Simon Bolivar - The Liberator

Simon Bolivar - The Liberator

Simon Bolivar was proclaimed “Liberator” by his own people and a world-renowned figure in his day. His prophetic vision of hemispheric solidarity lives today, and his political thinking serves dictators and democrat alike in contemporary Latin America. This paper explores the impact the days of colonialism and revolution, in which treatment of Creoles was inferior to Peninsulares (Spaniards born in Spain). And this was a long-standing cause of frustration and resentment that contributed to the desire for independence from Spain. In addition, this paper analyzes some facts of one of the greatest minds of the 18th century “Simon Bolivar”. There is abundant evidence that Bolivar worked extensively to create a system that would preserve unity and stability through a powerful, centralized government while retaining as much individual liberty as possible; but his efforts were exhausting and fruitless. However, even today (after 200 years) his contribution had been to promote the idea of independence among Spanish-American leaders. Simon Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Palacios (this was his real name) was born on July 24, 1783, the year England’s North colonies won their independence. [1] His father had been an important figure and the landlord of twelve houses in Caracas, herds of cattle, indigo plantations, mines, and sugar plantation that had been in the family for at least two centuries. He had organized a militia battalion in which his youngest son (Simon) would later serve, and he had been Caracas’s deputy to Madrid. Like many Creoles who visited Spain, he was disillusioned by Spain’s backwardness in comparison to other European nations. The Venezuelan Creoles, like those of other S...

... middle of paper ...

...otagonist of a strong centralized government and as a promoter of Spanish-American cooperation. His disillusion with both political radicalism and democracy has been stressed by many of his biographers. Recently, however, a revisionist work (Salcedo-Bastardo, 1957) suggests that Bolivar was a liberal and realistic democrat as well as a farsighted reformer who had sought social and economic reforms such as abolition of slavery, administrative reorganization, and (on unconvincing evidence) redistribution of land. [1] There is abundant evidence that Bolivar labored to create a system that would preserve unity and stability through a powerful, centralized government while retaining as much individual liberty as possible; but his efforts were exhausting and fruitless. However, his contribution had been to promote the idea of independence among Spanish-American leaders.