Simon Bolivar Y Ponte, the liberator of Colombia, born in Caracas, July 24, 1783, died at San Pedro, near Santa Marta, Dec. 17, 1830. He was the son of one of the familias Mantuanas, which then constituted the Creole nobility in Venezuela. He was sent to Madrid to be educated, married there in 1801, and returned to Venezuela, where on his arrival his wife died of yellow fever. He visited Europe a second time, but in 1809 returned home by way of the United States, and after the revolution broke out at Caracas, April 19, 1810, accepted a mission to London to purchase arms and solicit the protection of the 'British government. In September, 1811, he joined the insurgents, was made lieutenant colonel on the staff of Gen. Miranda, and received the command of Puerto Cabello, the strongest fortress of Venezuela. The Spanish prisoners of war confined in the citadel of Puerto Cabello, 1,200 in number, having succeeded in overcoming their guards and in seizing the citadel, Bolivar evacuated the place and retired to his estate at San Mateo, and the fortress was immediately occupied by the Spaniards under Monteverde. This event obliged Miranda, on the authority of the congress, to sign the treaty of Vitoria, July 25, 1812, which restored Venezuela to the Spanish rule.

Miranda endeavored to leave the country; but was arrested in the night at La Guayra by Bolivar and other officers, and surrendered to Monteverde, who despatched him to Cadiz, where after some years' captivity he died in irons. Bolivar now went with his cousin Ribas to Cartagena, and enlisted there, from a number of refugees, 300 soldiers for an expedition against the Spaniards in Venezuela. To this force Manuel Rodriguez Torices, the president of Cartagena, added 500 men under the command of his cousin, Manuel Castillo. The expedition started in the beginning of January, 1813; and although Castillo suddenly decamped with his grenadiers, Bolivar kept on up the river Magdalena, driving the Spanish royalists from Tenerife, Mompox, and Cucuta, and arrived at Bogota, at that time the seat of the congress of New Granada. Here Bolivar and Ribas were both made generals by the congress, and, after having divided their little army into two columns, they marched by different routes upon Caracas, gaining recruits at every step. The only serious resistance on the part of the Spaniards was directed against the column of Ribas, who however routed Gen. Monteverde at Los Taguanes, and forced him to shut himself up in Puerto Cabello with the remainder of his troops.

On hearing of Bolivar's approach, Gen. Fierro, the governor of Caracas, sent deputies to propose a capitulation, which was concluded at Vitoria; and on Aug. 4, 1813, the liberating army entered the capital. Bolivar was honored with a public triumph, and having proclaimed himself "dictator and liberator of the western provinces of Venezuela" - Marifio had assumed the title of "dictator of the eastern provinces" - he created "the order of the liberator," established a body guard, and surrounded himself with the show of a court. By the conduct of his officers and by the suspicions which were prevalent that Bolivar aimed only at personal aggrandizement, the enthusiasm of the people was turned to dissatisfaction. The Spaniards recovered themselves and resumed the offensive. Jan. 1, 1814, Bolivar assembled a junta of the most influential inhabitants of Caracas, and asked to be relieved of the dictatorship; but the junta insisted that he should retain the supreme power. In June, 1814, the Spanish general Boves marched on La Puerta, where Bolivar and Marifio had formed a junction, and defeated them in a battle in which the patriots lost 1,500 men.

Caracas was next taken, and Bolivar, defeated again at Aragua, fled to Cumana, sailed with some of his officers to Cartagena, and thence went to Tunja, where the congress of the federal republic of New Granada created him commander-in-chief, with the double mission of forcing the president of the province of Cundinamarca to acknowledge the authority of the congress, and of then marching against Santa Marta, the only fortified seaport the Spaniards still retained in New Granada. He took Santa Fe, carrying the suburbs by storm, and Bogota immediately capitulated and became the seat of the general government of New Granada. In his design against Santa Marta he was hindered by the refusal of Castillo, the commander of Cartagena, to furnish the munitions of war ordered from the citadel there. Bolivar led his troops against Cartagena in the hope of reducing Castillo to submission, and the season for action against the Spaniards was wasted by an indecisive siege of that city which lasted until May. Meanwhile a great Spanish expedition from Cadiz had arrived, March 25, 1815, under Gen. Mo-rillo, at the island of Margarita, and had been able to throw powerful reinforcements into Santa Marta, and soon after to take Cartagena itself.

Previously, however, Bolivar, seeing the hopelessness of the struggle there, had embarked for Kingston, Jamaica, with about a dozen of his officers, on an armed English brig. During his eight months' stay at Kingston Morillo was overrunning New Granada almost without opposition; but the generals Bolivar had left in Venezuela, and Gen. Aris-mendi in the island of Margarita, still held their ground against the Spanish arms. From Kingston Bolivar -repaired to Port-au-Prince, where, on his promise of emancipating the slaves, Petion, the president of Hayti, offered him four negro battalions for a new expedition against the Spaniards in Venezuela. At Cayes he met Brion, who had sailed from London with a corvette, arms, and stores for the republicans, and some patriot refugees from Cartagena. Having united these forces, he sailed for Margarita April 16, 1816, to aid Arismendi, who had already reduced the Spaniards to the single spot of Pampatar. On Bolivar's formal promise to convoke a national congress in Venezuela as soon as he should be master of the country, Arismendi summoned a junta in the cathedral of La Villa del Norte, and publicly proclaimed him the commander-in-chief of the republics of Venezuela and New Granada. On June 1, 1816, Bolivar landed at Ca-rupano, but here Marino and Piar separated from him to carry on a war against Cumana under their own auspices.

