Simón Bolívar: Life, Politics, and Legacy in Latin America
Simón Bolívar: Family Background and Early Influences
Simón Bolívar was born into one of the most influential, important, and wealthiest families of Caracas society in the late eighteenth century. Bolívar’s ancestors from the Basque Country were loyal fighters for the liberation of that area of Spain, and it is believed that Bolívar inherited that warrior and fighter spirit. The first Bolívar began arriving in Venezuela in 1588 and devoted themselves to field work and politics. They became very wealthy because the Spanish Crown granted an amendment to indigenous Quiriquire in the valleys of Aragua, in the farm of San Mateo.
The Bolívar family, in relation to politics, were very influential and deeply involved. They regularly held roles as Caracas Mayors, aldermen, mayors, and chief justice of the valleys of Aragua. They were also top military and militia colonels. They were granted amendments by the Crown and were prosperous landowners.
The Bolívar family consisted of the marriage of Juan Vicente Bolívar Ponte and Maria de la Concepción, and their sons, among them was The Liberator, Simón Bolívar. Bolívar’s ancestors had much influence and importance in the political, economic, and social development of colonial life.
Simón Bolívar’s Political Thought
One of the most salient features, and perhaps the most original of Bolívar’s ideas, is the consideration of Latin America as a whole as an object of analysis. The Liberator opens the vision of a subcontinent as a subject of historical action. Before, there were Spanish colonies in America, a colonial empire perhaps, but only from Bolivarian ideas are perfectly delineated specific Hispanic problematic. This is evident in at least two main directions: one as an effort to find the common identity of all our people, despite their differences and heterogeneity; the other, complementary to the first, as an attempt to find the distinction with Europe and North America.
The Liberator was an ambitious statesman in his program but not a dreamer. Rather, it is established that another key element of his thought is realism.
The Works and Military Career of Simón Bolívar
Having chosen a military career and received the rank of second lieutenant, Simón Bolívar went to Spain, where he had relatives. There, he married very young and returned to Caracas, but his wife died eight months later. He traveled to Europe to further his studies again and vowed to liberate his homeland. He returned to Caracas in 1807. Already with the rank of colonel, he visited London and won the sympathy of the British government for his ideas of freedom.
Back in Venezuela, he organized and started a military campaign. On November 2, 1812, he announced the “Cartagena Manifesto.” On December 15, 1812, he invited the citizens of New Granada to accompany him to liberate Venezuela in his report. In 1819, he delivered the “Angostura Address,” considered his most important oration.
Bolívar triumphed in Junín on August 6, 1824, against the royalist forces, while Sucre achieved victory in Ayacucho on December 9, 1824.
Economic Projections
The economic thinking of the Liberator was fed mainly by observation and analysis of the complete reality in which he lived. He also relied on the knowledge of the experiences in other nations.
In 1812, in the Cartagena Manifesto, he strongly criticized bureaucracy and the waste of public money as a cause of the loss of the first republic:
- The livestock export ban to other countries.
- The organization of the cattle herds to realize dispersed or wild.
- With regard to mining, Bolívar decreed:
- The distribution of public lands among the patriot soldiers to increase manpower in the field.
- Promotion and development of production through the introduction of new farming techniques.