WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.500 You know, when we talk about a historical tragedy, 00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:06.559 usually we mean a bad ending, a dream that gets 00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:09.060 crushed, maybe a lost war, a premature death. 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:11.119 Right. Something that stops the story before 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:13.759 it's finished. Exactly. But with the figure we're 00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:16.379 looking at today, Simon Bolivar, the tragedy 00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:18.719 isn't that he failed. The tragedy is that he 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:21.940 completely succeeded. He did exactly what he 00:00:21.940 --> 00:00:24.519 set out to do. He broke an empire. He liberated 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:27.179 an entire continent. And then he had to just 00:00:27.179 --> 00:00:29.679 sit there and watch it all fall apart. It's the 00:00:29.679 --> 00:00:32.420 ultimate be careful what you wish for story. 00:00:32.659 --> 00:00:34.719 I mean, we're looking at sources today that paint 00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:37.039 this picture of a man who is, you know, arguably 00:00:37.039 --> 00:00:39.140 the most successful military leader of the entire 00:00:39.140 --> 00:00:41.619 19th century. The scale is just staggering. It 00:00:41.619 --> 00:00:43.859 is. He liberated a territory five times the size 00:00:43.859 --> 00:00:47.500 of Europe. And yet, if you read his final letters, 00:00:47.740 --> 00:00:50.659 they read like the diary of a man who believes 00:00:50.659 --> 00:00:53.420 he just wasted his entire life. That one line 00:00:53.420 --> 00:00:55.479 from his last days, it just haunts me from all 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:58.020 the reading. He said, All who have served the 00:00:58.020 --> 00:01:00.539 revolution have plowed the sea. Plowed the sea. 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:02.979 Yeah. I mean, just imagine that. It suggests 00:01:02.979 --> 00:01:06.459 total, absolute futility. It's a devastating 00:01:06.459 --> 00:01:09.319 image. And to understand how someone goes from 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:12.319 being hailed as the liberator to feeling like 00:01:12.319 --> 00:01:15.519 he's just plowing the ocean, we have to kind 00:01:15.519 --> 00:01:18.370 of dismantle the caricature. Right. Because in 00:01:18.370 --> 00:01:20.469 the English speaking world, we love to call him 00:01:20.469 --> 00:01:22.310 the George Washington of Latin America. Which 00:01:22.310 --> 00:01:24.209 as soon as you look at the details, that comparison 00:01:24.209 --> 00:01:26.290 just falls apart, doesn't it? It completely does. 00:01:26.370 --> 00:01:28.829 I mean, Washington went home to his farm. He 00:01:28.829 --> 00:01:30.569 left behind a pretty stable country, all things 00:01:30.569 --> 00:01:33.430 considered. Believer died basically in exile, 00:01:33.709 --> 00:01:36.469 hated by half the people he freed with his grand 00:01:36.469 --> 00:01:39.209 project, this united continent just burning to 00:01:39.209 --> 00:01:42.700 the ground. His path was so much more. Volatile. 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:45.219 Volatile, authoritarian, romantic, and tragic. 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:48.200 All at once, we're talking about the man responsible 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:50.540 for the independence of, what, six countries 00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:53.939 today? Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, 00:01:54.239 --> 00:01:57.739 and Venezuela. An incredible list. But our mission 00:01:57.739 --> 00:02:01.060 today isn't just to list the battles. We really 00:02:01.060 --> 00:02:03.560 need to figure out how a wealthy orphan becomes 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:07.060 a revolutionary general and why that dream of 00:02:07.060 --> 00:02:10.000 a united South America collapsed. And honestly, 00:02:10.180 --> 00:02:12.979 we have to grapple with the darkness in his character, 00:02:13.099 --> 00:02:15.400 the ruthlessness. OK, so let's start with that 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:17.460 wealthy orphan part, because the economic scale 00:02:17.460 --> 00:02:20.479 here is it's just mind blowing. This isn't your, 00:02:20.580 --> 00:02:24.169 you know. gentry class of the 1700s. Oh, no, 00:02:24.210 --> 00:02:26.849 not even close. Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas 00:02:26.849 --> 00:02:29.830 in 1783, and he was born into what they called 00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:32.629 the Mantuano class. Okay. The Bolivars were one 00:02:32.629 --> 00:02:35.090 of the richest families in the entire Spanish 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:38.849 Americas. They owned copper mines, vast cacao 00:02:38.849 --> 00:02:42.189 plantations, huge herds of cattle. He was a Criollo. 00:02:42.650 --> 00:02:44.550 which means he was of Spanish descent but born 00:02:44.550 --> 00:02:46.569 in the Americas. Right. But in terms of actual 00:02:46.569 --> 00:02:48.610 resources, he probably had more money than most 00:02:48.610 --> 00:02:51.150 European princes. But all that money, it doesn't 00:02:51.150 --> 00:02:53.050 buy you a childhood. I mean, the timeline of 00:02:53.050 --> 00:02:55.310 loss here is just brutal. His father dies of 00:02:55.310 --> 00:02:57.889 tuberculosis when Simon is only two. And then 00:02:57.889 --> 00:02:59.430 his mother dies of the same disease when he's 00:02:59.430 --> 00:03:02.840 nine. So before he even hits his 10th birthday, 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:06.039 he's the master of this massive fortune. And 00:03:06.039 --> 00:03:08.000 for all intents and purposes, he's completely 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:10.319 alone in the world. He really is. And this is 00:03:10.319 --> 00:03:12.580 where we have to look at who actually raised 00:03:12.580 --> 00:03:15.360 him. It wasn't his uncles who were more interested 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:17.680 in the inheritance. It was the enslaved people 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:20.240 of the household. Specifically, a woman named 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.400 Hippolyta. Exactly. Hippolyta. He called her 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:26.280 mother and father, didn't he? He did. He later 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:28.479 wrote that she was the only parent he truly knew. 