Person1783 – 1830

Simón Bolívar

Venezuelan-born criollo who led the independence wars of northern South America; called “the Liberator”, he was president of Gran Colombia, and Bolivia is named after him

Born into a wealthy criollo family in Caracas, he encountered Enlightenment ideas in Europe. Retaking Venezuela in 1813 earned him the title “the Liberator”, and after repeated defeats and exile he crossed the Andes in 1819, won at Boyacá and founded Gran Colombia. He went on to free Ecuador and Peru, and Bolivia was named after him. Dreaming of a united South America, he convened the Congress of Panama in 1826, but died of illness in 1830 as Gran Colombia broke apart.

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1 related event

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1810 – 1825Latin American Wars of Independenceleader
With Spain occupied by Napoleon, criollos launched wars of independence. Led by Bolívar and San Martín, most of Latin America was independent by the mid-1820s.

People who appear alongside

José de San Martín1778 – 1850
Argentine general who crossed the Andes to liberate Chile and proclaimed the independence of Peru, leading the liberation of southern South America

Themes this person appears in

Revolutions and Nation-States1776 – 1871
From the Declaration of Independence to the German Empire — a century in which liberalism and nationalism toppled the old order in Europe and the Americas and built nation-states