Simón Bolívar

Born into Caracas wealth in 1783, Bolívar lost both parents as a child and was educated in Spain, where Enlightenment philosophy took hold. His young wife died of yellow fever in 1803; two years later, standing in Rome, he swore to end Spanish rule in the Americas. He returned to Venezuela in 1807 and began fighting in 1810, suffering early defeats that forced him into Jamaican exile by 1815. In Haiti, Alexandre Pétion gave him military support after Bolívar promised to abolish slavery. He established a third republic in 1817, then spent eight years crossing the Andes and defeating Spanish forces: New Granada in 1819, Venezuela and Panama in 1821, Ecuador in 1822, Peru in 1824, Bolivia in 1825. As president of the merged Republic of Colombia and of Peru and Bolivia, he grew disillusioned watching the republics splinter, his centralist vision rejected. Removed from office after office, he resigned the Colombian presidency and died of tuberculosis in December 1830.