Simon Bolivar

Simon Bolivar was a Venezuelan military and political leader born July 24, 1783, in Caracas to a wealthy Creole family of Basque descent. Orphaned by age nine, he inherited estates and copper mines and was tutored by Simon Rodriguez, a follower of Rousseau, and the scholar Andres Bello. He traveled to Europe in 1799 and witnessed Napoleon's coronation in Milan in 1805, an event that shaped his ideas about power and republics.

Returning to Venezuela in 1807, Bolivar joined the independence movement against Spanish colonial rule. He led the Admirable Campaign of 1813 to retake Caracas and was proclaimed El Libertador. After setbacks and exile in Jamaica, where he wrote the 1815 Letter from Jamaica outlining his vision for Spanish American independence, he returned to wage a long campaign across the Andes. His victory at the Battle of Boyaca in August 1819 secured the independence of New Granada, present-day Colombia.

Further victories at Carabobo (1821), Pichincha (1822), Junin, and Ayacucho (both 1824) freed Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and the territory that became Bolivia, named in his honor. He served as president of Gran Colombia, a federation that included present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama, and as dictator of Peru. His attempt to draft a constitution at the 1826 Congress of Panama failed to produce lasting unity.

Disillusioned and ill with tuberculosis, Bolivar resigned the presidency in 1830 and died on December 17 of that year near Santa Marta, in present-day Colombia, at age 47.

The name Simon comes from the Hebrew Shimon, derived from the verb shama meaning "to hear," giving a sense of "he has heard" or "hearkening."