2023-07-26 03:47:28
The independence struggle of El Libertador covered what are now six countries and six million square kilometers, covering more territory than Marco Polo, Cristóbal Colón or Julio César, and conquered the independence of present-day Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama , Peru and Venezuela
Much is said about that illustrious Venezuelan who responded to the name of Simón Bolívar, but not so many know that the Liberator of America -whose 240th birth anniversary was celebrated on July 24- accomplished feats in his 47 years of sacrificed military and political life that They seem impossible to match.
The independence struggle of El Libertador covered what are now six countries and six million square kilometers, covering more territory than Marco Polo, Cristóbal Colón or Julio César, and conquered the independence of present-day Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama , Peru and Venezuela.
At only 47 years old, Bolívar fought in 447 battles, being defeated only 6 times. He liberated six nations, rode 123,000 kilometers, traveled ten times more territory on horseback than Hannibal, three times more than Napoleon and twice as much as Alexander the Great; and he crossed on foot, at the head of his liberating army, without proper clothing, footwear or food, the almost impassable Andes Mountains, with temperatures below zero and over 6,000 meters above sea level.
He stood out among his contemporaries for his talent, intelligence, will and self-sacrifice, qualities that he put entirely at the service of a great and noble enterprise: that of liberating and organizing for civil life many nations that today see in him a Father.
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco was born in Caracas on July 24, 1783, descendant of a family of Basque origin established in Venezuela since the end of the 16th century and belonging to the Caracas aristocracy with numerous possessions and wealth.
Much has been written about his intense life, both as a military strategist whose career he joined at a very young age and led the most emblematic battles for independence in South America against the Spanish colonial empire, as well as his actions as a politician, thinker and statesman who helped lay the foundations of democracy in Latin America and served as president between 1819 and 1830 of the Spanish-American republic known as Gran Colombia.
This article does not intend to summarize in a few lines the life of this great hero, about whom numerous books have been written. He lost his father before he was three years old and lost his mother six years later, in 1792; The one who took care of him was the family slave, Hipólita, whom Bolívar called “the only mother I have ever known.”
Bolívar spent a few months as a boarder in the house of Don Simón Rodríguez (1771-1854), also born in Caracas, who then ran the city’s School of First Letters, and between this brilliant pedagogue and social reformer and the boy he soon established himself. a current of mutual understanding and sympathy, which would last as long as their lives. In Rome, one day in August 1805, on Monte Sacro, Bolívar meets his teacher again and swears in his presence not to give rest to his arm or rest to his soul until he has succeeded in freeing the Spanish-American world from tutelage. Spanish.
He traveled to Europe at a very young age, studied, married at 19 and brought his wife to Venezuela where he was widowed less than a year ago when she fell ill with yellow fever. He joined the independence conspiracies and, due to his charisma and leadership, he quickly assumed the direction of the campaigns that would lead him into exile on several occasions and many others back to the battlefield.
Bolívar resigned before the last Congress of Colombia (April 27, 1830), and left Bogotá 11 days later for Cartagena. It was there that they told him, the 1st. July, that Sucre had been assassinated. This ended up undermining the already resentful health of the afflicted Liberator according to two doctors who treated him for a chronic pulmonary cold, which turned into pulmonary tuberculosis, and gave him a few days to live. He arrived in Santa Marta on the 1st. December to move later to the fifth San Pedro Alejandrino, his last resting place. Simón Bolívar died alone and in a precarious economic situation on December 17, 1830.
Bolívar’s will, embodied in his will, drawn up on December 10, 1830 in San Pedro Alejandrino, requested that his remains be buried in Caracas, however, it was necessary to wait 12 years for his wish to be fulfilled. The remains, solemnly buried in the Cathedral of Santa Marta, were transferred to the Cathedral of Caracas in 1842. From the cathedral they passed to the National Pantheon, on October 28, 1876, a temple where he received the honors of his people and children. of Our America.
Taken from Granma
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