfnm Peru was split between two rival presidents, José de la Riva Agüero and José Bernardo de Tagle, and the Royalists under the Viceroy of Peru, José de la Serna.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn
In November 1823, Riva Agüero, who plotted with the Royalists against Bolívar, was betrayed by his officers to Bolívar and exiled from Peru.Template:Sfnm While Bolívar was bedridden with fever over the first two months of 1824, Tagle defected to the Royalists with the garrison and city of Callao and briefly took Lima.Template:Sfnm In response, the Peruvian congress named Bolívar dictator of Peru on 10 February 1824. Bolívar moved to northern Peru in March and began assembling an army.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn His repeated demands for additional men and money strained his relationship with Santander.Template:Sfnm
In May 1824, conservative Royalist general Pedro Antonio Olañeta, based in the region of Upper Peru, Template:Ill against la Serna. Bolívar seized the opportunity to advance into the Junín region, where he defeated Canterac at the Battle of Junín on 6 August, driving them out of Peru.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Choosing to ignore Olañeta, la Serna ordered his forces to concentrate at Cuzco to face Bolívar.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfnm Heavy rainfall in September halted Bolívar's advance,Template:Sfnm and on 6 October he gave command of the army to Sucre and moved to Huancayo to manage political affairs.Template:Sfnm
On 24 October, Bolívar received a letter from Santander informing him that because he had accepted the dictatorship of Peru the Colombian congress had stripped him of his military and civil authority in favor of Sucre and Santander, respectively.Template:Sfnm Although indignant and resentful of Santander, Bolívar wrote to him on 10 November to communicate his acquiescenceTemplate:Sfnm and reoccupied Lima on 5 December 1824.Template:Sfnm On 9 December, Sucre decisively defeated La Serna's Royalists at the Battle of Ayacucho and accepted Template:Ill of all Royalist forces in Peru. The garrison of Callao and Olañeta ignored the surrender. Shortly after arriving in Lima, Bolívar began a siege of Callao that lasted until January 1826,Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn and sent Sucre into Upper Peru to eliminate Olañeta. However, Oleñeta was killed at the Battle of Tumusla prior to Sucre's arrival. With Irish volunteer Francisco Burdett O'Connor serving as his second in command, Sucre completed the liberation of Upper Peru in April 1825.Template:Sfn
In early 1825, Bolívar resigned from his offices in Colombia and Peru, but neither nation's congress accepted his resignation; on 10 February 1825, the Peruvian congress extended his dictatorship for another year. Accepting the extension,Template:Sfnm Bolívar settled into governing Peru and passing reforms that were largely not carried out, such as a school system based on the principles of English educator Joseph Lancaster that was managed by Simón Rodríguez.Template:Sfnm In April 1825, Bolívar began a tour of southern Peru that took him to the cities of Arequipa and Cuzco by August. As Bolívar approached Upper Peru, a congress gathered in the city of Chuquisaca (now Sucre); on 6 August, it declared the region to be the nation of Bolivia, named Bolívar president, and asked him to write a constitution for Bolivia.Template:Sfnm Bolívar arrived in Potosí on 5 October and met with two Argentine agents, Carlos María de Alvear and José Miguel Díaz Vélez, who tried without success to convince him to intervene in the Cisplatine War against the Empire of Brazil.Template:Sfnm
From Potosí, Bolívar traveled to Chuquisaca and appointed Sucre to govern Bolivia on 29 December 1825;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> he departed for Peru on 1 January 1826.Template:Sfnm Bolívar arrived in Lima on 10 February and dispatched his draft of the Bolivian constitution to Sucre on 12 May.Template:Sfnm Template:Ill was ratified with modification by the Bolivian congress in July 1826.Template:Sfnm Peru, whose elites chafed at Bolívar's rule and the presence of his soldiers, was also induced to accept a modified version of Bolívar's constitution on 16 August.Template:Sfnm In Venezuela, Páez revolted against Santander, and in Panama, a congress of American nations organized by Bolívar convened without his attendance and produced no change in the hemispheric status quo. On 3 September, responding to pleas for his return to Colombia, Bolívar departed Peru and left it under a governing council led by Bolivian general Andrés de Santa Cruz.Template:Sfnm
Final years: 1826–1830Edit
