Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte-Andrade y Blanco , generally known as Simón Bolívar and also colloquially as El Libertador, "the Liberator", was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama to independence from the Spanish Empire.
Bolívar was born in Caracas into a wealthy family and as was common for the heirs of upper-class families in his day, was sent to be educated abroad at a young age, arriving in Spain when he was 16 and later moving to France. While in Europe he was introduced to the ideas of the Enlightenment, which later motivated him to overthrow the reigning Spanish in colonial South America. Taking advantage of the disorder in Spain prompted by the Peninsular War, Bolívar began his campaign for independence in 1808. The campaign for the independence of New Granada was consolidated with the victory at the Battle of Boyacá on 7 August 1819. He established an organized national congress within three years. Despite a number of hindrances, including the arrival of an unprecedentedly large Spanish expeditionary force, the revolutionaries eventually prevailed, culminating in the patriot victory at the Battle of Carabobo in 1821, which effectively made Venezuela an independent country.
Following this triumph over the Spanish monarchy, Bolívar participated in the foundation of the first union of independent nations in Latin America, Gran Colombia, of which he was president from 1819 to 1830. Through further military campaigns, he ousted Spanish rulers from Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, the last of which was named after him. He was simultaneously president of Gran Colombia , Peru, and Bolivia, but soon after, his second-in-command, Antonio José de Sucre, was appointed president of Bolivia. Bolívar aimed at a strong and united Spanish America able to cope not only with the threats emanating from Spain and the European Holy Alliance but also with the emerging power of the United States. At the peak of his power, Bolívar ruled over a vast territory from the Argentine border to the Caribbean Sea.
Bolívar fought 100 battles, of which 79 were important, and during his campaigns rode on horseback 70,000 kilometers, which is 10 times more than Hannibal, three times more than Napoleon, and twice as much as Alexander the Great. Bolívar is viewed as a national icon in much of modern South America, and is considered one of the great heroes of the Hispanic independence movements of the early 19th century, along with José de San Martín, Francisco de Miranda and others. Towards the end of his life, Bolívar despaired of the situation in his native region, with the famous quote "all who served the revolution have plowed the sea". In an address to the Constituent Congress of the Republic of Colombia, Bolívar stated "Fellow citizens! I blush to say this: Independence is the only benefit we have acquired, to the detriment of all the rest."
Wikipedia
“Fight, and you shall win. For God grants victory to perseverance.”
As quoted in Simón Bolívar (1969) by Gerhard Masur
Context: Do not compare your material forces with those of the enemy. Spirit cannot be compared with matter. You are human beings, they are beasts. You are free, they are slaves. Fight, and you shall win. For God grants victory to perseverance.
Variant translation: Slavery is the daughter of darkness; an ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction; ambition and intrigue take advantage of the credulity and inexperience of men who have no political, economic or civil knowledge. They mistake pure illusion for reality, license for freedom, treason for patriotism, vengeance for justice.
As translated by Frederick H. Fornoff in El Libertador : Writings Of Simon Bolivar (2003) edited by David Bushnell
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty.
As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 386
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: The continuation of authority in the same person has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer Power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny.
“A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay”
Letter from Jamaica (Summer 1815)
Context: A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.
As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388
The Angostura Address (1819)
“Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves.”
Though there might be some published translation of such a statement, there is as yet no published source located for this, and it resembles the remark of Maximilien Robespierre, as quoted in Robespierre (1935) by James Matthew Thompson, p. 135: "There is one thing more despicable than a tyrant — it is a nation of slaves."
Source: Archivo del Libertador https://web.archive.org/web/20170922093736/http://archivodellibertador.gob.ve/, document N° 565; Pérez Vila, Manuel (compilator, 2009), Simón Bolívar. Doctrina del Libertador, p. 45, ISBN 978-980-276-474-7. note: Second Republic of Venezuela (1814)
Close of the address, as quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful. My imagination takes flight toward future ages and admiringly observes from them the prosperity, the splendor, and the life which will exist within this vast territory. I am carried away; and I seem to behold it in the heart of the universe, stretching along its extensive coasts between two oceans which nature has separated; but which our fatherland has united by long and wide canals. I see it serve as the bond, as the center, as the emporium of the human race. I see it sending to the ends of the earth the treasures of gold and silver which its mountains contain. I see it, through the healing virtue of its plants, dispensing health and life to afflicted men of the Old World. I see it disclosing its precious secrets to the sages who know that the store of knowledge is more valuable than the store of riches which nature has so prodigally bestowed upon us. I see it seated upon the throne of liberty, the scepter of justice in its hand, crowned by glory, showing to the Old World the majesty of the New World.