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:30.500 And I think we have to keep that in our back 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:33.539 pocket for later. Because when Bolivar eventually 00:03:33.539 --> 00:03:36.240 turns against slavery, and it's an imperfect 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:39.199 turn, but he does, it's not just some abstract 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.000 Enlightenment idea he read in a book. It's personal. 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.219 It's a polita. Okay, but he's still a rich, unruly 00:03:45.219 --> 00:03:48.680 kid in this rigid colonial society. His legal 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:51.379 guardian, his uncle Carlos, he basically doesn't 00:03:51.379 --> 00:03:52.860 know what to do with him. Right. He finds him 00:03:52.860 --> 00:03:55.060 completely unmanageable. So he hands him off 00:03:55.060 --> 00:03:57.259 to a tutor. And this isn't just some guy who 00:03:57.259 --> 00:03:59.780 comes to teach him math and Latin. This is Simon 00:03:59.780 --> 00:04:02.520 Rodriguez. And Rodriguez is a key figure in this 00:04:02.520 --> 00:04:04.939 whole story. One of the most important. He was 00:04:04.939 --> 00:04:07.879 a radical, a total eccentric. He was a devotee 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:09.560 of Jean -Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher. 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:12.219 And Rousseau had this idea from his book, Camille, 00:04:12.340 --> 00:04:14.800 that you shouldn't lock kids in classrooms. You 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:17.600 should teach them through nature, through exercise, 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:19.779 you know, through the real world. So you have 00:04:19.779 --> 00:04:23.139 this scene, this incredibly wealthy heir and 00:04:23.139 --> 00:04:25.899 his radical tutor just, what, running through 00:04:25.899 --> 00:04:28.060 the Venezuelan countryside? That's literally 00:04:28.060 --> 00:04:30.699 it. Swimming in rivers, climbing mountains, sleeping 00:04:30.699 --> 00:04:34.079 under the stars. And all the while, Rodriguez 00:04:34.079 --> 00:04:36.829 just... pumping this kid's head full of ideas 00:04:36.829 --> 00:04:38.709 about liberty, the rights of man, the corruption 00:04:38.709 --> 00:04:41.069 of European society. He's basically building 00:04:41.069 --> 00:04:43.129 a revolutionary from the ground up, whether he 00:04:43.129 --> 00:04:45.889 knows it or not. But then the script sort of 00:04:45.889 --> 00:04:48.529 flips back to the more traditional rich kid path. 00:04:48.930 --> 00:04:52.129 At 16, Bolivar is sent off to Europe to finish 00:04:52.129 --> 00:04:54.930 his education, rub elbows with the Spanish aristocracy. 00:04:55.490 --> 00:04:58.550 And this leads to what might be the biggest what 00:04:58.550 --> 00:05:01.209 if moment of his entire life. The romance in 00:05:01.209 --> 00:05:04.819 Madrid. He meets Maria Teresa Rodriguez del Toro. 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:07.620 And she is, by all accounts, the girl of his 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:09.959 dreams. She's aristocratic. She's beautiful. 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:13.220 She connects him to the Spanish court. He's totally 00:05:13.220 --> 00:05:16.339 smitten. They fall madly in love. He's 18. She's 00:05:16.339 --> 00:05:19.319 20. They get married in 1802. And if the story 00:05:19.319 --> 00:05:22.470 stops there. Simon Bolivar is just a footnote 00:05:22.470 --> 00:05:25.110 in a history book. He's a wealthy planter who 00:05:25.110 --> 00:05:27.129 lives out a comfortable life in Caracas. He actually 00:05:27.129 --> 00:05:28.970 said that himself later, didn't he? He did. He 00:05:28.970 --> 00:05:30.470 said if he hadn't been widowed, he might have 00:05:30.470 --> 00:05:32.250 been, you know, the mayor of his local town. 00:05:32.870 --> 00:05:35.529 But tragedy strikes again. They move back to 00:05:35.529 --> 00:05:38.410 Venezuela. And within eight months, Maria Teresa 00:05:38.410 --> 00:05:41.850 contracts yellow fever. Eight months. She dies 00:05:41.850 --> 00:05:44.550 in January 1803. And he's just 19 years old. 00:05:44.589 --> 00:05:46.569 He's already lost his father, his mother, and 00:05:46.569 --> 00:05:48.990 now the love of his life. The grief is just. 00:05:49.740 --> 00:05:52.639 Total. He swears an oath on her grave never to 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:55.240 remarry. It's a promise he actually keeps, despite 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:58.300 having many, many lovers later on. But more importantly, 00:05:58.459 --> 00:06:01.759 her death just creates this massive, agonizing 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:04.060 void in his soul. He has all this energy, all 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:05.920 this passion, all this pain, and now there's 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:09.420 nowhere for it to go. So he runs. He goes back 00:06:09.420 --> 00:06:11.720 to Europe, not to study this time, but just to 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:13.959 escape. And this is where he runs smack into 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:17.220 history. He's in Paris, 1804. And he's living 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:19.560 the high life, spending money like water, sleeping 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:22.100 around, just trying to numb the pain. But he's 00:06:22.100 --> 00:06:24.220 also watching the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. 