Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1783. His parents were very wealthy and died when he was young, leaving his fortune in his uncle’s control. When he was 16, he was sent to Europe to complete his education, where he was exposed to the republican ideals of the ____1____.

In 1802, he married María Teresa del Toro y Alayza, the daughter of a Spanish nobleman, and brought her back to Caracas with him. Unfortunately, she died of yellow fever in early 1803. Bolívar believes this tragedy is the reason he started a political career at a young age.

When he returned to Europe in 1804, he witnessed Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation. Bolívar both admired and was repulsed by Napoleon – while they shared the desire of glory, Napoleon betrayed the ideals of the ____2____. Napoleon was an influence to Bolívar, but also a warning.

Bolívar studied many European rationalist thinkers while in Europe. His study of ____3____ shaped his life’s philosophy, and thinkers such as Montesquieu and Claude-Adrien Helvétius influenced his political life. While in Paris, he met a German scientist, Alexander von Humboldt, who told him the Spanish colonies were ripe for independence. On a trip to Rome with his friend and tutor, Simón Rodríguez, he made his vow to liberate his country.

In 1810, Napoleon invaded Spain. The Caracas city council overthrew the Spanish viceroy and declared Venezuela an independent republic, and replaced him with a junta, or council. Bolívar met Francisco de Miranda in London at this time. He convinced him to return to Venezuela and fight in the revolutionary army. Bolívar led as a lieutenant colonel, and Miranda was a general.

In 1812 when the Spanish re-conquered Venezuela, he fled to New Granada, what is now Colombia and Panama, where he gathered a force of patriots to retake Venezuela. He published his first political manifest here, El manifiesto de Cartagena (“The Cartagena Manifesto”). He made his famous decree, ____4____ , during his campaign in February 1813, which permitted the killing of any Spaniard who did not actively support the liberation of Latin America, and pardoned those who did the killings. He reentered Venezuela the next year, fighting their large Spanish army. 

On August 6, 1813, Simón Bolívar led his army into Caracas where he declared himself ____5____ and head of state of the new republic of Venezuela. A civil war broke out due to many of Venezuelan people disagreeing with the new political climate and they drove him out the next year.

In 1819, Bolívar led a band of about 2,500 rebels into the ____6____, which was poorly guarded, to sneak up on and fight the royal army with propaganda and guerilla tactics. Many of the troops died from cold and exposure on this trek, but Bolívar’s decision to trek through the Andes was so unexpected that it still paid off despite the losses. The rebels took the Spaniards by surprise and they won the ____7____. On August 10, he led his army into Bogotá, where they were met without royalist resistance, and concluded the campaign for the New Granada liberation. 

Bolívar met with legislators in December 1819 to urge of the creation of Gran Colombia, a republic state which combined Venezuela, New Granada, and ____8____ (now Ecuador). He was named president and military dictator of this new republic. In 1820, King Ferdinand VII of Spain was forced to recognize the liberation of Gran Colombia, and discouraged Spanish forces in South America. Gran Colombia dissolved back into their original states in 1831, less than a year after Bolívar’s death.

Bolívar used his own wealth to finance many of the movements in his goal to unite Latin America, and he died a very poor man for his efforts. While he survived all threats against his life, he succumbed to ____9____ when he was 47 years old. Venezuela was liberated in 1821, followed closely by Ecuador in 1822, Peru in 1824, and Upper Peru in 1825. Upper Peru was then renamed ____10____, to honor The Liberator of Latin America. Venezuela also honors Bolívar with the full name of its country: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.