Weakened by this separation, he set sail for Ocumare with 13 vessels, of which 7 only were armed. His army mustered but 650 men, swelled by the enrolment of negroes, whose emancipation he had proclaimed, to about 800. While advancing toward Valencia with this force, he was attacked and defeated by the Spanish general Morales not far from Ocumare. Compelled to reembark, he went first to the small island of Buen Ayre, and afterward joined the other commanders on the coast of Cumana; but being harshly received, he quickly retraced his steps to Cayes. After some months a majority of the Venezuelan military chiefs recalled him as their general-in-chief. He went first to Margarita with the arms, munitions of war, and provisions supplied by Petion, and was joined Jan. 2, 1817, by Arismendi; but five days later, when Arismendi had fallen into an ambush laid by the Spaniards, Bolivar escaped to Barcelona. The troops rallied at the latter place, whither Brion sent him guns and reinforcements, so that he soon mustered a new corps of 1,100 men. Here on Feb. 16 he met the Spanish forces under Morillo and defeated them, after an obstinate battle lasting three days. On April 5 Bolivar left Barcelona, and on the 15th the town was taken, by the Spaniards and the garrison slaughtered.

Piar, a man of color and native of Curacao, designed and executed the conquest from the Spaniards of the provinces of Guiana, Admiral Brion supporting that enterprise with his gunboats. On July 20, the whole of the provinces being evacuated by the Spaniards, Piar, Brion, Zea, Marifio, Arismendi, and others, assembled a provincial congress at Angostura, and put at the head of the executive a triumvirate, of which Bolivar was appointed a member, notwithstanding his absence. On these tidings Bolivar went to Angostura, and, supported by Brion, dissolved the congress and the triumvirate, to replace them by a "supreme council of the nation," with himself as the chief, and Brion and Antonio Francisco Zea as the directors, the former of the military, the latter of the political section. Piar was arraigned on a charge of conspiracy before a war council under the presidency of Brion, convicted, and shot, Oct. 16, 1817. The conquest of Guiana was a great aid to the patriots; and a new campaign, announced by Bolivar through a proclamation, was generally expected to result in the final expulsion of the Spaniards. Nevertheless, toward the end of May, 1818, he had after several battles lost all the provinces lying on the northern side of the lower Orinoco, while on the affluents of the upper, Paez, the leader of the patriot llaneros, was constantly victorious.

At this critical moment he met with Santander, a native of New Granada, and furnished him with the means of invading that territory, where the population were prepared for a general rise against the Spaniards. Powerful succor in men, vessels, and munitions of war began to arrive from England, and English, French, German, and Polish officers flocked to Angostura. Finally Bolivar was induced to convene a national congress, Feb. 15, 1819, the mere name of which proved powerful enough to create a new army of about 14,000 men, so that he found himself enabled to resume the offensive. He now formed the plan of making a feint toward Caracas, and, when Morillo should have concentrated his forces in Venezuela, suddenly turning to the west, uniting with Santander's guerillas, and marching upon Bogota. To execute this plan, he left Angostura Feb. 24, 1819, made a most extraordinary march across the Andes, and, aided by Santander and the foreign troops, consisting mainly of Englishmen, decided the fate of New Granada by repeated victories in July and early in August in the province of Tunja. On Aug. 10 Bolivar made a triumphal entry into Bogota, amid the acclamations of the inhabitants, who hailed him as their liberator.

The Spaniards, all the Granadian provinces having risen against them, shut themselves np in the fortified town of Mompox. Having regulated the Granadian congress at Bogota, and installed Gen. Santander as commander-in-chief, Bolivar marched to Montecal in Venezuela, where he had directed the patriot chieftains of that territory to assemble with their troops. Morillo withdrew before Paez from San Fernando de Apure to San Carlos. In October, 1819, the congress of Angostura had forced Zea, whom Bolivar had made vice president during his absence, to resign his office, and chosen Arismendi in his place. On receiving this news, Bolivar suddenly marched his foreign legion toward Angostura, surprised Arismendi, exiled him to the island of Margarita, and restored Zea to his dignities. On Dec. 17, 1819, the two republics of Venezuela and New Granada at a general congress united under the name of Colombia, and Bolivar was made president. In New Granada 15 provinces out of 22 had joined the government of Colombia, and the Spaniards now held there only the fortresses of Cartagena and the isthmus of Panama. In Venezuela six provinces out of eight obeyed the laws of Colombia. Such was the state of things when Bolivar entered into negotiations with Morillo, resulting, Nov. 25, 1820, in the conclusion at Truxillo of a truce for six months.

