Simón Bolívar

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (English: /ˈbɒlɪvər, -vɑːr/ BOL-iv-ər, -⁠ar,^[1] also US: /ˈboʊlɪvɑːr/ BOH-liv-ar,^[2]Spanish: [siˈmom boˈliβaɾ] (listen);^[a] 24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as El Libertador, or the Liberator of America.

Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy creole family, but lost both parents before he turned ten and lived in several households. As was common for men of upper-class families in his day, Bolívar was sent to be educated abroad, and lived in Spain. While living in Madrid from 1800 to 1802, he was introduced to Enlightenment philosophy and met María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa. The two married in 1802 and returned to Venezuela, where del Toro contracted yellow fever and died within a year of their nuptials. Bolívar traveled in 1803 to France as Napoleon established the First French Empire, then to Rome, where he famously swore to end Spanish rule in the Americas. Bolívar returned to Venezuela in 1807 and began to discuss Venezuelan independence with other wealthy creoles. Following the collapse of Spanish authority in the Americas as a result of Napoleon’s invasion of the Iberian peninsula, Bolívar threw himself into revolutionary politics and became an active and zealous combatant in the Spanish American wars of independence.