00:06:24.339 --> 00:06:26.660 The man of the hour. The obsession of the age. 00:06:27.379 --> 00:06:29.839 And Bolivar sees him as this fascinating paradox. 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:33.040 On the one hand, he just admires the glory, the 00:06:33.040 --> 00:06:35.639 power. He's physically there in Milan when Napoleon 00:06:35.639 --> 00:06:38.000 is crowned king of Italy. He sees the crowds, 00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:40.860 the energy, the sheer capacity of one man to 00:06:40.860 --> 00:06:43.060 change the entire map of Europe. But he hates 00:06:43.060 --> 00:06:45.560 the crown. He hates the crown. He sees Napoleon 00:06:45.560 --> 00:06:48.120 as a traitor to the French Revolution. Napoleon 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:51.040 took the ideals of liberty, fraternity, and equality 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:54.360 and turned them back into a monarchy. So Bolivar 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:56.560 is wrestling with this huge contradiction. How 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:58.480 do you get the power to change the world without 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:01.060 becoming a tyrant yourself? And this all culminates 00:07:01.060 --> 00:07:03.720 in that famous scene, the oath on Montesacro. 00:07:03.800 --> 00:07:05.480 It feels like something out of a movie, but it 00:07:05.480 --> 00:07:08.220 really happened. It did. He's in Rome with his 00:07:08.220 --> 00:07:10.500 old tutor, Rodriguez, who finds him there. They 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:12.879 climb the Montsacro, the Holy Mountain. It's 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:15.519 a hot day. And Bolivar, apparently just overcome 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.579 with emotion, he falls to his knees. And he swears 00:07:18.579 --> 00:07:21.420 the oath. He swears, I will not rest body or 00:07:21.420 --> 00:07:24.459 soul until I have broken the chains binding us 00:07:24.459 --> 00:07:27.399 to the will of Spanish might. It's pure melodrama, 00:07:27.519 --> 00:07:30.060 but it's real. And it sets the trajectory for 00:07:30.060 --> 00:07:32.019 the rest of his life. The timing couldn't have 00:07:32.019 --> 00:07:33.800 been more perfect either, because just a few 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:36.600 years later, Europe completely implodes. Napoleon 00:07:36.600 --> 00:07:39.779 invades Spain in 1808. He kidnaps the Spanish 00:07:39.779 --> 00:07:42.740 king, Ferdinand VII, and he puts his own brother, 00:07:42.879 --> 00:07:45.000 Joseph Bonaparte, on the throne. The catalyst. 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:47.420 This is the catalyst. Because suddenly, all the 00:07:47.420 --> 00:07:49.699 Spanish colonies in America are asking themselves 00:07:49.699 --> 00:07:52.759 a very dangerous question. Who are we loyal to? 00:07:53.149 --> 00:07:55.490 Right. And this is a really nuanced point in 00:07:55.490 --> 00:07:58.029 the sources. The Criollos in Venezuela, they 00:07:58.029 --> 00:08:01.149 form a junta in 1810, but they don't say, down 00:08:01.149 --> 00:08:04.389 with Spain. No, not at all. They say, we are 00:08:04.389 --> 00:08:06.629 ruling in the name of our beloved King Ferdinand 00:08:06.629 --> 00:08:09.449 VII. The Mast of Ferdinand. It was a brilliant 00:08:09.449 --> 00:08:11.790 political move. They claimed they were just protecting 00:08:11.790 --> 00:08:13.970 the colony for the rightful king against the 00:08:13.970 --> 00:08:17.250 French usurper. But in reality, it was the first 00:08:17.250 --> 00:08:19.790 taste of self -rule. And once they had that taste 00:08:19.790 --> 00:08:22.930 of autonomy, there was no going back. So Bolivar 00:08:22.930 --> 00:08:25.389 dives in. He goes on a diplomatic mission to 00:08:25.389 --> 00:08:27.970 London to try to get British support. And on 00:08:27.970 --> 00:08:30.910 his way back, he picks up the old guard revolutionary 00:08:30.910 --> 00:08:34.230 Francisco de Miranda. Oh, Miranda is a legend, 00:08:34.350 --> 00:08:37.090 a total legend. He'd fought in the American Revolution, 00:08:37.330 --> 00:08:39.250 the French Revolution. He knew Catherine the 00:08:39.250 --> 00:08:42.289 Great in Russia. He was the precursor. And Bolivar 00:08:42.289 --> 00:08:44.350 convinces him to come back to Venezuela and lead 00:08:44.350 --> 00:08:46.450 the army. But this first attempt at independence, 00:08:46.649 --> 00:08:48.590 what they call the First Republic, it's a complete 00:08:48.590 --> 00:08:51.090 disaster. A total failure. And it's not just 00:08:51.090 --> 00:08:55.250 because of the army. It's nature itself. The 00:08:55.250 --> 00:08:58.090 earthquake of 1812. You honestly could not write 00:08:58.090 --> 00:08:59.710 this in fiction. People would say it's too heavy 00:08:59.710 --> 00:09:02.490 handed. On Maundy Thursday, the holiest week 00:09:02.490 --> 00:09:04.809 of the Christian year, a massive earthquake just 00:09:04.809 --> 00:09:07.210 flattens Caracas. And the really unbelievable 00:09:07.210 --> 00:09:09.549 part is that it only destroyed the cities held 00:09:09.549 --> 00:09:12.250 by the Republicans. Exactly. It left the royalist 00:09:12.250 --> 00:09:15.029 cities almost untouched. I mean, that is a theological 00:09:15.029 --> 00:09:17.610 weapon for the royalist priests. It was everything. 00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:19.649 They stood in the rubble and preached that this 00:09:19.649 --> 00:09:22.090 was God punishing the people for rebelling against. 