Bolivar: American Liberator (74 page)

The Liberator’s “Admirable Campaign” was undertaken in 1813, when Bolívar marched to Caracas and installed the short-lived Second Republic, after liberating New Granada.
(Comisión Para la Conmemoración del Bicentenario de la Independencia, Colombia)

Manuel Piar, the general Bolívar had executed for trying to start a “race war” during the early days of the Third Republic.
(Anonymous lithograph from Baralt’s Resumen, Vol. II, Bethencourt, 1887)

The Battle of Araure, December 15, 1813, in which Bolívar defeated the superior forces of General Domingo Monteverde.
(Painting by Tito Salas, Casa Natal del Libertador, Caracas)

The peaks of the Andes in Colombia, over which Bolívar’s forces rode many times, most notably before the Battle of Boyacá in 1819. The defining Battle of Ayacucho, which ejected Spain from South America altogether, took place after another of Bolívar’s punishing crossings, this time over the Peruvian Andes.
(© Terry Carr/Dreamstime.com)

The fierce Spanish general Pablo Morillo, Bolívar’s nemesis, who negotiated a truce with him in June of 1820, slept in the same room with him after a long night of toasts, and became one of his most admiring correspondents.
(Anonymous painter, courtesy Armada Española)

General José Antonio Páez, the Lion of the Apure, who helped Bolívar win the Wars of Independence, but ultimately contributed to the Liberator’s demise and a rupture with Greater Colombia. Páez rose to the presidency of independent Venezuela three times between 1830 and 1863.
(Library of Congress)

General Francisco Santander, Vice President of Greater Colombia, who went from being Bolívar’s right-hand man to being his rival and, perhaps, the mastermind behind the attempt to assassinate him. After the rupture with Venezuela, Santander returned from exile to become president of Colombia.
(Painting by Luis García Hevia, Museo Nacional, Bogotá)

Bolívar and Santander at the Congress of Cúcuta, 1821, in which Greater Colombia was created from the newly independent regions of Venezuela and New Granada. The congress elected Bolívar and Santander president and vice-president, respectively.
(Painting by Ricardo Acevedo Bernal, La Quinta Museo de Bolívar, Bogotá)

Antonio José de Sucre, Bolívar’s “chosen son,” greatest general, and the first president of Bolivia, who was assassinated in the forests of the Andes as he rode home to his wife and baby in Quito in 1830. The assassination had a devastating effect on Bolívar.
(Painting by Arturo Michelena, Colección Gobierno de Bolivia)

Manuela Sáenz, “The Liberatrix of the Liberator,” Bolívar’s most enduring lover, who was also an accomplished horsewoman and colonel with the liberating army. Sáenz followed Bolívar from battlefield to palace as he liberated three nations. She saved his life more than once.
(Painting resides in La Quinta Bolívar, Bogotá)

José de San Martin, the Protector of Lima and liberator of Argentina. After his closed-door meeting with Bolívar in Guayaquil in 1822, he left Lima under the cover of night and relinquished the revolution in Peru to Bolívar.
(Authorship disputed, Museo Historico Nacional, Buenos Aires)

The Spanish general José Canterac signs his surrender to the patriot general Antonio de Sucre after the Battle of Ayacucho, liberating Peru and ending the Wars of Independence in South America.
(Painting by Daniel Hernandez, Lima)