Simón Bolívar
1783–1830 2 entries
Biography
Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan soldier and statesman who led much of South America in its struggle for independence from Spain, and is known there as El Libertador. Born in Caracas in 1783 into a wealthy Creole family, he was orphaned young, travelled in Europe, and in 1805 in Rome swore an oath to free his homeland. From 1810 he fought for independence through years of defeats, exile and victories, among them the crossing of the Andes and the battle of Boyacá in 1819.
His campaigns freed what are now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia, which was named after him. He dreamed of a great union of the new republics and was president of Gran Colombia, but quarrels among its leaders tore it apart, and in 1830, ill and disillusioned, he resigned. He died of tuberculosis that same year in Santa Marta, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, at forty-seven. Squares, cities, a country and a currency across Latin America bear his name.
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