Ok, there’s no catch here and no surprise ending–this post is about Simon Bolivar, the South American liberator and “founding father” of much of that continent. To dismiss or pigeon-hole him as South America’s version of George Washington doesn’t do the man justice. He is largely responsible for the freeing of most of Spain’s colonies in that continent from Madrid’s control. And that almost-constant war against Spanish colonialism framed most of the man’s 47 years on earth. He won victory after victory against the Spanish, and paved the way for the eventual independence of many modern nations.
How many people can say that they were the president of not only one, not only two, but three different nations? Yes, at one time, Bolivar was the chief executive of Columbia, Peru, and Bolivia.
At the same time.
Bolivar was a disciple of the humanist Enlightenment philosophers who believed in the essential rights of men. While his ideas met strong resistance in most quarters, it seems that he was for the removal of the system of slavery in all of South America. His detractors said that this position wasn’t without a selfish reason; Bolivar needed soldiers to fight the Spanish, and he was happy to take newly liberated slaves into his ranks. To be fair, for his time, Bolivar was remarkably progressive in his treatment of other races, a trait that was lacking in the leadership of many other democratic republics of that time (looking at you, America).
He also recognized the United States’ version of federalism as the optimal model for a united Latin American nation one day, but he was also practical enough to realize that Spanish colonial influence and the political and social organization system that combined large landowners and the power of the Catholic Church made such unification almost impossible. Before he died of tuberculosis, he felt a failure for not uniting the disparate countries and cultures.
And it’s not fair to say that Bolivar accomplished all he did on his own. A confluence of several factors beyond his control certainly made his successes in getting the various Spanish colonies their independence. Among these factors were the weakening of Spain’s power in the Americas due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars as well as Britain’s threats of retaliation if Spain made too much of an effort to re-assert its dominance over the South American continent (The Monroe Doctrine said the same thing, but the infant American republic lacked the military teeth to make this stick). Besides, other important military leaders in the various areas of the continent aided him in his liberation activities including Jose de San Martin from what is now Argentina.
But it’s also not an understatement to say that Bolivar was the right man at the right time. History is often made by these confluences of person and period, timing and personality.
I’ll leave you with one more factoid. Besides the nation of Bolivia bearing his name, did you know that one other nation in South America is named after him? Yes, it’s true.
The official name of Venezuela is the Bolivian Republic of Venezuela.
The Rest of the Story 