Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

Simon Bolivar waz born in Caracas on July 24 1783, his family basque orgin established in Venezuela since the end of the XVI century and which has occupied a social and economic position in the province.

His parents were Colonel Juan Vicente Bolívar y Ponte, and Concepción Palacios Blanco. He had two older sisters and a brother: María Antonia, Juana and Juan Vicente. There was another girl, María del Carmen, who died at birth. Before he was three years old, Simón lost his father, who passed away in January of 1786.

The children’s education was supervised by his mother, a woman possessing a fine sensibility, but also capable of administering the family’s numerous properties. Aside from his paternal heritage, Simón was the owner of a rich “mayorazgo”, or inheritance, which was given to him in 1784 by his cousin Juan Felix Jerez y Ariteguieta, a priest.

Bolivar basicallyy tried to unite the Spanish nations of South America at the Congress of Panama but there were too many differences between the countries to allow this. Bolivar then returned to Colombia to resume his presidency, but much had changed. He had never really held power long enough to garner much support and on top of this the peoples of Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia had many ethnic differences that could not be solved by putting them together in one country. Bolivar tried to counter these problems by lobbying for more executive power and then declaring himself dictator but this could not save the country.