The Dictator Simon Blivar Analysis

Over many centuries, Latin America has traversed through bloody wars, dramatic change, and unsettling devastation. Especially from 1808-1910, revolutions, technological advancements, and life changing ideas completely dismembered social and political structures. This time period referred to as the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that sparked ideas of liberty, equality, and republicanism. Men would risk everything on the battlefield to either defend or oppose the system. While some pleaded for the traditional monarchies to stay in place, others cried for the rule of the people. The latter group primarily referred to as liberals. Throughout the death, blood, and suffering, liberals had moments from 1808-1910 where they failed to overthrow

These elements of corruption repeated in 1808-1824, 1820s-1870s, and 1870s-1910. Despite revolutionaries’ ideal of equality, many failed to deliver on their promises and continually discarded constitutions. Shortly after Napoleon forcefully removed Carlos IV and Fernando VII in 1808, Latin America erupted into revolutions (L11 Age of Revolutions). The revolution led by Simon Bolivar being just one of many. The movie, The Liberator, directed by Alberto Arvelo, conveys Bolivar’s fight for republicanism. The movie depicts all of the bloody battles, gruesome travels, and sacrifices Bolivar and his followers made so that Bolivar could say, “Today we proclaim the great American Republic of Colombia” (The Liberator). However, Gran Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, an Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History, describes the results of Simon Bolivar’s revolution in his interview with Joan Neuberger, a Professor of History and Editor. In the interview, Cañizares-Esguerra explains

During the neocolonial period 1870-1910, liberals focused on Europeanization and foreign investment to support their export boom. Due to the disdainful outlook of the lower classes, they perceived it difficult to Europeanize Latin America, achieve Progress, and attract foreign investors without an authoritarian regime. After all, the elite liberals viewed the lower class such as natives, “[as an] obstacle to national progress…. [and] predicted that their "decadence and degeneration" could not be reversed” (Burns 158). This view meant that the elite could never enforce rule of the people if it included groups such as, Africans and Natives who might inhibit their progress. For example, in Argentina their elections fantasized the idea that people elect their representatives, but in reality their managed elections pressured people to vote or prevented them from voting. To further explain, these open ballot elections allowed certain parties to place someone by the ballot box to deter certain voters. They could also bribe and make false promises to voters (L13 Neocolonial Era). Argentina’s manipulation of the electoral system further demoralized liberal’s ambitions of