Template:See also Bolívar arrived in Guayaquil on 13 September 1826 and heard complaints against Santander's governance from the people of Guayaquil and Quito, who declared him their dictator.Template:Sfnm From Ecuador, he continued north and heard more complaints, promoted civil and military officers, and commuted prison sentences.Template:Sfnm As he approached Bogotá, Bolívar was met by Santander, who hoped to persuade Bolívar to his cause in the conflict with Páez. Although Santander was annoyed at Bolívar for his desire to return to power and ratify a version of the Bolivian constitution in Colombia, they reconciled and agreed that Bolívar would resume the presidency of Colombia; congress had reelected them to a second four-year term beginning on 2 January 1827. Bolívar arrived in Bogotá on 14 November 1826.Template:Sfnm
On 25 November, Bolívar left Bogotá with an army supplied by Santander and arrived at Puerto Cabello on 31 December,Template:Sfnm where he issued a general amnesty to Páez and his allies if they submitted to his authority. Páez accepted and in January 1827, Bolívar confirmed Páez's military authority in Venezuela and entered Caracas with him to much jubilation; for two months, Bolívar attended balls celebrating his return and the amnesty.Template:Sfnm That amnesty, and clashes over Santander's handling of Colombia's finances, caused a break between Bolívar and Santander that became an open enmity in 1827.Template:Sfnm In February 1827, Bolívar submitted his resignation from the Presidency of Colombia, which its congress rejected.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, the Colombian soldiers garrisoned in Lima mutinied, arrested their Venezuelan officers, and occupied Guayaquil until September 1827, allowing Bolívar's opponents in Peru to depose him as president and repeal his constitution.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar departed Venezuela to return to Bogotá in July 1827. He arrived on 10 September with an army he had gathered at Cartagena and secured the calling of a new congress to meet at the city of Ocaña in early 1828 to modify the Colombian constitution. The elections for this congress were held in November 1827 and, as Bolívar declined to campaign because he did not wish to be perceived as personally influencing the elections, were very favorable to his political opponents.Template:Sfnm In January 1828, Bolívar was joined in Bogotá by Sáenz,Template:Sfnm but on 16 March 1828 he left the capital after being informed of a Spanish-backed rebellion in Venezuela. As that revolt was crushed before he arrived, Bolívar turned his attention to the occupation of Cartagena by José Prudencio Padilla, a New Granadan admiral and Santander loyalist. Padilla's rebellion was also crushed before Bolívar arrived, however, and he was arrested and imprisoned in Bogotá. As the Convention of Ocaña opened on 9 April, Bolívar based himself at Bucaramanga to monitor its proceedings through his aides.Template:Sfnm
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The convention appeared likely to adopt a federalist system. To prevent this, on 11 June 1828 Bolívar's allies staged a walkout, leaving the convention without a quorum.Template:Sfnm Two days later, Pedro Alcántara Herrán, a Bolívar loyalist and the governor of New Granada, called a meeting of the city's elite that denounced the Convention of Ocaña and called on Bolívar to assume absolute power in Colombia. Bolívar returned to Bogotá on 24 June and on 27 August assumed supreme power as the "president-liberator" of Colombia, abolished the office of the vice president, and assigned Santander to a diplomatic posting in Washington, D.C. On 25 September 1828, a group of young liberals that included Santander's secretary made an attempt to assassinate Bolívar and overthrow his government. The attempt was thwarted by Sáenz, who bought time for Bolívar to escape as the assassins entered the Palacio de San Carlos, and the Colombian Army. Bolívar spent the night hiding under a bridge until soldiers loyal to his regime rescued him.Template:Sfnm
In the aftermath of the attempted coup, Santander and the conspirators were arrested. Bolívar, depressed and ill, considered resigning from politics and pardoning the conspirators, but was dissuaded from this by his officers. Padilla, though uninvolved with the attempted coup, was executed for treason for his earlier rebellion; Santander, whom Bolívar thought responsible for the plot, was pardoned but exiled from Colombia.Template:Sfnm In December 1828, Bolívar left Bogotá to respond to Peru's intervention in Bolivia and invasion of Ecuador and a revolt in Popayán and Pasto led by José María Obando. He left behind a council of ministers led by Urdaneta to govern Colombia and announced that a congress would convene in January 1830 to devise a new constitution. Over 1829, Obando was defeated by Colombian general José María Córdova at Bolívar's direction in January and then pardoned, while Sucre and Venezuelan general Juan José Flores defeated the Peruvians at the Battle of Tarqui in February, leading to an armistice in July and then the Treaty of Guayaquil in September.Template:Sfnm