00:09:22.220 --> 00:09:24.879 their divinely appointed king it just broke the 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:27.460 psychological back of the revolution troops deserted 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:30.639 the whole thing crumbled and this leads us to 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:33.840 what is for me the most controversial moment 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.220 in bolivar's early career the betrayal of miranda 00:09:37.220 --> 00:09:40.000 the simple version of the story is that miranda 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.639 surrendered and bolivar was disgusted but when 00:09:42.639 --> 00:09:45.879 you look at the timeline it's It's much darker 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:48.440 than that. It is much darker. Miranda, seeing 00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:51.220 the chaos and the bloodshed, signs a capitulation 00:09:51.220 --> 00:09:54.139 with the Spanish to end the fighting. Bolivar 00:09:54.139 --> 00:09:56.500 and his young officers see this as treason. But 00:09:56.500 --> 00:09:58.720 when Miranda goes to the port of La Guardia to 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:01.639 get on a ship and escape. Bolivar arrests him. 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:03.679 He and his associates arrest their own commander 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:06.379 in chief. They lock him in a fort. And then they 00:10:06.379 --> 00:10:08.879 hand him over to the Spanish. They do. Miranda 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:11.980 ends up dying in a dungeon in Cádiz, Spain, years 00:10:11.980 --> 00:10:14.500 later. But here's a crucial detail that often 00:10:14.500 --> 00:10:17.779 gets left out. The Spanish commander, Monteverde, 00:10:17.899 --> 00:10:20.919 granted Bolívar a passport to leave the country 00:10:20.919 --> 00:10:23.620 only after he handed Miranda over. So it looks 00:10:23.620 --> 00:10:26.120 like a transaction, a quid pro quo. He traded 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:28.559 his commander's life for his own safe passage. 00:10:28.820 --> 00:10:31.799 It's the moment the romantic idealist dies and 00:10:31.799 --> 00:10:35.370 the pragmatic, ruthless politician is born. Historians 00:10:35.370 --> 00:10:37.590 still debate it, you know, was it justice against 00:10:37.590 --> 00:10:40.250 a traitor or was it a young officer saving his 00:10:40.250 --> 00:10:42.110 own skin so he could live to fight another day? 00:10:42.230 --> 00:10:44.009 Probably a bit of both. It's almost certainly 00:10:44.009 --> 00:10:47.129 both. So Bolivar escapes to Cartagena in what 00:10:47.129 --> 00:10:49.450 is now Colombia. He's exiled, he's defeated, 00:10:49.570 --> 00:10:52.629 he's broke, but he doesn't quit. He writes the 00:10:52.629 --> 00:10:55.070 Cartagena Manifesto, he analyzes all his failures, 00:10:55.210 --> 00:10:57.269 he gets a new army, and he invades Venezuela 00:10:57.269 --> 00:11:00.129 all over again in 1813. The admirable campaign. 00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:02.360 And this is where the violence really shifts 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:04.299 gears. We have to talk about the decree of war 00:11:04.299 --> 00:11:06.740 to the death. Guerra Muerte. I've read the text 00:11:06.740 --> 00:11:09.220 of this, and it is just chilling. He basically 00:11:09.220 --> 00:11:12.039 says to the Spaniards, even if you are neutral, 00:11:12.299 --> 00:11:14.779 you will be put to the sword. Only if you actively 00:11:14.779 --> 00:11:16.960 work for our independence will you live. And 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:19.879 on the flip side, to the Americans, the South 00:11:19.879 --> 00:11:23.980 Americans, he says, you will be spared even if 00:11:23.980 --> 00:11:27.659 you are a traitor. He is drawing a hard, bloody 00:11:27.659 --> 00:11:30.080 line in the sand. What is the strategy there? 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:31.960 I mean, on the surface, it just sounds like pure 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:34.360 bloodlust. It wasn't bloodlust. It was psychological 00:11:34.360 --> 00:11:37.080 warfare. He realized that most people were just 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:39.340 sitting on the fence. They didn't see themselves 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:42.360 as Venezuelans or Spaniards. They were just subjects 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:45.379 of a distant king. So he needed to force an identity 00:11:45.379 --> 00:11:47.399 on them. He had to create a national identity 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:49.960 by force. He had to make it impossible to be 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:52.059 neutral. You were either a patriot or you were 00:11:52.059 --> 00:11:54.340 dead. It was destroying that middle ground to 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:57.179 try and build the nation. And it worked. At first, 00:11:57.220 --> 00:12:00.200 he retakes Caracas. He's given the title El Libertador. 00:12:00.500 --> 00:12:03.200 But the Second Republic falls apart just as quickly 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:05.710 as the first. And this time, is because of the 00:12:05.710 --> 00:12:08.850 Llaneros. The Llaneros. These are the cowboys 00:12:08.850 --> 00:12:13.210 of the Orinoco Plains. Incredibly tough, mixed 00:12:13.210 --> 00:12:15.990 -race horsemen who basically lived in the saddle. 00:12:16.129 --> 00:12:18.129 And they were fighting for the Spanish. They 00:12:18.129 --> 00:12:20.850 were. They were led by a royalist warlord named 00:12:20.850 --> 00:12:23.730 José Tomás Boves, who was, by all accounts, a 00:12:23.730 --> 00:12:26.350 clinical sadist. Boves convinced the Llaneros 00:12:26.350 --> 00:12:28.570 that the independence movement was just a rich, 00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:31.669 white, Criollo conspiracy to take power for themselves. 00:12:32.129 --> 00:12:34.370 Which, to be fair, at that point, it kind of 00:12:34.370 --> 00:12:36.629 was. It absolutely was. So the poor plainsmen 00:12:36.629 --> 00:12:38.950 fought for the king against the rich Republicans, 00:12:39.169 --> 00:12:41.970 and they just decimated Bolívar's forces. The 00:12:41.970 --> 00:12:44.789 stories of Boves' cruelty are... They're horrific. 