50 Fun Facts About Simón Bolívar

In which city was Simón Bolívar born in 1783?

Caracas gave him wealth but little family: both parents died before he was ten, and as a teenager he was sent to Spain to finish his education.

By what title is Bolívar known colloquially across Latin America?

El Libertador was first bestowed by the town of Mérida in 1813. He prized it for life, insisting it stood above any other title and that he would not trade it for a crown.

What was Bolivia called before it took Bolívar's name in 1825?

Upper Peru was one of the last corners of the continent still held by royalists. Once it was freed, the new country chose a name built on Bolívar's, and he wrote its first constitution.

Who was Hipólita, the woman the orphaned Bolívar came to regard as both mother and father?

An enslaved wet nurse on the family's estate, Hipólita nursed him from his first weeks. As a general he wrote home ordering that she be paid an allowance for as long as she lived.

Bolívar's boyhood tutor Simón Rodríguez was a devoted follower of which Enlightenment philosopher?

Rousseau's disciple opened the boy's mind to liberal thought, and years later Rodríguez was standing beside him when he swore to free his country.

In which city did the young Bolívar marry María Teresa del Toro?

Madrid was where he had been sent to finish his education. He met María Teresa there, married her at eighteen, and within weeks the couple sailed for Venezuela.

Of what did Bolívar's wife die less than a year after the wedding?

Yellow fever killed her within months of their arrival in Venezuela. Bolívar swore never to remarry, and later said her death was what turned him towards politics.

Which event did Bolívar see unfold in Paris in May 1804?

Napoleon proclaimed Emperor of the French: Bolívar was in Paris to see it, and the spectacle fed his own hunger for glory, though he never took a crown himself.

Which naturalist did Bolívar meet in Paris in 1804?

Alexander von Humboldt, just back from five years exploring Spanish America, is said to have told him the colonies were ripe for independence, an idea that took root in the young man's mind.

In which city did Bolívar swear in 1805 to end Spanish rule in the Americas?

Rome's Monte Sacro was the chosen spot, the hill where the common people of the ancient city once walked out on their rulers. His old tutor stood beside him as he swore.

To which capital did Venezuela's new junta send Bolívar in 1810 to seek recognition and arms?

London gave him a hearing but no recognition. The trip still paid off: he talked a veteran exiled revolutionary into coming home to lead the fight.

What natural disaster devastated republican Venezuela on 26 March 1812?

An earthquake all but destroyed the capital on Holy Thursday. Royalists preached that it was God's punishment for rebellion, and the first republic fell within months.

Which Venezuelan revolutionary did Bolívar help arrest for treason in July 1812?

Francisco de Miranda had just signed an armistice with Spain. Bolívar and others stopped him leaving, he died in a Spanish prison, and Bolívar was rewarded with a passport out.

Which document did Bolívar write in exile in New Granada in 1812, explaining why Venezuela's first republic fell?

The Cartagena Manifesto blamed the collapse on weak, divided government and called on New Granada to help win Venezuela back, which within a year it did.

Whom did Bolívar's notorious decree of June 1813 condemn to die?

Any Spaniard not aiding his forces was to die, while Americans were promised their lives even if guilty: a bid to turn a civil war into a war between nations.

What was Bolívar's 1813 offensive from Cúcuta to the Venezuelan capital called?

The Admirable Campaign earned its name: he won six pitched battles and marched into the capital less than three months after setting out.

What did Bolívar's army cross in 1819, by a route the Spanish thought impossible, to surprise them in New Granada?

The Andes: after wading for a week through flooded plains, the thinly clad troops climbed an icy pass where many died of cold, then fell on an enemy who never expected them.

On which island did Bolívar go into exile in May 1815?

Jamaica is where he wrote his most famous letter, declaring that the bonds with Spain were cut for good and sketching the free republics he expected to follow.

What did Haiti's president Alexandre Pétion ask of Bolívar in return for money and arms in 1816?

Freedom for the enslaved in every land he liberated was Pétion's one condition. Bolívar gave his word, and proclaimed emancipation soon after landing back in Venezuela.

Which Nobel-winning novelist retold Bolívar's last river journey in The General in His Labyrinth?

Gabriel García Márquez followed the dying general down the Magdalena River in his 1989 novel, showing a sick, exhausted man in place of the hero of the statues.

In which Orinoco river town did Bolívar's congress meet in February 1819?

Angostura was renamed Ciudad Bolívar in 1846, but the old name lives on in the cocktail bitters first mixed there by a surgeon in Bolívar's army.

Which battle on 7 August 1819 routed the Royalists and opened the way to Bogotá?

At Boyacá the bulk of the royalist army surrendered. Three days later Bolívar rode into Bogotá, and Spanish power in the north of the continent never recovered.

Which llanero chieftain fought beside Bolívar at Carabobo in June 1821?

José Antonio Páez and his plainsmen cavalry helped win the day at Carabobo. Within a decade he had led Venezuela out of Bolívar's union and become its first president.

Who was elected vice president of Gran Colombia under Bolívar at Cúcuta in 1821?

Francisco de Paula Santander ran the government while Bolívar campaigned in the south. The partners became bitter rivals, and Santander was exiled after the 1828 plot on Bolívar's life.

Which Argentine general met Bolívar at Guayaquil in July 1822, then went into exile?

