Simon Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar Palacios Ponte y Blanco
Arguably the most famous of the leaders of the Spanish American wars of independence, Simon Bolivar was a Venezuelan military leader descended from a criollo family of wealth. The criollo people were then understood to be native people of Spanish descent, with a social standing beneath pure Spaniards, but above those of all others of Amerindian descent. A person could be considered a criollo if they had no more than 1/8 Amerindian ancestry. The criollo people were at the forefront of the independence movement in Spanish America in the early 19th century, both in its initial movements and throughout its completion.
Bolivar was sent to Spain when he was 16 to complete his education, and he later journeyed to France, as was expected of young, aristocratic men of his day, also visiting other European capitals. He was present when Napoleon crowned himself as Emperor of the French in 1804. He returned to Venezuela in 1804, and when the Supreme Junta of Caracas deposed the Spanish colonial authorities in 1810 and declared independence from Spain, Bolivar was deputized to travel to Great Britain with a delegation tasked with obtaining recognition from the British government. By 1811 he was back in Venezuela, having failed to gain recognition for Venezuela as an independent nation.
His military career began in 1812, during the early years of the struggle for separation from Spain. At one point Bolivar handed an ally in the struggle over to the Spanish authorities, angered at his defeatism, for which he was awarded by the Spanish with free travel to Curacao. Bolivar was criticized for the apparent moral lapse, and defended himself by saying that he had not been helping the Spanish, but instead punishing a traitor. In 1813 Bolivar pronounced himself to be El Libertador (The Liberator), and with a small force took Caracas from the Spanish authorities, declaring the Second Republic of Venezuela. Bolivar next attempted the liberation of New Granada, but political disputes and intrigues forced him to flee into exile in Haiti.
Bolivar raised an army in Haiti and in 1816 returned to South America and his campaigns to destroy the Spanish authorities. After five years of campaigning and unending efforts to unite the squabbling factions among the independence supporters, Bolivar established Gran Colombia, an independent state made up of what is now Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama, with himself as president. Bolivar then began the campaign for the liberation of Peru, during which he ordered his troops to loot and pillage the property of Spanish laic and clerical authorities. Bolivar also demanded and received tribute, in the form of gold, silver, and jewels, from the defeated Spanish.
A section of Peru was established as the Republic of Bolivia, making Bolivar one of the few persons to ever name a nation after himself. As the independent nations emerged, Bolivar opposed a federation of states, though he struggled to administer all of the components of Gran Colombia through a centrist government. In 1830 he stepped down from his position as head of Gran Colombia, urging his fellow citizens to retain its structure of government. Worshiped as a liberator, Bolivar administered his government as a dictator, and his legacy was a long period of civil wars and revolutions within the states freed from Spain.