00:12:45.009 --> 00:12:47.429 So Bolivar is forced to flee again. This time 00:12:47.429 --> 00:12:50.850 he ends up in Jamaica in 1815. And he has absolutely 00:12:50.850 --> 00:12:53.370 nothing. No army, no money, no country. This 00:12:53.370 --> 00:12:55.809 is his lowest point, but it's also his most intellectual 00:12:55.809 --> 00:12:58.169 moment. He sits down and writes the Jamaica letter. 00:12:58.779 --> 00:13:00.759 And we really need to slow down here because 00:13:00.759 --> 00:13:02.879 his analysis in this letter basically dictates 00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:05.000 the next 15 years of South American history. 00:13:05.139 --> 00:13:07.220 He compares Latin America to the United States, 00:13:07.299 --> 00:13:10.159 right? He does. And he argues that the U .S. 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:12.200 federal system, where you have strong states 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:15.100 and a relatively weak central government, would 00:13:15.100 --> 00:13:18.840 be a death sentence for South America. Why? He 00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:20.899 argues that because the Spanish Empire kept the 00:13:20.899 --> 00:13:23.919 people in total ignorance and tyranny for 300 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:27.279 years, they lacked the civic virtues needed to 00:13:27.279 --> 00:13:30.039 handle pure democracy. That sounds incredibly 00:13:30.039 --> 00:13:32.840 elitist. The people aren't ready for freedom. 00:13:33.019 --> 00:13:35.340 Oh, it's hugely elitist. But he would argue it's 00:13:35.340 --> 00:13:38.590 realistic. He believed that if you gave absolute 00:13:38.590 --> 00:13:42.009 freedom to a fractured, uneducated populace that's 00:13:42.009 --> 00:13:44.230 used to being ruled, you wouldn't get a republic. 00:13:44.370 --> 00:13:46.769 You'd just get anarchy. So he wants a strong 00:13:46.769 --> 00:13:49.269 hand. He wants a strong, centralized executive. 00:13:49.870 --> 00:13:52.649 A benevolent dictator, in a sense, to hold the 00:13:52.649 --> 00:13:54.809 chaos together until the people are ready for 00:13:54.809 --> 00:13:56.870 the responsibilities of freedom. So he's got 00:13:56.870 --> 00:13:59.149 the theory, but he needs money. He needs guns. 00:13:59.269 --> 00:14:01.210 And the only country in the world willing to 00:14:01.210 --> 00:14:02.950 help him is the one everyone else is terrified 00:14:02.950 --> 00:14:06.330 of. Haiti. The Republic of Haiti. the first free 00:14:06.330 --> 00:14:08.870 black republic in the world, born from a slave 00:14:08.870 --> 00:14:11.809 revolt. A pariah state at the time. A total pariah. 00:14:11.950 --> 00:14:15.029 Bolivar travels there and meets President Alexandre 00:14:15.029 --> 00:14:17.210 Pechon. And this is just a beautiful historical 00:14:17.210 --> 00:14:20.009 transaction. Pechon agrees to give Bolivar ships, 00:14:20.289 --> 00:14:22.789 money, and weapons. But there's a price tag. 00:14:22.970 --> 00:14:25.289 Not money. Pechon's condition is simple. He says, 00:14:25.389 --> 00:14:27.850 I will give you all this, but you must promise 00:14:27.850 --> 00:14:31.210 me one thing. You will abolish slavery in all 00:14:31.210 --> 00:14:33.659 the lands you liberate. And Bolivar agrees. He 00:14:33.659 --> 00:14:35.860 agrees. And, you know, realistically, he had 00:14:35.860 --> 00:14:37.720 to. He had finally understood that he couldn't 00:14:37.720 --> 00:14:40.399 win this revolution if the majority of the population, 00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:43.700 the enslaved people, the mixed race Pardos, had 00:14:43.700 --> 00:14:46.379 no stake in it. He realized he had to make the 00:14:46.379 --> 00:14:49.620 war about freedom for everyone, not just for 00:14:49.620 --> 00:14:51.740 the rich Creoles. So he returns to the mainland, 00:14:52.019 --> 00:14:55.879 1817. He sets up a new base in the Orinoco jungle, 00:14:56.100 --> 00:14:59.100 a town called Angostura. He finally convinces 00:14:59.100 --> 00:15:01.259 the Llaneras to join his side this time. But 00:15:01.259 --> 00:15:04.379 this new diverse coalition brings its own tensions. 00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:06.919 And this brings us to General Manuel Pierre. 00:15:07.059 --> 00:15:09.200 Pierre was one of his best generals. One of his 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:11.779 absolute best. He was mixed race, very charismatic, 00:15:12.120 --> 00:15:14.899 hugely popular with the troops. And he started 00:15:14.899 --> 00:15:17.639 challenging Bolivar's authority, basically claiming 00:15:17.639 --> 00:15:19.740 that Bolivar was still just serving the white 00:15:19.740 --> 00:15:22.519 elite. And Bolivar's response is extreme. He 00:15:22.519 --> 00:15:25.730 has Pierre arrested. court -martialed for insubordination, 00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:30.210 and executed by firing squad. Wow. Why? Why kill 00:15:30.210 --> 00:15:32.029 one of your best commanders? It was a message. 00:15:32.210 --> 00:15:35.289 A brutal message. Bolivar was terrified of a 00:15:35.289 --> 00:15:38.029 race war. He saw what happened in Haiti, and 00:15:38.029 --> 00:15:39.529 he feared that the revolution would fracture 00:15:39.529 --> 00:15:41.669 along racial lines which would destroy everything. 00:15:41.809 --> 00:15:43.850 So this was about control. It was about absolute 00:15:43.850 --> 00:15:45.909 control. By executing Pierre, he was telling 00:15:45.909 --> 00:15:48.870 everyone in his army, there is one leader here. 00:15:48.990 --> 00:15:51.009 I don't care if you're white, black, or mixed. 00:15:51.230 --> 00:15:54.639 If you break the chain of command, you die. It 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:57.240 consolidated his power, but it was another dark 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.120 stain on his conscience. So with the army now 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:02.720 united by this combination of fear and loyalty, 00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:05.399 he makes his craziest move yet, the crossing 00:16:05.399 --> 00:16:08.240 of the Andes in 1819. And, you know, we hear 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:10.700 crossing mountains and we might think of a tough 00:16:10.700 --> 00:16:13.440 hike. We need to really paint the picture of 00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:16.379 what this actually looked like. It's almost unimaginable. 