While Bolívar was away, Urdaneta and the council of ministers planned with French envoys to have a member of the House of Bourbon succeed Bolívar on his death as King of Colombia. This plan was widely unpopular, and inspired Córdova to launch a revolt that was crushed in October 1829 by Daniel Florence O'Leary, Bolívar's aide-de-camp. In November, Bolívar ordered the council to cease its planning; instead they resigned.Template:Sfnm Venezuelans, encouraged by a circular letter Bolívar had published in October, voted to secede from Colombia.Template:Sfnm On 15 January 1830, Bolívar arrived in Bogotá and on 20 January the Template:Ill convened in the city. Bolívar submitted his resignation from the presidency, which the congress did not accept until 27 April, following the appointment of New Granadan politician Domingo Caycedo as interim President.Template:Sfnm
Death and burialEdit
Determined to go into exile, Bolívar, who had given away or lost his fortune over his career, sold most of his remaining possessions and departed from Bogotá on 8 May 1830.Template:Sfnm He traveled down the Magdalena to Cartagena, where he arrived by the end of June to wait for a ship to take him to England.Template:Sfnm On 1 July, Bolívar was informed that Sucre had been assassinated near Pasto while en route to Quito, and wrote to Flores to ask him to avenge Sucre.Template:Sfnm In September, Urdaneta installed a conservative government in Bogotá and asked Bolívar to return, but he refused.Template:Sfnm With his health deteriorating and no ship forthcoming, Bolívar was moved by his staff to Barranquilla in October and then, at the invitation of a Spanish landowner in the area, to the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino near Santa Marta. There, on 17 December 1830, at the age of 47, Bolívar died of tuberculosis.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar's body, dressed in a borrowed shirt, was interred in the Template:Ill on 20 December 1830.Template:Sfnm In 1842, Páez secured the repatriation of Bolívar's remains, which were paraded through Caracas and then laid to rest in its cathedral in December together with his wife and parents; Bolívar's heart remained in Santa Marta. His remains were moved again in October 1876 into the National Pantheon of Venezuela in Caracas, created that year by President Antonio Guzmán Blanco.Template:Sfnm
Bolívar's death has been the subject of conspiracy theories advanced by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. In January 2008, President Hugo Chávez set up a commission to investigate his claim that Bolívar had been poisoned by "New Granada traitors."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The commission exhumed Bolívar's remains on 16 July 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The results, made public on 26 July 2011, were inconclusive; Vice President of Venezuela Elías Jaua announced that the commission could not prove Chávez's claim.<ref name=tg1/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Chávez continued to claim that Bolívar had been assassinated via arsenic poisoning, citing a paper by infectious disease specialist Paul Auwaerter. Following Chávez's remarks, Auwaerter stated that the arsenic likely came from medicines Bolívar had ingested to treat his illnesses.<ref name="tg1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Personal beliefsEdit
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Bolívar's personal beliefs were liberal and republican, and formed by Classical and Enlightenment philosophy;Template:Sfnm among his favorite authors were Hobbes, Spinoza, the Baron d'Holbach, Hume, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.Template:Sfn The tutelage of Simón Rodríguez, a student of Rousseau, has been traditionally seen as foundational for Bolívar's beliefs.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Also important to Bolívar's intellectual development were his stays in Paris from 1804 to 1806 and in London in 1810.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Bolívar was an Anglophile, and sought British aid in securing Latin American independence.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfnm The extent of Bolívar's religiosity is debated; while Bolívar resented the social capital of the Catholic Church and its Royalist leanings during the wars of independence, he sought to co-opt its social capital for the benefit of the republics he established rather than dismember the Church.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfnm
