Simon Bolivar and Latin American Revolutions

Simon Bolívar is credited with contributing decisively to the independence of the present-day countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia. He is sometimes known as the "George Washington of South America." He is well known also as "El Libertador." He was greatly motivated by the French and American Revolutions.

In Venezuela he joined a group of patriots that seized Caracas, in 1810. He demanded independence from the spaniards. Great Britain did not allow them full independence, thus Bolivar recaptured Caracas in 1813 from the spaniards, when he took control of a patriot army.

Bolivar wars forced to retreat to Columbia and then Jamaica. In Haiti he gained a force that allowed him to take Venezuela, and became dictator. Next, he went and took control of Columbia from the spaniards. He then organized the original republic of columbia. In 1824, his army defeated the spaniards and he liberated Peru. Upper Peru was named Bolivia in his honor. The constitution that he created for Bolivia is one of his most important political pronouncements.