Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco (b. Caracas, July 24, 1783; d. Santa Marta, December 17, 1830) – more commonly known as Simón Bolívar – was, together with the Argentine general José de San Martín, one of the most important leaders of Spanish America's successful struggle for independence.

Following the triumph over the Spanish monarchy, Bolívar participated in the foundation of Gran Colombia, a nation formed from the liberated Spanish colonies. He was President of Gran Colombia from 1821 to 1830, President of Peru from 1824 to 1826, and President of Bolivia from 1825 to 1826. Bolívar is credited with contributing decisively to the independence of the present-day countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia and is often revered as a hero.

Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas, Captaincy General of Venezuela (now Venezuela). The Bolívar aristocratic bloodline derives from a small village in the Basque Country (Spain), called La Puebla de Bolívar, which is the origin of the surname. His father descended remotely from King Fernando III of Castile and Count Amedeo IV of Savoy, and came from the male line of the de Ardanza family. The Bolívars settled in Venezuela in the sixteenth century.

A portion of their wealth came from the silver and gold mines in Venezuela. However in 1632, gold was first mined, leading to further discoveries of extensive copper deposits. Towards the later 1600s, copper was exploited with the name "Cobre Caracas". These mines became the property of Simón Bolívar's family. Later in his revolutionary life, Bolivar used part of the mineral income to finance the South American revolutionary wars. Some people claim that his family grew to prominence before gaining great wealth. For example, the Caracas Cathedral, founded in 1594, has a side chapel dedicated to Simón Bolívar's family.

Following the death of his father Juan Vicente Bolívar y Ponte, 1st Marqués de San Luis, and his mother María de la Concepción Palacios y Blanco, he went to Spain in 1799 to complete his education. There he married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa in 1802, but on a brief return visit to Venezuela in 1803, she succumbed to yellow fever. Bolívar returned to Europe in 1804 and for a time was part of Napoleon's retinue.

El Libertador-The Liberator
Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1807, and, when Napoleon made Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain and its colonies in 1808, he participated in the resistance juntas in South America. The Caracas junta declared its independence in 1810, and Bolívar was sent to Britain on a diplomatic mission.

Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1811. In March 1812, Bolívar was forced to leave Venezuela because of an earthquake that destroyed Caracas. In July 1812, junta leader Francisco de Miranda surrendered to the Spanish, and Bolívar had to flee to Cartagena de Indias. It was during this period that Bolívar wrote his Manifiesto de Cartagena. In 1813, after acquiring a military command in New Granada under the direction of the Congress of New Granada in Tunja, he led the invasion of Venezuela on May 14.

This was the beginning of the famous Admirable Campaign. He entered Mérida on May 23, where he was proclaimed as El Libertador, following the occupation of Trujillo on June 9. Six days later, on June 15, he dictated his famous Decree of War to the Death (Decreto de Guerra a Muerte). Caracas was retaken on August 6, 1813, and Bolívar was ratified as "El Libertador", thus proclaiming the Venezuelan Second Republic.

Due to the rebellion of José Tomás Boves in 1814 and the fall of the republic, he returned to New Granada, where he then commanded a Colombian nationalist force and entered Bogotá in 1814, recapturing the city from the dissenting republican forces of Cundinamarca. He intended to march into Cartagena and enlist the aid of local forces in order to capture Royalist Santa Marta. However, after a number of political and military disputes with the government of Cartagena, Bolívar fled, in 1815, to Haiti, where he befriended Alexandre Pétion, the leader of the newly independent country. Bolívar (granted sanctuary in Haiti) petitioned Pétion for aid.

In 1817, with Haitian soldiers and vital material support (on the condition that he abolish slavery), Bolívar landed in Venezuela and captured Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar). A victory at the Battle of Boyacá in 1819 added New Granada to the territories free from Spanish control, and in September 7, 1821 the Gran Colombia (a federation covering much of modern Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador) was created, with Bolívar as president and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president.

Further victories at the Carabobo in 1821 and Pichincha in 1822 consolidated his rule over Venezuela and Ecuador respectively. After a meeting in Guayaquil, on July 26 and July 27, 1822, with Argentine General José de San Martín, who had received the title of Protector of Peruvian Freedom, in August 1821, after having partially liberated Peru from the Spanish, Bolívar took over the task of fully liberating Peru.

The Peruvian congress named him dictator of Peru, on February 10, 1824, which allowed Bolívar to completely reorganize the political and military administration. Bolívar, assisted by Antonio José de Sucre, decisively defeated the Spanish cavalry, on August 6, 1824, at Junín. Sucre destroyed the still numerically superior remnants of the Spanish forces at Ayacucho on December 9.

On August 6, 1825, at the Congress of Upper Peru, the Republic of Bolivia was created. Bolívar is thus one of the few men to have a country named after him. The constitution reflected the influence of the French and Scottish Enlightenment on Bolívar's political thought, as well as that of classical Greek and Roman authors.

