Inspirational Quotes by Simon Bolivar (Venezuelan Patriot)

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830,) known as the Liberator of America, was a Venezuelan patriot and statesman. He succeeded in driving the Spanish from Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Upper Peru was named Bolivia in his honor.

Born in Caracas, New Granada, now Venezuela, Bolívar was the son of a Venezuelan aristocrat. He received a European education, and Influenced by European rationalism, he joined Venezuela’s independence movement and became a prominent political and military leader. The revolutionaries expelled Venezuela’s Spanish governor (1810) and declared the nation’s independence in 1811. The Spanish defeated the young republic in 1814, and Bolívar went into exile.

In 1819, Bolívar undertook a daring attack on New Granada, leading some 2,500 men over impassable routes. Taking the Spanish by surprise, he defeated them quickly.

With the help of Venezuelan independence leader Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá, Bolívar secured the independence of Ecuador in 1822. He completed Argentine José de San Martín’s revolutionary work in Peru, freeing that country in 1824. On Bolívar’s orders, Sucre liberated Upper Peru (1825.)

As president of both Gran Colombia (1821–30) and Peru (1823–29,) Bolívar oversaw the creation in 1826 of a league of Hispanic American states, but the new states soon began warring among themselves.

In 1828, faced with a rebellion, he assumed dictatorial powers to prevent Gran Colombia from splitting into small, weak states that imperial forces might dominate. He surrendered and exiled himself and died on his way to Europe. Gran Colombia died with him, breaking apart as he had feared.

Biographies include the University of Texas’s Christopher B. Conway’s The Cult of Bolivar in Latin American Literature (2003,) historian David Bushnell’s Simón Bolívar: Liberation and Disappointment (2004,) and the University of London’s John Lynch’s Simón Bolívar: A Life (2006.)

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