José de San Martín talked with Bolívar behind closed doors, and what they said was never recorded. He then gave up his command in Peru and left the rest of the war to Bolívar.

Which battle of 24 May 1822 secured Quito for the patriots?

It was fought on the slopes of the volcano overlooking the city.

Which title did the Peruvian congress give Bolívar on 10 February 1824?

Dictator of Peru gave him the power to finish the war, which he did within the year. Peruvians soon tired of him, and by 1827 they had deposed him and torn up his constitution.

Which battle of December 1824 ended Royalist power in Peru?

Ayacucho freed Peru: the viceroy himself was beaten in the field and surrendered with his entire army.

Which Venezuelan general, Bolívar's chosen successor, was murdered near Pasto in 1830?

Antonio José de Sucre was shot from ambush on a mountain road at Berruecos. Bolívar, hearing the news, cried that the blood of the innocent Abel had been spilled.

What did the constitution Bolívar wrote for Bolivia in 1826 give its president?

Office for life: Bolívar was convinced that only a strong, permanent executive could hold the new states together, and he clung to the idea for the rest of his career.

Where did Bolívar's 1826 congress of American republics meet?

Panama was chosen as a central meeting point for the whole hemisphere. The delegates signed a treaty of perpetual union, but only Bolívar's own republic ever ratified it.

Who helped Bolívar escape through a window during the 1828 assassination attempt?

Manuela Sáenz sent him out of the window and then faced the conspirators herself, buying the minutes he needed to get away.

What system did the 1828 Convention of Ocaña seem set to adopt when Bolívar's allies walked out?

Federalism would have loosened the union he was struggling to hold together. His allies left the convention without a quorum, and Bolívar then assumed supreme power.

Bolívar's ministers planned with French envoys in 1829 for a prince of which royal house to succeed him as king?

The Bourbons then reigned in France, whose envoys were party to the scheme. Bolívar refused to cooperate, and that killed the plan.

Which three countries of today emerged when Bolívar's great republic broke up by 1831?

Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela: the union he had spent a decade building was already coming apart as he lay dying, and it was formally dissolved the following year.

Which Cuban export has carried Bolívar's name since the early 1900s?

A brand of cigars: its makers say the blend is strong to match the character of the man, and Bolívar cigars remain among the fullest-flavoured rolled in Havana.

Near which city did Bolívar die, at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino?

Santa Marta is where a Spanish landowner offered the dying man his estate. The general who had driven Spain from the continent ended his life as a Spaniard's guest.

What was Bolívar waiting for in Cartagena during his final months?

A ship to take him to England never came. He had sold most of what he still owned to pay for exile, and waited on the coast as his health gave out.

Where were Bolívar's remains laid to rest in October 1876?

The National Pantheon of Venezuela is an old church turned into a hall of national heroes. In 2013 a new mausoleum was built onto it to hold Bolívar's remains.

Which Venezuelan president had Bolívar exhumed in 2010 to test a poisoning theory?

Hugo Chávez was convinced that Bolívar's enemies had poisoned him. The tests could not prove it, and Chávez went on saying so anyway.

Which thinker wrote a scathing 1858 encyclopedia entry on Bolívar, privately calling him the 'meanest of blackguards'?

Karl Marx wrote it for an American encyclopedia. When his editor objected to the hostile tone, Marx said that seeing Bolívar likened to Napoleon had been too much to bear.

Which conductor rose to world fame leading Venezuela's Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra?

Gustavo Dudamel took charge of it at eighteen. A decade of tours with his young players made him famous enough to be handed the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Before sailing home in 1807, Bolívar spent months touring the cities of which country?

The United States: he landed at Charleston and worked his way north through Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Within a year of his return, the independence movement had begun.

What did the guerrilla group M-19 steal from Bolívar's Bogotá residence in 1974?

A sword: M-19 kept it hidden for seventeen years and handed it back in 1991. In 2022 Gustavo Petro, a former member, had it carried to his inauguration as Colombia's president.

In a despairing letter weeks before he died, Bolívar wrote that whoever serves a revolution does what?

'Plows the sea' was his verdict on twenty years of struggle. The same letter called America ungovernable and said the only thing left to do there was emigrate.

What kind of US Navy vessel was USS Simon Bolivar, armed with sixteen Polaris missiles?

A submarine, nuclear-powered and in service from 1965 to 1995: the hero of South American independence lent his name to a Cold War boat built to carry nuclear missiles on deterrent patrols.

In which Peruvian region did Bolívar defeat the Royalist general Canterac on 6 August 1824?

Junín was decided entirely on horseback: the cavalry fought it out with lances and sabres for under an hour, and not a single shot is recorded.

Bolívar's great 1819 address to congress advocated a centralised government modelled on which country's system?

Britain's institutions were, for him, models of political wisdom and stability. He wanted a hereditary upper house in the image of the House of Lords.

Which imprisoned South African was a joint winner of UNESCO's first Simón Bolívar Prize in 1983?

Nelson Mandela, still behind bars, shared the prize with Juan Carlos, king of the very country Bolívar had spent his life fighting.

Which disease is the official cause of Bolívar's death in December 1830?

Tuberculosis, the disease said to have killed both his parents, is the official verdict. Doubters long suspected poison, but tests on his remains in 2010 proved nothing.