Bolívar had great difficulties maintaining control of the vast Gran Colombia. During 1826, internal divisions had sparked dissent throughout the nation and regional uprisings erupted in Venezuela, thus the fragile South American coalition appeared to be on the verge of collapse. An amnesty was declared and an arrangement was reached with the Venezuelan rebels, but political dissent in New Granada grew as a consequence of this. In an attempt to keep the federation together as a single entity, Bolívar called for a constitutional convention at Ocaña during April 1828.

He had seen his dream of eventually creating an American Revolution-style federation between all the newly independent republics, with a government ideally set-up solely to recognize and uphold individual rights, succumb to the pressures of particular interests throughout the region, which rejected that model and allegedly had little or no allegiance to liberal principles.

For this reason, and to prevent a break-up, Bolívar wanted to implement in Gran Colombia a more centralist model of government, including some or all of the elements of the Bolivian constitution he had written (which included a lifetime presidency with the ability to select a successor, though this was theoretically held in check by an intricate system of balances).

This move was considered controversial and was one of the reasons why the deliberations met with strong opposition. The convention almost ended up drafting a document which would have implemented a radically federalist form of government, which would have greatly reduced the powers of the central administration.

Unhappy with what would be the ensuing result, Bolívar's delegates left the convention. After the failure of the convention due to grave political differences, Bolívar proclaimed himself dictator on August 27, 1828 through the "Organic Decree of Dictatorship". He considered this as a temporary measure, as a means to reestablish his authority and save the republic, though it increased dissatisfaction and anger among his political opponents. An assassination attempt on September 25, 1828 failed, in part thanks to the help of his lover, Manuela Sáenz, according to popular belief.

Although Bolívar emerged physically intact from the event, this nevertheless greatly affected him. Dissident feelings continued, and uprisings occurred in New Granada, Venezuela and Ecuador during the next two years.

Death and Legacy
Bolívar's death by Venezuelan painter Antonio Herrera Toro Simón Bolívar Memorial Monument, standing in Santa Marta (Colombia) at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino Bolívar finally resigned his presidency on April 27, 1830, intending to leave the country for exile in Europe, possibly in France. He had already sent several crates (containing his belongings and his writings) ahead of him to Europe.

He died before setting sail, after a painful battle with tuberculosis on December 17, 1830, in the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta, Gran Colombia (now Colombia). His remains were moved from Santa Marta to Caracas in 1842, where a monument was set up for his burial in the Panteón Nacional. The 'Quinta' near Santa Marta has been preserved as a museum with numerous references to his life.

Relatives
Simón Bolívar has no direct descendants. His bloodline lives on through his sister Juana Bolívar y Palacios who married their maternal uncle Dionisio Palacios y Blanco and had two children: Guillermo and Benigna. Guillermo died when fighting alongside his uncle in the battle of La Hogaza in 1817. Benigna Palacios y Bolívar married Pedro Amestoy. Their great-grandchildren, Pedro (95), and Eduardo Mendoza (90) live in Caracas. They are Simón Bolívar's closest living relatives.

Political legacy
Simón Bolívar lends his name and image to the Venezuelan Bolívar coin Simón Bolívar medallion by David D'Angers, 1832 Simón Bolívar's political legacy has been massive and he is a very important figure in South American political history. Claims to the mantle of Simón Bolívar have continued throughout modern times via the various shades of 'Bolivarianism'.

Hugo Chávez says that “El Libertador”´s integral approach inspired him to the political blueprint of new Venezuela. Simón Bolívar’s main goal was to unify the states of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and others under one great “La Gran Colombia”.

Furthermore, the unification would strengthen the states to be equal competitors with major continental powers. It would ultimately diminish the poverty stricken societies of Latin America. Chávez says that Simón Bolívar influenced his platform in politics, economics, law, education, morality and duty. Chávez places great emphasis on Bolivar being more than just a symbol or spirit of the Revolution but a concept that is still relevant in the current state of Venezuela.

On his deathbed, Bolívar asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel F. O'Leary to burn the extensive archive of his writings, letters, and speeches. O'Leary disobeyed the order and his writings survived, providing historians with a vast wealth of information about Bolívar's liberal philosophy and thought.

He was a great admirer of the American Revolution and a great critic of the French Revolution. Bolívar described himself in his many letters as a "liberal". Among the books he traveled with when he wrote the Bolivian Constitution one is Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws.[6]

THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF BOLIVAR
By GERALD E. FITZGERALD THE HAGUE, 1971

 Although some have described Bolívar as changeable in his political thought, a close examination of his writings relative to politics does not bear out this evaluation.

Bolívar was well aware of the lack of political education among Spanish Americans brought about by the nature of Spanish rule. This was the limiting factor in his thought. Certain political institutions would be unacceptable because of the inability of Spanish-Americans to support them and to conform to them. Thus, for example, Bolívar always maintained federalism to be an ideal form of government, yet he recognized that federalism could well lead to disintegration of the nation, and, in his later works, he pointed out that this was indeed happening.