00:16:16.460 --> 00:16:18.960 First, it's the middle of the rainy season. So 00:16:18.960 --> 00:16:20.740 the plains leading to the mountains are flooded. 00:16:20.840 --> 00:16:23.820 The army marches for weeks through waist -deep, 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:26.480 leech -infested swamps. Before they even get 00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:28.480 to the mountains. Before they even see a mountain. 00:16:28.659 --> 00:16:30.379 Then they start to climb. And you have to remember, 00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:33.480 these are men from the tropical plains of Venezuela. 00:16:33.820 --> 00:16:35.879 They're wearing light cotton shirts, maybe some 00:16:35.879 --> 00:16:38.379 sandals. They have no winter gear. And they're 00:16:38.379 --> 00:16:41.259 going up to 13 ,000 feet. Over 4 ,000 meters. 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:44.419 The wind is freezing. The air is so thin you 00:16:44.419 --> 00:16:47.340 can't breathe. The sources describe men just 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:50.080 sitting down to rest for a moment and never getting 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.919 up. The cold just stopped their hearts. They 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:55.080 had to kill and eat their horses or the horses 00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:57.019 just froze to death and fell off the cliffs. 00:16:57.220 --> 00:16:59.559 So a skeleton army is what comes out the other 00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:02.320 side. A skeleton army. But why did he do it? 00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:05.720 Why take that insane risk? Because no one thought 00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:08.720 it was possible. Exactly. The Spanish commander 00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:11.759 in New Granada, modern Colombia, he knew that 00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:14.619 no sane general would try to cross the Andes 00:17:14.619 --> 00:17:16.779 in the middle of winter. He didn't even bother 00:17:16.779 --> 00:17:19.680 to guard the pass. So when Bolivar's half -dead 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:22.299 army came down the other side, it was like aliens 00:17:22.299 --> 00:17:25.019 had just dropped from the sky. The surprise was 00:17:25.019 --> 00:17:27.700 total. And that leads directly to the Battle 00:17:27.700 --> 00:17:30.859 of Boyaca. A decisive victory. He crushes the 00:17:30.859 --> 00:17:34.279 Spanish. He marches into Bogota. And just like 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:36.440 that, the entire map of South America changes. 00:17:36.599 --> 00:17:39.430 He creates Gran Colombia. This was the dream. 00:17:39.650 --> 00:17:42.390 This was the dream. A massive super state uniting 00:17:42.390 --> 00:17:45.049 Venezuela, New Granada, and eventually Ecuador. 00:17:45.569 --> 00:17:47.490 He wanted to create a nation that could look 00:17:47.490 --> 00:17:49.269 the United States or Great Britain in the eye 00:17:49.269 --> 00:17:52.450 as an equal. He's made president, but he can't 00:17:52.450 --> 00:17:54.890 sit behind a desk. That's not who he is. So he 00:17:54.890 --> 00:17:57.150 leaves the governing to his vice president, Santander. 00:17:57.369 --> 00:18:00.269 And he heads south. He still has more liberating 00:18:00.269 --> 00:18:02.430 to do. He marches toward Ecuador, and this is 00:18:02.430 --> 00:18:04.450 where his personal life flares up again in a 00:18:04.450 --> 00:18:08.950 big way. Enter Manuela Saenz. Ah, Manuela. She 00:18:08.950 --> 00:18:10.950 is a fantastic character. We really shouldn't 00:18:10.950 --> 00:18:12.609 just think of her as his mistress. She was a 00:18:12.609 --> 00:18:14.789 revolutionary in her own right. Right. She had 00:18:14.789 --> 00:18:17.410 left her boring English husband. She was fierce, 00:18:17.549 --> 00:18:20.650 intelligent, deeply political. They meet in Quito 00:18:20.650 --> 00:18:23.890 in 1822. There's a story that she threw a wreath 00:18:23.890 --> 00:18:26.210 at him from a balcony as he rode into the city. 00:18:26.390 --> 00:18:28.549 She did. And apparently it hit him square in 00:18:28.549 --> 00:18:31.029 the chest. They met that night at a victory ball. 00:18:31.470 --> 00:18:34.049 And they were basically inseparable in spirit. 00:18:34.410 --> 00:18:36.869 if not always in the same location, for the rest 00:18:36.869 --> 00:18:39.690 of his life. She wore a colonel's uniform. She 00:18:39.690 --> 00:18:42.529 rode with his military staff. She organized his 00:18:42.529 --> 00:18:45.730 archives. She was his equal in fire and passion. 00:18:45.930 --> 00:18:47.849 But there's another huge personality he meets 00:18:47.849 --> 00:18:51.069 in Ecuador who is very different. Jose de San 00:18:51.069 --> 00:18:53.990 Martin, the Guayaquil Conference. This is the 00:18:53.990 --> 00:18:55.470 great mystery of South American independence. 00:18:55.950 --> 00:18:58.509 You have these two giants, Bolivar coming down 00:18:58.509 --> 00:19:01.069 from the north, and Jose de San Martin, the liberator 00:19:01.069 --> 00:19:02.890 of Argentina and Chile, coming up from the south, 00:19:02.950 --> 00:19:05.230 and they meet in the middle. In Guayaquil. Two 00:19:05.230 --> 00:19:07.289 alphas in one room. Two very different alphas. 00:19:07.650 --> 00:19:10.289 San Martin was stoic, professional, a brilliant 00:19:10.289 --> 00:19:12.789 strategist. And he believed the new nations of 00:19:12.789 --> 00:19:14.970 South America should be constitutional monarchies. 00:19:15.109 --> 00:19:17.289 He thought a king was necessary for stability. 