Throughout his political career, Bolívar concerned himself with the construction of liberal democracy in Latin America and the region's place in the Atlantic world.Template:Sfn By the 1820s, his goal was to create a federation of Latin American republics in Spanish America, each governed by a strong executive and a constitution modeled on the British constitution.Template:Sfn Inspired by Montesquieu, Bolívar believed that a government should conform to the needs and character of its region and inhabitants;Template:Sfn in the Cartagena Manifesto, Bolívar stated that federalism as practiced in the United States was the "perfect" government but was unworkable in Spanish America because, he believed, Spanish imperialism had left Spanish Americans unprepared for federalism.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn Bolívar sought to prepare Colombia for a more liberal democracy via free, public education.Template:Sfn Over the 1820s, Bolívar became increasingly disillusioned and authoritarian until, in 1830, he declared to Flores, "all who have served the Revolution have plowed the sea."Template:Sfnm
LegacyEdit
Bolívar has had an immense legacy, becoming the essential personality of Latin America.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The currencies of Venezuela and Bolivia—the bolívar and boliviano respectively—are named after Bolívar.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the English-speaking world, Bolívar is known as Latin America's George Washington.Template:Sfnm He has been memorialized across the world in literature, public monuments, and historiography, and paid tribute to in the names of towns, cities, provinces, and other people.Template:SfnmTemplate:Sfn The Quinta near Santa Marta has been preserved as a museum to Bolívar<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and the house in which he was born was opened as a museum and archive of his papers on 5 July 1921.Template:Sfn In 1978, UNESCO created the International Simón Bolívar Prize "to reward an activity of outstanding merit in accordance with the ideals of Simón Bolívar."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1997, the Archive of the Liberator Simón Bolívar was inscribed by UNESCO in the Memory of the World International Register<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and in the Regional Register for Latin America and the Caribbean in 2011.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Initial historical evaluations of Bolívar were at first negative, consisting of criticism of his conduct of the war, execution of Piar, betrayal of Miranda, and authoritarianism.Template:Sfn These and other criticisms endure in studies of Bolívar.Template:Sfnm Beginning in 1842, however, popular opinion about Bolívar in Venezuela became overwhelmingly positive and eventually became what has been described by scholars as the "cult of Bolívar", led by succeeding heads of the Venezuelan state. In 1998, President Hugo Chávez, who had made extensive use of Bolívar's image for government projects and initiatives, changed the official name of Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.Template:Sfnm In Colombia, allegiance or opposition to Bolívar formed the bedrock of the Conservative and Liberal parties respectively.Template:Sfn Bolívar continued to have such a cultural influence in Colombia that in 1974 the 19th of April Movement, an insurgent leftist group that later joined an alliance thereof called the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board, Template:Ill alleged to belong to Bolívar from his Bogotá residence.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
See alsoEdit
- Libertadores
- Toussaint Louverture
- Crown of Simón Bolívar
- Bolivarianism
- Congress of Panama
- Father of the Nation
- Palomo (horse)
ReferencesEdit
NotesEdit
CitationsEdit
BibliographyEdit
Biographies of Simón BolívarEdit
Works by Simón BolívarEdit
General referenceEdit
Further readingEdit
- Bushnell, David. The Liberator, Simón Bolívar: Man and Image. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.
- Bushnell, David and Macaulay, Neill. The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (Second edition). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Template:ISBN
- Gómez Martínez, José Luis. "La encrucijada del cambio: Simón Bolívar entre dos paradigmas (una reflexión ante la encrucijada postindustrial)". Cuadernos Americanos 104 (2004): 11–32.
- Lacroix, Luis Perú de. Diario de Bucaramanga. Caracas: Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información, 2009.
- Lynch, John. Simón Bolívar and the Age of Revolution. London: University of London Institute of Latin American Studies, 1983. Template:ISBN
- Marx, Karl. "Bolívar y Ponte" in the New American Cyclopaedia, Vol. III. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1858.
- Racine, Karen. "Simón Bolívar and friends: Recent biographies of independence figures in Colombia and Venezuela" History Compass 18#3 (Feb 2020) https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12608
External linksEdit
- Archivo del Libertador (In Spanish) –12,000+ transcribed documents of the Libertador, from 1799 to 1830.
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