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Simon Bolivar in Castro, Chiloe
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From Wikipedia –
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, commonly known as Simón Bolívar (July 24, 1783 – December 17, 1830) was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Together with José de San Martín, he played a key role in Hispanic America’s successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire.
Following the triumph over the Spanish Monarchy, Bolívar participated in the foundation of the first union of independent nations in Latin America, which was named Gran Colombia, and of which he was president from 1819 to 1830.
Simón Bolívar is regarded in Hispanic America as a hero, visionary, revolutionary, and liberator. During his lifetime, he led Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela to independence, and helped lay the foundations for democratic ideology in much of Hispanic America.
The surname Bolívar derives from the Bolívar aristocrats who came from a small village in the Basque Country, Spain, called La Puebla de Bolívar. His father came from the male line of the de Ardanza family. His maternal grandmother, however, was descended from some families from Canary Island that settled in the country.
The Bolívars settled in Venezuela in the sixteenth century. His first South American Bolivar ancestor was Simón de Bolívar (or Simon de Bolibar; the spelling was not standardized until the nineteenth century), who lived and worked with the governor of the Santo Domingo from 1550 to 1570. When the governor of Santo Domingo was reassigned to Venezuela in 1589, Simón de Bolívar came with him. As an early settler in Caracas Province, he became prominent in the local society, and he and his descendants were granted estates, encomiendas, and positions in the Caracas cabildo.
The social position of the family is illustrated by the fact that when the Caracas Cathedral was built in 1594, the Bolívar family had one of the first dedicated side chapels. The majority of the wealth of Simón de Bolívar’s descendants came from the estates. The most important of these estates was a sugar with an encomienda that provided the labor needed to run the estate. In later centuries, slave and free black labor would have replaced most of the encomienda labor.
Another portion of Bolivar wealth came from the silver, gold, and more importantly, copper mines in Venezuela. In 1632, small gold deposits first were mined in Venezuela, leading to further discoveries of much more extensive copper deposits. From his mother’s side, the Palacios family, Bolívar inherited the copper mines at Cocorote. Slaves provided the majority of the labor in these mines.
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, copper exploitation became so prominent in Venezuela that it became known as Cobre Caracas ("Caracas copper"). Many of the mines became the property of the Bolívar family. Bolívar’s grandfather, Juan de Bolívar y Martínez de Villegas, paid 22,000 ducats to the monastery at Santa Maria de Montserrat in 1728 for a title of nobility that had been granted by the king, Philip V of Spain, for its maintenance. The crown never issued the patent of nobility, and so the purchase became the subject of lawsuits that were still going on during Bolívar’s lifetime, when independence from Spain made the point moot. (If successful, Bolívar’s older brother, Juan Vicente, would have become the Marqués de San Luis and Vizconde de Cocorote.) Bolívar was able to use his family’s immense wealth to finance his revolutionary efforts.
Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas, Captaincy General of Venezuela (now the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela), on July 24, 1783 and he was baptized as Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios. His mother was Doña María de la Concepción Palacios y Blanco and his father was Coronel Don Juan Vicente Bolívar y Ponte.
He had two older sisters and a brother: María Antonia, Juana, and Juan Vicente. Another sister, María del Carmen, died at birth.
The circumstances of Bolívar’s parents forced them to entrust the baby Simón Bolívar to the care of Doña Ines Manceba de Miyares and the family’s slave la negra Hipolita. A couple of years later Bolívar returned to the love and care of his parents, but this traumatic experience would have a severe effect on Bolívar’s life. By his third birthday, his father Juan Vicente had died.
Bolívar’s father died when Bolívar was two and a half years old. Bolívar’s mother, Maria Concepción de Palacios y Blanco, died when he was approaching nine years of age. He then was placed in the custody of a severe instructor, Miguel José Sanz, but this relationship did not work out and he was sent back to his home. In an effort to give Bolívar the best education possible, he received private lessons from the renowned professors Andrés Bello, Guillermo Pelgrón, Jose Antonion Negrete, Fernando Vides, Father Andújar, and the most influential of all, Don Simón Rodríguez, formerly known as Simón Carreño. Don Simón Rodriguez was later to become Bolívar’s friend and mentor, and he instilled in the young man the ideas of liberty, enlightenment, and freedom.
