Liberator´s Biography
Bolívar Palacios, Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad
Caracas, Venezuela, 24.7.1783 - Santa Marta, Colombia, 17.12.1830
Liberator, military, statesman, writer and president of the republic. Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar; was the children of Juan Vicente Bolívar and María Concepción Palacios and Sojo. When he was three years old his father died and at the age of nine his mother passed away. From there he was cared by his grandfather Feliciano Palacios and his maternal uncles.
In spite of the wealth of his family he didn't have a systematic education. Some of his teachers were Simón Rodríguez and Andrés Bello. In 1799 he travelled to Spain where he studied mathematics, foreign languages, dances, horsemanship and history. There he got married with María Teresa del Toro (26.5.1802) and in the same year he returned to Venezuela. His wife died eight months later, in Caracas. He returned to Europe (10.1803-1806), where he saw his teacher Simón Rodríguez again, and together travelled through Italy. When Bolívar returned to Caracas, he participated in the Patriotic Meeting and in 1809 he became leader of the delegation that the new government sent to London and that concluded in a failure.
When the independence fights started he fought beside Francisco de Miranda. He went aboard to Curacao (8.1812) and he arrived to Nueva Granada, where he enrolled in the revolutionary army hoping to liberate his country from this territory. In 1813 Caracas’ municipality gave him the title of "Liberator". In 1815 he should exiled in Jamaica; there he had a lot of troubles and wrote the well-known "Letter of Jamaica" (Kingston, 6.9.1815), document considered as one of the greatest manifestations of his political genius.
His strategy consisted on liberating first the Nueva Granada, to triumph then in Venezuela and to continue to Quito and Lima, plan that was known as "Liberator Campaign". After a lot of battles he got the victory in Boyacá (7.8.1819) and with it the military prestige that, when the Spanish defeat was proved, made that Pablo Morillo wrote to Spain: "Bolívar in just one day finishes with five years campaign effort, and in just one battle he re-conquers what the king's troops won in many combats". The same yvear the Congress of Angostura issued the Republic law (17.12.1819) that made the Republic of Colombia with three states: Venezuela, Cundinamarca and Quito; and made Bolívar the first president.
Two years later (27.11.1821) he had an interview with "the Pacifier" Morillo in Santa Ana, with who signed the armistice to regularize the war. On 26th July, 1822, in Quito, it took place his first meeting with José de San Martin, the south Liberator; there he met Manuela Sáenz (1797-1856), his woman from that time. According to the first plan, the Liberty Campaign continued to the south, leading Bolívar, and it finished with the Junín and Ayacucho victories (1824). In June 1826 Bolívar convened the Congress of Panama, to unify the whole Hispanic America; that same year he wrote the Bolivian Constitution, required by the republic with his same name.
On September 25th, 1828, in Bogotá, he was victim of an attack against his life, well-known as the "September conspiracy" and of which he became unhurt thanks to Manuela's help. For this time his opponents increased, he was named "traitor", "tyrant", and he was accused of intending to be perpetuated in the power. His country denied him the entrance. Because of this he gave the control to the general Domingo Caicedo (3.1830). Bolívar went to La Quinta de Fucha, he quitted to the presidency (27.4.1830), he sold his possessions and he got $17.000 to go to Cartagena, with the object of travel aboard to Europe. When he announced his trip - Ruiz Rivas says - "among students it was planed an attack against him. Two hundred students of San Bartolome's School, entered to the Supreme Court of Justice and they broke a Bolívar's portrait, which was in one of the rooms. They shouted that the general's trip must be stopped, because he had plans against the freedom. The government decided that the house was watched. The vice-president Caicedo himself, with others, had to sleep in the house with the Liberator, because they feared contempt". He Left on May 8th to the coast. On first December he arrived to Santa Marta and he went to La Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, on December 9th he wrote his political testament and on 17th he died; "the same year of the end of the Gran Colombia, his political dream"*.
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