Bolivar - High-Ranking Member Of The Spanish Kingdom

Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Bolivar 1783 is an action-packed year where a number of exciting events take place. Notably, in the temperate city of Caracas the youthful and affluent family of Doña María de la Concepción Palacios y Blanco and Colonel Don Juan Vicente de Bolívar are blessed with a bouncing baby boy on the morning of July 24, whom they name after his ancestor, Simón de Bolívar who emigrated from Spain as a high-ranking representative of the Spanish kingdom. The baby is their fourth born. In a life of aristocracy and opulence, Simon is raised by a nursemaid, Hipólita because his mother is ailing from a disease, then commonly known as Consumption, the later day tuberculosis. (Arana p. 19) Simón de Bolívar, the great grandfather accompanies Diego Osorio as his assistant in 1588 when the latter is commissioned as the governor of the island of Venezuela. He later on becomes a trusted agent of the crown and initiates progressive development initiatives for both personal gain and for his master. (Arana p. 20)             After the death of his father, Don Juan Vicente, Simon is brought up by a Spanish dean of the college of lawyers named Sanz until he gets to about nine years old when his mother dies, leaving him and his siblings under maternal relatives ‘care. Although the stroke of bad luck goes on to claim the lives of his parents, grandparents and several uncles and aunts within the first decade of his life, young Simon’s sense of right and wrong is always on especially during the insurrections against the local Spanish administration among his own Creole population as well as the mixed colored slaves in pursuit of liberty. He undergoes a tumultuous childhood mostly without formal education because of the tumultuous hosting and ill-treatment he receives from his guardian uncle Don Carlos prompting the courts to come to his rescue in order for the young Bolivar to regain focus on his studies. At the age of 15, he takes a voyage to Spain where he would acquire some education under the tutelage of Marquis of Ustáriz, a native of Caracas and an old family friend (Arana p.41) After a stint in Spain, he meets and falls in love with Maria Teresa, whom he would later marry in Caracas before she succumbs to yellow fever in months. He never remarries. He takes on a combative and aggressive nature after his wife’s death in a bid to rebound from the setback and embarks on managing his haciendas, a venture he finds mind-numbing, abandons it and plans a trip back to Europe. He commissions a ship and leaves for Spain for the second time, from where he again sojourns to France, just in time for Napoleon’s coronation. It is in Paris too, where he sheds his mourning clothes and takes to the pleasures that the city could offer. Later together with his school teacher, Rodriguez and Fernando Toro go on a whirlwind tour of France and Italy and returns a changed man with a renewed health and he never again surrenders to a life of regret and dishonor. His demeanor changes into a disciplined revolutionary keen on changing the world. Sojourning from Europe to North America, Bolívar discovers stark differences in ways of life between his native Venezuela and the rest of the nations. Whereas back home, they are stuck in slave holding aristocracy, the rest of Europe and North America revel in work and business. The dissimilarities, racial, spiritual or historical are remarkable. The advantages of freedom realized in the countries he has visited makes his mind spin in a bid to replicate the same in Venezuela. “During my short visit to the United States,” he would later write, “for the first time in my life, I saw rational liberty at first hand.” All this while there is a diplomatic impasse involving Miranda and Smith, where Smith has pledged to supply ammunition and troops to Venezuela for her liberation struggle under Miranda. The United States president Jefferson dismisses any and warns against any rebellion against Spain’s colony of Venezuela. This warning which has economic implications on the neighboring country, works out as an eye opener for Bolívar who is sailing back home through the Caribbean in the spring of 1807 and he takes precaution to ensure the United States is the last country to provoke in the liberation struggle of South America. In June of 1807, Bolívar arrives in Caracas full of determination to make South America as great as France or United States, although this he knows requires a great resolve. By now all trades are on limbo and Caracas suffering from Madrid’s embargo, urgently requires liberation. Young Venezuelans are disillusioned and want nothing sort of a revolution and the mood on the ground pushes Bolivar to a conspiracy with like-minded friends to begin clandestine meetings disguised as musical concerts or gambling feats in the house of Bolivia. These plans are given a chance in life when Napoleon Bonaparte crosses to Spain in a false disguise to jointly invade Portugal in the treaty of Fontainebleau. This is the turning point of the South American liberation struggle. The second half of the eighteenth century is a revolutionary age in both America and Europe and the contrasting concepts of aristocracy and democracy are battling dominance, while countries are running monarchical or republican systems of governance. The radical movements ar...