In the meantime, all the love, affection, and attention given to Bolívar was from his nanny, Hipólita. Hipólita gave the young Bolívar all the affection he needed and indulged him in all his wishes and desires. His instructor Don Simón understood the young Bolívar’s personality and inclinations, and tried from the very beginning to be an empathetic friend. They took long walks through the countryside and climbed mountains. Don Simón taught Bolívar how to swim and ride horses, and, in the process, taught him about liberty, human rights, politics, history, and sociology.
Military career
At the age of fourteen, Bolívar’s private instructor and mentor Simón Rodríguez had to abandon the country, as he was accused of being involved in a conspiracy against the Spanish government in Caracas. Thus, Bolívar entered the military academy of the Milicias de Veraguas, which his father had directed as colonel years earlier. Through these years of military training, he developed his fervent passion for armaments and military strategy, which he later would employ on the battlefields of the wars of independence.
A few years later, while in Paris, Bolívar witnessed the coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame, and this majestic event left a profound a impression upon him. From that moment he wished that he could emulate similar triumphant glory for the people of his native land.
El Libertador
Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1807. In 1813 he was given a military command in Tunja, New Granada (today Colombia), under the direction of the Congress of United Provinces of New Granada, which had formed out of the juntas established in 1810.
From New Granada, Bolívar began an 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. That event was followed by the occupation of Trujillo on June 9. Six days later, on June 15, he dictated his famous Decree of War to the Death. Caracas was retaken on August 6, 1813 and Bolívar was ratified as "El Libertador", thus proclaiming the restoration of the Venezuelan 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 force for the United Provinces 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. In 1815, after a number of political and military disputes with the government of Cartagena, however, Bolívar fled to Jamaica, where he was denied support and an attempt was made on his life, after which he fled to Haiti, where he was granted sanctuary and protection. He befriended Alexandre Pétion, the leader of the newly independent country, and petitioned him 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). At that time, Venezuela remained a captaincy of Spain, however, and Bolívar decided that he would first fight for the independence of New Granada (which was a vice royalty), intending later to consolidate the independence of Venezuela and other less politically important Spanish territories.
The campaign for the independence of New Granada was consolidated with the victory at the Battle of Boyacá in 1819. From this newly consolidated base of power, Bolívar launched outright independence campaigns in Venezuela and Ecuador, and these campaigns were concluded with the victories at the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 and the Battle of Pichincha in 1822. On September 7, 1821 the Gran Colombia (a state covering much of modern Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador) was created, with Bolívar as president and Francisco de Paula Santander as vice president.
On July 26 and 27 of 1822, Bolívar held the Guayaquil conference with the Argentinian 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. Thereafter, 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 reorganize completely the political and military administration.
Assisted by Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar decisively defeated the Spanish cavalry at the Battle of Junín on August 6, 1824. 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.
Proclamation of dictatorial power
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 new South American union revealed its fragility and appeared to be on the verge of collapse. To preserve the union, an amnesty was declared and an arrangement was reached with the Venezuelan rebels, but this increased the political dissent in neighboring New Granada. In an attempt to keep the nation together as a single entity, Bolívar called for a constitutional convention at Ocaña during April 1828.
Bolívar’s dream had been to engender an American Revolution-style federation among all the newly independent republics, with a government set up solely to recognize and uphold the rights of the individual. This dream had succumbed to the pressures of particular interests throughout the region, which rejected that model and had little or no allegiance to liberal principles. For this reason, and to prevent a break-up, Bolívar sought to implement a more centralist model of government in Gran Colombia, 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 (although theoretically, this presidency was held in check by an intricate system of balances).
This move was considered controversial in New Granada and was one of the reasons the deliberations in favor of such a constitution met with strong opposition at the Convention of Ocaña, which met from April 9 to June 10, 1828. 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 a central administration. Unhappy with what would be the ensuing result, pro-Bolívar delegates withdrew from the convention, leaving it moribund.
After the failure of this congress to write a new constitution, Bolívar proclaimed himself dictator on August 27, 1828 through the Decree of Dictatorship. He considered this as a temporary measure, as a means to reestablish his authority and save the republic, although it increased dissatisfaction and anger among his political opponents. An assassination attempt on September 25, 1828 failed, thanks to the help of his lover, Manuela Sáenz. Bolivar afterward described Manuela as Libertadora del Libertador (the liberator of the liberator).