00:19:17.690 --> 00:19:20.210 And Bolivar was the flamboyant authoritarian 00:19:20.210 --> 00:19:23.349 republican. Exactly. They meet in private. No 00:19:23.349 --> 00:19:25.809 scribes, no minutes taken, just two days behind 00:19:25.809 --> 00:19:28.950 closed doors. And when the doors open. San Martin 00:19:28.950 --> 00:19:31.519 leaves. San Martin leaves. He resigns his command, 00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.559 goes into self -imposed exile in Europe, and 00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:37.240 never returns to South America. He basically 00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:40.000 hands the entire continent and the glory of finishing 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.200 the job to Bolivar. That is just mind -boggling. 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:45.960 I mean, what could Bolivar have said to him? 00:19:46.140 --> 00:19:49.019 No one knows for sure. But I think San Martin, 00:19:49.140 --> 00:19:51.099 the pragmatist, just realized that South America 00:19:51.099 --> 00:19:53.519 wasn't big enough for both of them and that a 00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:56.059 civil war between the liberators would destroy 00:19:56.059 --> 00:19:58.599 the cause. So he sacrificed his own ambition 00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:01.279 for the sake of unity, leaving Bolivar as the 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:03.880 sole commander. So Bolivar takes the reins. He 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:07.059 goes into Peru. The battles of Junin and Ayacucho 00:20:07.059 --> 00:20:11.039 follow in 1824. And that's basically the end 00:20:11.039 --> 00:20:12.880 of the Spanish Empire in South America. It's 00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:16.259 done. After 300 years, the Spanish are out. The 00:20:16.259 --> 00:20:18.079 people are so grateful they create a new country 00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:20.579 in Upper Peru and they name it after him. Bolivia. 00:20:20.920 --> 00:20:22.859 There's that quote from the delegates. If from 00:20:22.859 --> 00:20:25.980 Romulus Rome, then from Bolivar Bolivia. He's 00:20:25.980 --> 00:20:30.079 at the absolute peak. The apex of his life. He 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:32.500 is president of Gran Colombia, he is the dictator 00:20:32.500 --> 00:20:35.759 of Peru, and he is the namesake of Bolivia. He 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:38.240 rules a territory larger than the Roman Empire 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:40.380 at its height. And this is where the tragedy 00:20:40.380 --> 00:20:43.460 really begins, because winning the war, it turns 00:20:43.460 --> 00:20:46.079 out, was the easy part. Building the peace was 00:20:46.079 --> 00:20:48.599 impossible. Okay, let's talk about the unraveling. 00:20:48.660 --> 00:20:51.970 Why did it all fall apart so fast? Well, the 00:20:51.970 --> 00:20:54.650 first enemy is just geography. These new nations 00:20:54.650 --> 00:20:57.049 are separated by massive jungles, impassable 00:20:57.049 --> 00:20:59.869 mountains. Trying to govern Caracas, Bogota, 00:21:00.009 --> 00:21:03.009 and Quito from one central capital was a logistical 00:21:03.009 --> 00:21:05.390 nightmare. It could take weeks, even months, 00:21:05.470 --> 00:21:07.789 for a letter to travel. So you have these regional 00:21:07.789 --> 00:21:09.970 identities already starting to form. Exactly. 00:21:09.970 --> 00:21:12.769 And then you have the ideology. Remember Santander, 00:21:12.910 --> 00:21:14.849 the vice president back in Bogota? The man of 00:21:14.849 --> 00:21:18.829 laws. The man of laws. While Bolivar was off 00:21:18.829 --> 00:21:21.710 fighting in Peru for years, Santander was actually 00:21:21.710 --> 00:21:25.089 building a government, a liberal federalist republic. 00:21:25.369 --> 00:21:28.529 He wanted limited executive power, rule of law, 00:21:28.609 --> 00:21:31.309 a constitution. And then Bolivar comes riding 00:21:31.309 --> 00:21:33.970 back from Peru. And Bolivar is now convinced 00:21:33.970 --> 00:21:36.950 more than ever that the continent needs a dictator. 00:21:37.549 --> 00:21:39.569 And he's got a blueprint for it, the Bolivian 00:21:39.569 --> 00:21:41.970 constitution that he drafted. It's a shocking 00:21:41.970 --> 00:21:44.789 document for a so -called Republican. It calls 00:21:44.789 --> 00:21:47.730 for a president for life. A president for life. 00:21:47.890 --> 00:21:49.789 Who has the power to choose his own successor. 00:21:49.990 --> 00:21:52.009 That's just a king with a different hat. That's 00:21:52.009 --> 00:21:54.130 exactly what Santander and the liberals said. 00:21:54.269 --> 00:21:56.970 A monarchy in disguise. They were horrified. 00:21:57.130 --> 00:21:59.690 They felt they had fought a 15 -year war just 00:21:59.690 --> 00:22:01.990 to trade a king in Spain for a king in Colombia. 00:22:02.210 --> 00:22:05.190 The entire political class in Bogota turned against 00:22:05.190 --> 00:22:07.440 him. They started calling him a tyrant. And the 00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:09.140 tension gets so high that they literally try 00:22:09.140 --> 00:22:11.619 to kill them. The Septemberan conspiracy, September 00:22:11.619 --> 00:22:14.259 1828. It's another one of those movie scenes 00:22:14.259 --> 00:22:17.740 from his life. It's midnight in Bogota. A group 00:22:17.740 --> 00:22:19.579 of conspirators. break into the presidential 00:22:19.579 --> 00:22:22.839 palace. They kill the guards with knives. They're 00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:24.819 heading for Bolivar's bedroom to assassinate 00:22:24.819 --> 00:22:27.200 him. And Manuela Sions is there with him. She 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:30.180 is. She wakes him up. He grabs his pistol and 00:22:30.180 --> 00:22:32.599 his sword, ready to go out and fight them. And 00:22:32.599 --> 00:22:35.119 she realizes he'll be slaughtered. She physically 00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:37.700 forces him toward the window. A second story 00:22:37.700 --> 00:22:39.859 drop. She basically pushes the liberator out 00:22:39.859 --> 00:22:42.380 the window to save his life. Incredible. And 00:22:42.380 --> 00:22:45.700 then, and this is the real bravery, she opens 00:22:45.700 --> 00:22:48.549 the bedroom door. and confronts the assassins 00:22:48.549 --> 00:22:52.029 herself. She lies to them. She sends them on 00:22:52.029 --> 00:22:54.609 a wild goose chase through the palace. She stalls 00:22:54.609 --> 00:22:56.730 them just long enough for Boulevard to scramble 00:22:56.730 --> 00:22:58.950 down the dark street and hide under a bridge 00:22:58.950 --> 00:23:01.450 for hours in the cold river water. Just picture 00:23:01.450 --> 00:23:04.069 that image. The man who crossed the Andes, the 00:23:04.069 --> 00:23:06.650 liberator of six nations, shivering in the mud 00:23:06.650 --> 00:23:08.789 under a bridge while his own countrymen hunt 00:23:08.789 --> 00:23:12.039 for him with daggers. It broke him. Psychologically, 00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:14.500 I think he never recovered. He survived, but 00:23:14.500 --> 00:23:17.420 the dream of a united Gran Colombia was dead. 00:23:17.740 --> 00:23:20.200 The political center just could not hold after 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:22.680 that. And the map starts to fracture. It shatters. 00:23:23.359 --> 00:23:26.140 Venezuela, led by General Paez, his old Llanero 00:23:26.140 --> 00:23:29.839 ally, secedes. And they pass a law banning Bolivar 00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:33.140 from ever returning to his homeland. Peru invades 00:23:33.140 --> 00:23:36.299 Ecuador. Gran Colombia dissolves into the countries 00:23:36.299 --> 00:23:40.660 we more or less know today. So in 1830... He 00:23:40.660 --> 00:23:43.660 resigns. He's sick. He's broke because he spent 00:23:43.660 --> 00:23:46.119 his entire personal fortune funding the wars. 00:23:46.279 --> 00:23:48.500 Every last cent. And he's effectively homeless. 00:23:49.019 --> 00:23:51.480 He tries to go into exile in Europe, but he's 00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:54.099 too weak to make the sea journey. He has tuberculosis, 00:23:54.319 --> 00:23:55.900 the same disease that killed his parents and 00:23:55.900 --> 00:23:58.180 his wife. It's like the cycle of tragedy that 00:23:58.180 --> 00:24:00.480 started his life is now closing it. He ends up 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:02.740 at a hacienda near Santa Marta on the Colombian 00:24:02.740 --> 00:24:05.180 coast. And the final irony is that the hacienda 00:24:05.180 --> 00:24:07.440 belonged to a Spaniard. He dies in the guest 00:24:07.440 --> 00:24:10.079 room of a Spaniard. There's a detail in one of 00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:12.740 the sources that says when he died, his own clothes 00:24:12.740 --> 00:24:14.759 were so tattered and worn out that they couldn't 00:24:14.759 --> 00:24:17.700 bury him in them. The Spanish host had to provide 00:24:17.700 --> 00:24:19.980 a clean white shirt for his burial. The richest 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:22.859 man in Venezuela, the liberator of a continent, 00:24:23.019 --> 00:24:25.559 buried in a borrowed shirt. And that's when he 00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:28.500 wrote those final devastating letters. America 00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:32.390 is ungovernable. We have plowed the sea. He died 00:24:32.390 --> 00:24:34.490 believing that by destroying the Spanish order, 00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:36.789 he had just unleashed a chaos that would last 00:24:36.789 --> 00:24:39.450 for centuries. He predicted that petty tyrants 00:24:39.450 --> 00:24:41.849 would rise up and consume the entire region. 00:24:42.029 --> 00:24:43.690 And if you look at the history of Latin America 00:24:43.690 --> 00:24:46.369 in the 19th century, the era of the caudillos, 00:24:46.529 --> 00:24:49.690 the military warlords, he wasn't wrong. He wasn't. 00:24:49.690 --> 00:24:52.809 But his legacy is so incredibly complex. Because 00:24:52.809 --> 00:24:54.970 almost as soon as he died, the cult of Bolivar 00:24:54.970 --> 00:24:57.549 began. The very same people who had exiled him 00:24:57.549 --> 00:24:59.730 and called him a tyrant started building statues 00:24:59.730 --> 00:25:02.250 of him. He became the symbol of sovereignty, 00:25:02.349 --> 00:25:05.230 of anti -imperialism. It's fascinating how he's 00:25:05.230 --> 00:25:07.289 claimed by everyone on the political spectrum 00:25:07.289 --> 00:25:09.390 today. You have Hugo Chavez and the socialist 00:25:09.390 --> 00:25:11.569 left claiming him as a proto -socialist revolutionary. 00:25:12.170 --> 00:25:14.730 But you also have right -wing authoritarians 00:25:14.730 --> 00:25:17.009 who claim him as the model of the strongman who 00:25:17.009 --> 00:25:20.829 brings order out of chaos. He's a mirror. People 00:25:20.829 --> 00:25:22.950 see what they want to see in him. But I think 00:25:22.950 --> 00:25:25.670 the core tension of his life, and maybe the question 00:25:25.670 --> 00:25:28.329 we should leave you, the listener, with, is that 00:25:28.329 --> 00:25:31.289 eternal battle between liberty and order. That's 00:25:31.289 --> 00:25:33.490 the big takeaway for me. Bolivar came to believe 00:25:33.490 --> 00:25:35.829 that you couldn't have true liberty without first 00:25:35.829 --> 00:25:38.049 imposing order. And he was willing to sacrifice 00:25:38.049 --> 00:25:40.490 democratic principles to maintain that order. 00:25:40.710 --> 00:25:44.170 And the question is, was he right? Was the region 00:25:44.170 --> 00:25:46.910 truly ungovernable at that time without a strong 00:25:46.910 --> 00:25:50.750 authoritarian hand? Or was his own turn toward 00:25:50.750 --> 00:25:53.089 dictatorship the very thing that prevented strong 00:25:53.089 --> 00:25:55.789 democratic institutions from ever taking root? 00:25:56.049 --> 00:25:58.950 Did he prevent the chaos? Or did he accidentally 00:25:58.950 --> 00:26:01.369 create the model for all the dictators that followed 00:26:01.369 --> 00:26:03.690 him? It's a question without an easy answer, 00:26:03.809 --> 00:26:06.130 but what a life. From the peaks of the Andes 00:26:06.130 --> 00:26:09.690 to the mud under that bridge. Simon Blivar. Truly 00:26:09.690 --> 00:26:11.670 one of the giants of history. Thanks for diving 00:26:11.670 --> 00:26:13.710 deep with us. We'll see you on the next one.