Simon Ponte Bolivar was a great South American soldier and statesman. He is called "the Liberator" because he led the revolutions that gave many of the South American countries their liberty nearly 150 years ago. These countries had belonged to Spain. The ones that were freed by Bolivar and his armies were Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. After the New World was discovered by Columbus in 1492, many of the countries of Europe sent soldiers and settlers to America, and formed colonies that belonged to the European countries.
The Spaniards, who had been the first settlers, ruled nearly all of South and Central America and parts of North America. Just as the English settlers in the colonies of North America became unhappy under British rule, many of the Spanish settlers in South America became unhappy under Spanish rule. Simon Bolivar was born in the city of Caracas, which is in Venezuela, in 1783. His family was very rich, and he was sent to Europe for his education. While he was at law school in Spain he fell in love and got married. He was only 18 years old at that time. He took his wife back to Caracas with him, but very soon after they arrived she became ill and died. Bolivar was deeply unhappy, and he went back to Europe to try to take his mind off his sorrow. He spent some time in Europe and he also visited the United States, which had won its independence from England only a few years before.
When Bolivar saw that a democratic independent government was working out well for the United States, he decided to spend his life working to bring independence to the Spanish colonies of South America. There already was a secret movement for independence in most of these colonies. Bolivar went back to Venezuela and joined the revolutionaries. He used his own money to help supply the army and to pay for the revolutionary battles.
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