Although Bolívar emerged safely from the attempt, this nevertheless greatly affected him. Dissent continued, and uprisings occurred in New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador during the next two years.
Death
Saying, "all who served the Revolution have plowed the sea", Bolívar finally resigned his presidency on April 27, 1830, intending to leave the country for exile in Europe, possibly in France. He already had sent several crates (containing his belongings and writings, which he had selected) ahead of him to Europe, but he died before setting sail.
On December 17, 1830, at the age of forty-seven, Simón Bolívar died after a painful battle with tuberculosis in the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta, Gran Colombia (now Colombia).
On his deathbed, Bolívar asked his aide-de-camp, General Daniel F. O’Leary to burn the remaining, 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, as well as details of his personal life, such as his longstanding love affair with Manuela Sáenz. Shortly before her own death in 1856, Sáenz augmented this collection by giving O’Leary her own letters from Bolívar.
His remains were buried in the cathedral of Santa Marta. Twelve years later, in 1842, at the request of President José Antonio Páez, they were moved from Santa Marta to Caracas, where a monument was set up for his interment in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. The ‘Quinta’ near Santa Marta has been preserved as a museum with numerous references to his life. In 2010, symbolic remains of Bolivar’s lover, Manuela Sáenz, were interred by his side during a national ceremony reuniting them and honoring her role in the liberations.
On January 2008, President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez set up a commission to investigate theories indicating that Bolívar could have been the victim of an assassination. In April 2010, infectious diseases specialist Paul Auwaerter studied existing records of Bolivar’s symptoms and concluded that he may have suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning, but considered that both acute poisoning and murder were unlikely. In July 2010, Bolívar’s body was ordered to be exhumed to advance the investigations.
Private life
In 1799, following the early deaths of his father Juan Vicente (died 1786) and his mother Concepción (died 1792), he traveled to Mexico, France, and Spain, at age sixteen, to complete his education. While in Madrid during 1802, he married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaiza, who was his only wife. She was related to the family of the Marqués del Toro of Caracas. Eight months after returning to Venezuela with her, she died from yellow fever.
Bolívar returned to Europe in 1804, where he lived in Napoleonic France for a while and undertook the Grand Tour. During this time in Europe, it was rumored that he met Alexander von Humboldt in Paris. Humboldt wrote in 1804 of having met a young man in Paris and Humboldt had noticed how the young man loved liberty and made for some lively conversation, but he left Humboldt unimpressed.
Relatives
Bolívar had no descendants. His closest living relatives descend from his sisters and brother. One of his sisters died in infancy. His sister, Juana Bolívar y Palacios, married their maternal uncle, Dionisio Palacios y Blanco, and had two children, Guillermo and Benigna. Guillermo Palacios died fighting alongside his uncle Simón in the battle of La Hogaza on December 2, 1817. Benigna had two marriages, the first one to Pedro Breceño Méndez and the second to Pedro Amestoy.
Their great-grandchildren, Bolívar’s closest living relatives, Pedro, and Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa (died in 2009) lived in Caracas, as of 2000.
His eldest sister, María Antonia, married Pablo Clemente Francia and had four children: Josefa, Anacleto, Valentina, and Pablo. María Antonia became Bolívar’s agent to deal with his properties while he served as president of Gran Colombia and she was an executrix of his will. She retired to Bolívar’s estate in Macarao, which she inherited from him.
His older brother, Juan Vicente, who died in 1811 on a diplomatic mission to the United States, had three children born out of wedlock whom he recognized: Juan, Fernando Simón, and Felicia Bolívar Tinoco. Bolívar provided for the children and their mother after his brother’s death. Bolívar was especially close to Fernando and in 1822 sent him to study in the United States, where he attended the University of Virginia. In his long life, Fernando had minor participation in some of the major political events of Venezuelan history and also traveled and lived extensively throughout Europe. He had three children, Benjamín Bolívar Gauthier, Santiago Hernández Bolívar, and Claudio Bolívar Taraja. Fernando died in 1898 at the age of eighty-eight.
Political beliefs
He was an admirer of both the American Revolution and the French Revolution. He admired Thomas Jefferson and sent his nephew to the University of Virginia, which was founded and designed by Jefferson. Bolívar differed, however, in political philosophy from the leaders of the revolution in the United States on two important matters. First of all, he was staunchly anti-slavery, despite coming from an area of Spanish America that relied heavily on slave labour. Second, while he was an admirer of the United States, he did not believe that its governmental system could function in Latin America.