As quoted in Rise of the Spanish-American Republics as Told in the Lives of their Liberators (1918) by William Spence Robertson, p. 239
The Angostura Address (1819)
“The three greatest fools of History have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote... and me!”
Words reportedly said to his physician in his final days, but not his last words, as quoted in Our Lord Don Quixote : The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho, with Related Essays (1967) by Miguel de Unamuno, as translated by Anthony Kerrigan, p. 386
The exact word used by Bolívar in Spanish is "majadero", whose meaning is "a person who insists with inopportune obstinacy in a pretension."
Variant translations or versions:
The three greatest fools of history have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote — and I!
As quoted in Simón Bolívar and Spanish American Independence, 1783-1830 (1968) by John J. Johnson and Doris M. Ladd, p. 115
The three greatest idiots in history, have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and myself.
As quoted in Nineteenth-century Gallery : Portraits of Power and Rebellion (1970) by Stanley Edward Ayling, p. 122
In the course of history, there have been three radicals: Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and... me.
The three biggest fools in the world have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and... me.
Jesus Christ, Don Quixote and I: three greatest fools of history.
We have sewn the sea — Jesus Christ, Don Quixote and me: the three great fools of history...
I’ve been plowing in the sea. Jesus Christ, Don Quixote and I — the three great mavericks of history.
Source: http://dle.rae.es/srv/fetch?id=NwsNlzj
Letter from Jamaica (Summer 1815)
Context: A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity. Precisely because no form of government is so weak as the democratic, its framework must be firmer, and its institutions must be studied to determine their degree of stability … unless this is done, we will have to reckon with an ungovernable, tumultuous, and anarchic society, not with a social order where happiness, peace, and justice prevail.
“Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”
A statement made in the last months of his life, occasionally said to be his last words, and portrayed as such in The General in His Labyrinth (1990) by Gabriel García Márquez, as translated by Edith Grossman, p. 267.
“All who have served the Revolution have plowed the sea.”
Statement written in his final days, as quoted in Simón Bolívar : A Story of Courage (1941) by Elizabeth Dey Jenkinson Waugh, p. 320; These are sometimes said to have been repeated many times while he was dying, and to be his last words.
Variant translations or reports:
America is ungovernable; those who served the revolution have plowed the sea.
As quoted in Man, State, and Society in Latin American History (1972) by Sheldon B. Liss and Peggy K. Liss, p. 133
Those who have served the cause of the revolution have plowed the sea.
We have plowed the sea.
I plowed furrows in the ocean.
I have plowed the sea. Our America will fall into the hands of vulgar tyrants.
Statement of 1829, as quoted in The Great Fear : The Reconquest of Latin America by Latin Americans (1963) by John Gerassi
Variant translations:
[The United States] appears destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of Freedom.
As quoted in Simón Bolívar : Essays on the Life and Legacy of the Liberator (2008) by David Bushnell and Lester D. Langley, p. 135
The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.
As quoted in Latin American Evangelical Theology in the 1970's : The Golden Decade (2009) by J. D. S. Salinas and Daniel Salinas, p. 38
Final proclamation to the people of Colombia (8 December 1830), as quoted in Man of Glory : Simón Bolívar (1939) by Thomas Rourke
Variant translations: If my death contributes to the end of the parties and the consolidation of the Union, I shall go quietly to my grave.
Colombians! my last wishes are for the welfare of the fatherland. If my death contributes to the cessation of party strife, and to the consolidation of the Union, I shall descend in peace to the grave.
For my enemies I have only forgiveness. If my death shall contribute to the cessation of factions and the consolidation of the Union, I can go tranquilly to my grave.
As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388
The Angostura Address (1819)