To Bolívar, republicanism linked with responsibility was the absolute minimum to be sought. He would laud the advantages of a republican system, and, unlike San Martín or Iturbide, he would reject completely the idea of imposign a monarchy on the pretext of establishing public order. Some have maintained that his proposed life-president with power to name a successor is indeed an "uncrowned monarch." Yet to maintain this is to overlook the essential difference.

Monarchy presupposes that political power is transferred to another person by the right of his family relationship to the preceeding monarch, while the life-president selects his successor on the basis of ability instead of parentage. Instead of a closed aristocracy of birth, Bolívar supported an open aristocracy of merit. Perhpas "meritocracy" would best describe his proposed leadership of the state.

The influence of Montesquieu is evident in Bolívar's accepting the possibility that laws and political institutions may be different in different places and different times for different people. He often referred to L'Esprit des lois. Bolívar felt that the realities of international politics required that the Spanish-American states form a whole.

This was of course in contradiction to the Spanish imperial tradition which treated Spanish America as several kingdoms held together, in theory, only by allegiance to the King of Spain, but also, in fact, by the Spanish imperial bureaucracy. Historically, it made sense for the Spanish-American countries to develop independently. Yet Bolívar was aware that any such development would weaken their collective independence.

Given the above attitudes, it was logical for Bolívar, in the Cartagena Manifesto, to cite the use of a federal system as one of the reasons for the fall of the 1811 First Venezuelan Republic. It made sense for him to espouse, as an alternative, the British constitutional system with its unitary form of government, as in the Angostura Discourse.

Recognizing that different countries were coming into being, Bolívar first talked in terms of "union" of these countries into larger countries. When he saw the ideal of one country of the former Spanish-American colonies was not going to be achieved, he modified his views to save what could be saved. Thus he held together, more by personal magnetism than by any other means, the country of Colombia, consisting of New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador.

He recognized that, while Colombia had helped achieve freedom for Peru and Bolivia, these countries could be persuaded to unite with Colombia only on a federal basis. Thus, Bolívar's belief in union and his belief in a unitary system collided. He supported the Andean Federation since, at the time, he felt union was more important than the unitary system. When this failed, he supported smaller nations as a practical matter.

The best exposition of Bolívar's own ideas on the organization of the state is perhaps the draft constitution that he prepared at the request of the Bolivians. He proposed a unitary state, with a life-president, and a system of indirect election of some officials, based possibly on the decimal representation of the French Constitution of the years VIII and X. A moral power is to be exercised by the censors. They are to oversee the operation of the school system, the behavior of individuals, the protection of the constituion, and the rights of the people. In effect, there is a tricameral system in the legislature, with tribunes, senators, and censors having differing legislative responsibilities.

The life-president, proposed in the Angostura Discourse, again appears in the draft constition. Here, however, his powers are extremely limited. He can appoint only a few officials, but among these is his successor, who must be approved by the congress. The judiciary is to be chosen by the senate from triple lists proposed by the electoral college, except for the supreme court, which is chosen by the censors from a triple list prepared by the senate. The "democratic Caesarism" of the life-presient is what is usually recalled of the Bolivarian constitution.

In the field of international relations, Bolívar proposed the extension of the balance of power idea to the entire world. Originally it referred to a balance in Europe. Bolívar supported a balance composed of the Americas on one side and of most of Europe on the other. This balance, when held in equilibrium, would, he felt, maintain the independence of Spanish America. To help keep this balance, he felt that England should ally itself with the Spanish-American countries.

As an internationalist, Bolívar supported the Congress of Panama, which he hoped would develop a league of the American states to defend themselves against a Spanish reconquest. Although the Congress of Panama was a failure, it was surely the beginning of Latin American cooperation, and, as such, the forerunner of the Organization of American States. Some would also ascribe the idea of world organizations, such as the League of Nations or the United Nations, to Bolivarian beginnings. At any rate, the example was there to be followed.

It is interesting that Bolívar, who considered himself as a military man above all, found himself offered political power throughout his career, although he felt incapable of exercising both at once. The supreme irony, of course, was that this staunch republican was often placed in the position of being compelled to accept dictatorship to preserve the state. In the end, he found that even his strong determination could not maintain the political institutions he considered diserable.

Perhaps the instances of military men assuming political power that are still common in Latin America may be ascribed to the model set by Bolívar, but there is a considerable difference. Bolívar always assumed political power, limited or total, in the hope that the action was a temporary or transitory one. He intended a return to republican normality as soon as conditions permitted. He did not seek political power with the intention of retaining it. The caudillo, mouthing democratic ideals, claims he wishes a return to democratic principles, but, in fact, he has no such intentions. The comparison does not hold.

As with all great men, it was difficult for his contemporaries to evaluate Bolívar's contributions to their political history. Time has allowed a proper assessment of Bolívar's by Latin Americans. Today, he is revered as the Liberator of five Andean nations, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia. In other Latin American nations, respect for his achievements in the military and political spheres transcends national boundaries. Nor is Bolívar simply a historical datum without relevance to the world today. His struggle for independence in his part of the world has been repeated in other areas as well.