By contrast, he referred to Spanish America as having been subject to the "triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice". If a republic could be established in such a land, in his mind, it would have to make some concessions in terms of liberty. This is shown when Bolívar blamed the fall of the first republic on his subordinates trying to imitate "some ethereal republic" and in the process, not paying attention to the gritty political reality of South America.
Among the books accompanying him as he traveled were, Adam Smith’s "The Wealth of Nations", Voltaire’s "Letters", and when he wrote the Bolivian Constitution, Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. His Bolivian constitution placed him within the camp of what would become Latin American conservatism in the later nineteenth century. The Bolivian Constitution had a lifelong presidency and a hereditary senate, essentially recreating the British unwritten constitution, as it existed at the time, without formally establishing a monarchy. It was his attempts to implement a similar constitution in Gran Colombia that led to his downfall and rejection by 1830.
Regarding his immigration policy for Colombia, he viewed the immigration of North-Americans and Europeans as necessary for improving the country’s economy, arts, and sciences, following the steps of the Latin-American criollo elites, who accepted without questions many of the evolutionist, social, and racial theories of their time.
Freemasonry
Similar to some others in the history of American Independence (George Washington, José de San Martín, and Francisco Miranda), Simón Bolívar was a Freemason. He was initiated in 1803 in the Masonic Lodge Lautaro which operated in Cadiz, Spain. It was in this lodge that he first met some of his revolutionary peers, such as José de San Martín. In May 1806 he was conferred the rank of Master Mason in the "Scottish Mother of St. Alexander of Scotland" in Paris. During his time in London, he frequented "The Great American Reunion" lodge in London, founded by Francisco de Miranda. In April 1824, Simón Bolívar was given the 33rd degree of Inspector General Honorary.
Political legacy
Bolívar’s political legacy has been massive and he is a very important figure in South American political history. The ‘Bolivarianism’ of the last two decades, such as in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez, tries to evoke the memory of Bolivar, using a left-wing view of his writings and supposed ambitions as the basis for a political movement.
After his defeat and early death, it took more than a decade to rehabilitate his lost image in South America. By the 1840s the memory of Bolívar proved useful for the construction of a sense of nationhood. In Venezuela, in particular, a type of ‘cult’ to Bolívar, first under the President José Antonio Páez and most dramatically under President Antonio Guzmán Blanco appeared. Because the image of Bolívar became central to the national identities of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, his mantle is claimed by nearly all politicians from all parts of the political spectrum. Bolivia and Venezuela (the Bolívarian Republic of Venezuela) are both named after Bolívar.
Monuments, institutions and place names
The main square in Bogota, Colombia is called plaza de bolivar (Bolivar Square), around this square rise the Colombian national capitol, the Colombian palace of justice, the palace of lievano( which houses the mayor of Bogota ), and the main the cathedral of the city.
San Salvador, El Salvador. "Plaza Bolívar", five-meter-tall equestrian statue.
Paris, France, equestrian statue between the Alexandre III bridge and the Petit Palais, a joint gift to the city from the "five Bolivarian republics" of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.
Berlin, near section of Potsdamer Strasse crossing with the Landwehrkanal.
London, statue at Belgrave Square.
Bilbao (Basque Country, Spain), "Simon Bolivar Street", a street in Bilbao city center to honour Bolivar and his basque ancestry and a monument at Venezuela square.
Bolivar (Basque Country, Spain), Bolivar’s ancestor’s home town; a monument to Bolivar, a gift by Venezuela. A museum devoted to Simon Bolivar, his family and ancestors was built in Simon Bolivar’s patrimonial house.
Rome, equestrian statue in the Piazzale Simón Bolívar facing equestrian statue of Jose de San Martin.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, bust.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, bust.
Ottawa, signifying the friendship between Canada and South America (which caused some controversy at the time of its erection).
Sydney, Australia, bust.
Montreal, Canada, bust.
Quebec City, in the Parc de l’Amérique Latine, equestrian statue.