On Dec. 17 Morillo embarked at Puerto Cabello for Spain, leaving the command-in-chief to Miguel de la Torre. On June 24, 1821, Gen. La Torre was totally defeated by Bolivar and Paez at Carabobo, about half way between San Carlos and Valencia. In this battle the royalists lost 6,000 men and all their baggage and artillery, and by it the war in Venezuela was virtually concluded. La Torre fled to Puerto Cabello, where he shut himself up with the remainder of his troops. On Sept. 23 Cartagena capitulated to Santander, and Puerto Cabello was captured by Paez in November, 1823. The Colombian congress, opened in May, 1821, at Cucuta, published on Aug. 30 a new constitution, and after Bolivar had again resigned, renewed his powers. Having signed the new constitution, he obtained leave to undertake the campaign of Quito (1822), to which province the Spaniards had retired after their ejection from the isthmus of Panama. This campaign ended in the incorporation of Quito, Pasto, and Guayaquil into Colombia. Gen. San Martin, the liberator of Peru, having asked the assistance of Bolivar in driving the Spaniards from that country, he left the government in the hands of the vice president Santander, marched upon Lima, which the royalists evacuated at his approach, entered the city in triumph Sept. 1, 1823, and on Feb. 10, 1824, was made dictator by the congress of Lima. With 6,000 Colombians under Gen. Sucre and 4,000 Peruvians under Gen. Miller, he crossed the Andes, and on Aug. 6,1824, defeated the Spanish army on the plains of Junin. He then returned to Lima to reorganize the government, leaving Gen. Sucre to follow the retreating royalists to Upper Peru, ' where on Dec. 9 he achieved the decisive victory of the war at Ayacucho. Bolivar convened a congress and resigned the dictatorship of Peru, Feb; 10,1825. The provinces of Upper Peru met in convention at Chuquisaca, and having assumed for their country the name of Bolivia they made Bolivar perpetual protector, and asked him to prepare for them a plan of government.

He returned to Lima, and from there on May 25, 1826, presented the Bolivian code to the congress of Bolivia. In the mean time a serious antagonism had broken out in Colombia between the centralists or Bolivarists and the federalists, Paez, the vice president of Venezuela, having broken into open revolt. Bolivar went to Bogota, assumed dictatorial powers Nov. 23, 1826, and meeting Paez at Puerto Cabello the last of December, he not only confirmed him in his command of Venezuela, and issued a proclamation of amnesty to all the rebels, but openly took their part. Bolivar and Santander were reelected president and vice president; but in February, 1827, the former wrote a letter to the senate declining the position. A large minority were in favor of accepting his declination, but his friends proving a majority, he was induced to withdraw it. He repaired to Bogota to take the oath, but before doing so issued a decree, March 21, 1828, convoking a national convention at Ocaila, with a view to modify the constitution in favor of the executive power. When, however, a large majority declared against the proposition, his friends vacated their seats, by which proceeding the body was left without a quorum, and thus became extinct.

From a country seat some miles distant from Ocafia, to which he had retreated, he published a manifesto attacking the convention and calling on the provinces to recur to extraordinary measures. Popular assemblies at Caracas, Cartagena, and Bogota anew invested him with dictatorial power. An attempt was now made to assassinate him in his sleeping room at Bogota, which he escaped only by leaping in the dark from the balcony of the window, and lying concealed under a bridge. Santander, convicted of taking a part in the conspiracy, was banished, and Gen. Padilla on the same charge was condemned to death. Violent factions disturbing the republic in 1829, Bolivar in a new appeal to the citizens invited them to frankly express their wishes as to the modifications j;o be introduced into the constitution. An assembly of notables at Caracas answered by denouncing his ambition, declaring the separation of Venezuela from Colombia, and placing Paez at the head of that republic. The senate of Colombia stood by Bolivar, but other insurrections broke out at different points. Having resigned for the fifth time, in January, 1830, he again accepted the presidency, and left Bogota to wage war on Paez in the name of the Colombian congress.

But the influence of his friends in the congress was now weak, and he was forced to tender his resignation, notice being given that an annual pension would be granted to him on the condition of his departure for foreign countries. He accordingly sent his resignation to the congress, April 27, 1830, but prolonged his sojourn at San Pedro until the end of the year, when he suddenly died. A few days before his death he dictated a farewell address to the nation, complaining bitterly of the ingratitude of those to whom he had devoted his life and fortune. During his whole life Bolivar was never without malignant enemies, and he was constantly charged with cowardice and an ambition which aimed only at his own aggrandizement. But amid the conflicting reports of his biographers these facts stand forth strongly in his favor: that he conquered the independence of three states and secured their recognition by other nations; that he gave them laws which secured the better administration of justice; and that he died no richer from having had the control of the treasuries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, and expended nearly all his own large fortune in the people's service.

He was fond of pleasure, fame, and power, but patriotism and love of freedom were his ruling passions; and his energy, generosity, and endurance in misfortune were acknowledged even by his enemies. By decree of the congress of New Granada, his remains were removed in 1842 to Caracas, where a monument was erected in his honor; and in 1858 the city of Lima erected an equestrian statue of the " Liberator of the Peruvian Nation".