Simon Bolivar’S Political Ideas

Simon Bolivar’s Political Ideas

Simon Bolivar
Throughout history there have been many men capable of leading populations to what they deeply believed by using their astuteness and cleverness. As the ideas of these men became popular more people started to follow them, giving them enough support to become their rulers, and in many cases dictators or leaders with absolute and sole powerover their followers, such as kings or emperors. We all have ever read or heard about the Roman Empire and its absolute leaders, emperors and dictators, such us Julius Caesar, for instance, and that has not been the only civilization with this type of leaders.
Nonetheless, the idea that an absolutist leader or a monarchy was the best way of government would start changing thanks to theperiod of Enlightenment, and ideas of freedom and people’s right would start spreading around Europe. At the time, many leaders in Europe and the Americas started adopting these new ideas but only some of them used them to make a difference in their society. One of the most important leaders influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and also the French revolution was Simon Bolivar, who was and anadvocate for this new way of thinking and led many countries in South America to their freedom and independence from Spain.
Simon Bolivar was born in a creole (Spanish American) wealthy family in Venezuela on July 24th, 1783 (Lynch). He did not receive much formal education, but he was lucky to have a private tutor, Simon Rodriguez, who teach him ideas of the European Enlightenment andimplant him admiration for the movement, its ideas, and the thinkers (Tenembaum). Some of the rationalists whose writings had an influence in Bolivar were John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau (Simon), and pretty soon these ideas will start revolving in his head and lead him to create his own political thinking.
Bolivar had the chance to visit Europe in two opportunities. The first one was tofurther his education, which he accomplished, but on his trip he also met and married Maria Teresa Rodriguez. While in Spain, his ideas of the Spanish monarchy changed, and he began to think of it as a corrupt and fragile government (Magill). After staying three years in Spain he went back to Caracas, where his wife died six months after their returned.
He revisited Europe, but this time hisdestination was Paris, where he started to get himself into the Enlightenment way of thinking by reading the works of many of the authors of the movement (Magill). Bolivar political thinking changed since then. He understood that he was not European or Indian; but that he was a mixed of aborigines and Spaniards, and that the quest for liberty and freedom was going to be one of the most importantaccomplishments for him and the American people under the Spanish monarchist regime (Lecuna). As a part of his second and most important and influential trip to Europe, Simon Bolivar left Paris in order to go to Italy, where he promised he would liberate his native land from the Spaniards, and left in 1807 (Magill).
As mention before, the ideas of the Enlightenment played an important role onthe shaping of Bolivar’s thinking. For instance, he adopted some of Rousseau’s ideas such us the one that says that liberty is a succulent morsel, but one difficult to digest (Lecuna). He had a liberal education, which led him to open his mind to the political thinkers of Britain and France whose works guide him into admiring and being devoted to reason, freedom and progress (Lynch)However, the works of the thinkers of the Enlightenment was not the only thing that influenced him and helped shaping his political thinking. Some British political views and practices also influenced him. He even recommended the British constitution in one of his writings as ‘the most worthy to serve as a model for those who desire to enjoy the rights of man and all political happiness compatible...