Bolivar Peninsula, Texas, is a narrow strip of eroding land or "barrier island" stretching twenty-seven miles along the Texas Gulf Coast in a northeasterly direction to form eastern Galveston County (the center of the peninsula is at 29°26′ N, 94°41′ W).
Bolivar, Missouri, statue presented by President Rómulo Gallegos of Venezuela and dedicated by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
A central avenue in Ankara, the capital of Turkey
A bust on the southeast side of Lake Eola in Orlando, Florida.
Bolivar, West Virginia, bears his name and displays his bust.
Frankfurt, Germany, bust.
Washington, D.C., monument.
New York, statue faces Jose de San Martin and Jose Marti at the Fifty-ninth Street and Sixth Avenue entrance of Central Park.
Cairo, Egypt, statue next to the Intercontinental Hotel (Semiramis), unveiled on February 11, 1979. Attending the inauguration of the revamped Midan was Venezuela’s first lady, Dona Blanca Rodriguez de Perez, who arrived especially for the occasion. The 500-kilogram, 2.3-meter high bronze statue is attributed to Venezuelan sculptor Carmelo Tabaco; the accompanying pedestal is the work of his countryman, Manuel Silveira Blanco. These are only a few of the examples.
Santiago (Chile), monument celebrating Latin American Freedom, erected in 1836 at the main square (Plaza de Armas), panel dedicated to Bolívar. Around 1836-40 a full-size equestrian statue was erected in his honour and located at a square at the beginning of an avenue that bears his name.
Most cities and towns in Venezuela and Colombia have a bust or statue of Bolívar.
In Venezuela, every city or town, has a main square known as Plaza Bolívar.
Caracas, central avenue named Avenida Bolívar, at its terminus a twin-tower-complex named Centro Simón Bolívar, built during the 1950s holds several governmental offices.
Guayaquil, Ecuador, El parque Bolivar, Bolivar Park. Streets, provinces, and several schools named after Bolívar in Ecuador.
Bolivar, Mexican municipality in the State of Durango
Monterrey, an avenue and a Metro station named after him.
Currencies, the boliviano and the Venezuelan bolívar.
Caracas, Simón Bolívar University.
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, major street Avenida Bolívar in downtown Gazcue district.
Bolivarian Games, sports event involving athletes from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.
In the 1930s, during a time of civil unrest in Spain, Montgomery Terrace in Mount Floria, Glasgow, Scotland, was renamed after Simón Bolívar, a Scottish Rite freemason.
There was a U.S. Navy submarine named after Simón Bolívar: the USS SIMON BOLIVAR (SSBN 641). It was commissioned in October 1965, de-activated in September 1994 and de-commissioned in February 1995.
Lebanon : The liberator Simon Bolivar earned a special place in the heart of the Lebanese Emigrants who went to Venezuela, specially in the Northern Lebanese city of Hadath Al Jobbeh, where the Day of Simon Bolivar or “Simon El-karam” as it is called in Arabic (karam for generosity) is considered a regional Holiday, and it takes place on the 12th of October every year, where a festival takes place in that city of North Lebanon. This tradition started in the 40s of the last century, and every year many of the Lebanese Emigrants to Venezuela return to their home land and celebrate this feast among family.
Boulogne-sur-Mer, France: A statue of him and fellow patriot Jose de San Martin liberator of Peru, San Martin lived his final years in this Northern French coast city. It is where Bolivar is said to own a home and where he planned to get into exile have he arrived in France. In addition, the statues honored the legacy of French immigration to South America in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the revolutionary ideals of the French Republic influenced Bolivar and San Martin.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA : A statue of Simon Bolivar lies outside, the front of the Gilcrease Museum, dedicated to his efforts to liberate the Latin Americas. The oil tycoon was fascinated in the cultures of Latin America and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, in part of Thomas Gilcrease’s part-Creek Indian heritage. The statue was brought by an association of American citizen pioneers residing in Argentina, and also to point out the Cherokee immigrant settlers in Chile and other South American nations.
Prague, Czech Republic: A statue of Bolivar is located in the Bubenec district of Prague.
Belgrade, Serbia: A small street in the Altina neighbourhood in the Zemun municipality of Belgrade.
Tehran, Iran: A street in Jannat Abad neighbourhood in the Tehran.
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Poor Old Craig’s Hotel on Craig Key. Photo taken Spring 1942 by Luther C. Feck, gift Pat Parks.