Simón Bolívar, Gran Colombia, and the Liberation of South America

Simón Bolívar, born into a wealthy Caracas criollo family in 1783, joined the patriot cause after the 1810 Caracas Junta and took part in the First Republic of Venezuela (1811–1812), whose collapse he partly blamed on himself. His Admirable Campaign of 1813, launched from exile in Nueva Granada, briefly restored Venezuelan independence as the Second Republic, during which he issued the ferocious Decree of War to the Death; but this Second Republic too collapsed in 1814, sending Bolívar into exile, where in Jamaica he wrote his prophetic 'Letter from Jamaica' (1815) before receiving decisive arms, ships, and a printing press from Haitian president Alexandre Pétion in 1815–1816 to relaunch the struggle.