Latin America, which had been battered by colonizers, had long been enslaved by countries such as Spain and Portugal. Indigenous people, along with fugitives from Europe, fought for national independence. Against the backdrop of acute national contradictions in South America in the 18th century, Bolívar duly played their "savior."
1. The Bolivarians
Mention the name Simon Bolívar, I think everyone must be familiar with it. In the middle school history textbooks, we have already met this great revolutionary. Bolívar devoted his life to realizing his dream of "South American independence" and got his due rewards after practicing it.
What exactly did Bolívar rely on for its success? Is it the bold charm that he has cultivated over the years, or his daunting appearance, or his courage and wisdom to unite the masses of the people and gather strength? If we want to know how Bolivar's extraordinary qualities came to be, we must start with his personal experience in his youth.
Portrait of Bolívar
Bolívar was born in the Spanish-ruled colony of Caracas, where his relatives were large estate owners. In the Bolivarian family, there used to be thousands of slaves and manor fields. The insistence on slavery was a chronic disease of all the large families in South America at that time, and the "habituation" of this backward economic model was an important factor in the lack of unity between Latin Americans. In addition, the Bolívar family has been involved in high-profit industries such as mining, sugar production, and raw futures trading. His family is very rich, even according to today's standards, he is also a full-fledged "high-quality rich second generation".
But even the sons of tycoons like Bolívar were subject to oppression and discrimination in their lives and economies by the Spaniards and the appointed governors and officials. Bolívar's mother had some Latin American ancestry, and his grandfather was not a purebred white European descendant. Latin America was a white supremacist society at the time, and non-Caucasians were of a very low status, often seen as natural "slaves" or "servants."
South American black slaves who suffer inhuman treatment
At the age of two and a half and eight, Bolívar experienced the loss of his father and mother. After this, the younger Bolívar lived with his uncle Carlos. Carlos was a well-known local businessman, often bouncing back and forth between Europe and Latin America, painting an ideal blueprint for Bolívar's world. Carlos taught Bolívar jr. French and Spanish, and told him about anecdotes from his travels in Europe. This extraordinary inspiration has made Bolívar always have more insight than his peers.
As an adult, Bolívar often participated in the fiery local ethnic movements in Latin America. At that time, through the Napoleonic Wars occupation of Spain, the inhabitants of the Americas generally stood up to demand the overthrow of Spanish colonial rule and the establishment of independent governments belonging to the Latin American peoples. Infected by the revolutionary atmosphere in Europe, Bolívar took the initiative to take his family and family to Paris, France, on a sailing ship, and participated in Napoleon's coronation.
Napoleon held a surrender ceremony in Madrid
Bolívar's early revolutionary experience
After seeing the prosperity of Europe and the grandeur of Napoleon, Bolívar could no longer contain the throbbing in his heart. He admired Napoleon's talents and exploits, but expressed indignation at his colonialist aggression. In 1808, he took advantage of Napoleon's invasion of Spain to call on the masses of the people in Latin America to fight against the Spaniards. In 1810 he organized an uprising with Miranda, which set off the first wave of large-scale armed resistance against Spanish colonizers in South America.
Bolívar and Miranda used the wealth accumulated by their families to distribute pamphlets in large numbers among the indigenous and mixed races of South America. At that time, literate groups were only a minority in South America, so the use of this means could only unite a part of the upper class, and there was still a long way to go before the indigenous and nationalist masses of the people. In 1811, rebels hastily declared Venezuela's independence. With Miranda's cooperation, Bolívar took advantage of the situation to conquer Valencia, which was their first big victory.
A scene in the war against the colonizers (pictured)
In 1812, with the return of the Spaniards, Bolivar's forces were on the verge of collapse under the blows of the Spanish regular army. Later, he fled to Colombia with some of his cronies and published a famous pamphlet: The Cartagena Declaration. The declaration states, "
The defeat of the war was not due to the excessive strength of the opponents, but to the disunity within the revolutionary groups.
In the future, when the revolutionary ranks are reorganized again, Bolívar has strengthened the overall management of the troops. This defeat allowed him to be blessed with misfortune and to be more adept at mastering the art of struggle.
Bosch's second revolutionary activity was the re-liberation of Caracas. In this battle, Bolívar successfully repelled the Spanish governor stationed there, as well as more than 3,000 soldiers guarding the colony. However, in the following 1 year, Bolívar despised the determination of the Spanish Empire to rule Latin America, and thus did not exterminate the remnants of the Spanish colonists.
Caracas, the capital of venezuela today
When the Spanish rulers turned their guns and counterattacked South America, they led to riots in different occupied areas. Bolívar fled to Haiti again, and with the help of the Governor of Haiti, Pedion, he shouted the famous slogan that resounded through the sky: "We are on the other side of the earth, and we are the epitome of the whole of humanity!" Although we are not Indians or Europeans, we have our own unique pedigree. ”
The success of Bolívar and the realization of the "dream of independence"
In the naval battle with Spain, he successfully captured the Island of Margaret in Venezuela, as well as other islands of equal strategic status. He also actively learned from his previous experience of despising Spain's maritime transport capabilities, and deployed a large number of troops and warships on the "important pass" of the Atlantic Ocean towards the western Indian Ocean, hoping to seize the opportunity of war.
Bolívar also vigorously defied the public opinion and resolutely implemented the war strategy of taking the initiative. The bolivarian army was defeated by Spain twice, and the old problem of failing to drive out the invaders was the same. Bolívar reiterated his order to the soldiers this time, "The enemy hides the bright sword in its sheath, and if we do not take their weapons, we are wiping the dust off the swords for them." After capturing Anguestura, Bolívar slaughtered all the enemy troops hovering by the river of the city, thus establishing one stable military base after another.
Spanish colonies in the Americas (light green)
In 1819, having regained his revolutionary strength, he returned to Bogotá. In nearly three months of arduous fighting, Bolívar used guerrilla warfare, movement warfare and other means to successively take over the small strongholds built by the Spaniards in the Latin American countryside. Bolívar finally decided to support the abolition of black slavery in South America on the basis of a public vote, a move that gained a large number of black support as soon as it was revealed. Bolívar's team thus expanded again.
On December 17, 1819, Bolívar finally established the Republic of Gran Colombia. Its territory included present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rega, and the northernmost part of Peru. In 1822, in coordination with the hero Saint-Martin, who had traveled south from Central America, Bolívar took over this mature army that had been fighting in the north for a long time. Finally, in 1824, he led his army into Peru and named the upper Peruvian region "Bolivia" to commemorate his civil martial arts.
San Martin and Bolívar in conversation
Wen Shijun said:
Latin America, which had been eroded by Spain, finally regained her long-lost independence under the hard work of Bolívar and others. Bolívar had already experienced the depression of being humiliated and oppressed by the colonial forces as a teenager, and after he became an adult, he detected the people's desire for independence in several people's wars. Finally, after overcoming unpopular shortcomings such as "strategic retreat" and "stubborn maintenance of black slavery", Bolívar succeeded in rallying the latin American people and driving out the Spanish colonists. From today's historical stories, we can see that a person's success is not achieved overnight, and continuous progress is the ladder for us to achieve our ideals. Bolívar's life experience is worth learning from each of us!
bibliography:
Gu Xinsheng, "A Brief Discussion on the Revolutionary Activities of Simon Bolivar", Journal of Hanzhong Normal University, No. 4, 1986
Luo Rongqu, "On the Position of Simon Bolívar in World History", Latin American Series, No. 6, 1983
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Porcelain Country Garbage Dump)
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