Símon Bolívar, the Liberator

Simon Bolivar, the Liberator
[with accents]

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Title: Simon Bolivar, the Liberator
Author: Guillermo A. Sherwell
Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8928] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 25,
2003]
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BOLIVAR, THE LIBERATOR ***

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SIMÓN BOLÍVAR
(THE LIBERATOR)
_Patriot, Warrior, Statesman Father of Five Nations_

[Illustration: STATUE OF THE LIBERATOR at the head of the Avenue
of the Americas, New York City.]

SIMÓN BOLÍVAR
(THE LIBERATOR)
Patriot, Warrior, Statesman Father of Five Nations
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND HIS WORK
BY GUILLERMO A. SHERWELL

_Guillermo A. Sherwell (1878-1926)_ was the recipient of Doctorate
Degrees from the National University of Mexico and from the
University of Georgetown. Among the posts which he filled was that of
Rector of the National University of Mexico, Legal Counsellor of the
Inter-American Committee in Washington and Professor of History and
of Hispano-American literature. Sincerely interested in the heroes of
Spanish-American independence, he dedicated himself to the study of
their lives and especially to that of the Liberator. He also wrote a
biography of Sucre.
This biography of Bolívar was first published in Washington in 1921. It
was again published in Baltimore in 1930. There have been two
translations into Spanish, that of Roberto Cortázar and that of R.
Cansinos-Assens, published respectively in Bogotá (1922 and 1930)

and in Madrid (1922).
The Bolivarian Society of Venezuela has decided that in homage to the
memory of the Liberator on the occasion of the transfer of the statue in
New York to its new site at the head of the Avenue of the Americas,
the publication of another edition of this excellent work of Mr.
Sherwell's which gives in an excellent condensed form the historical
significations of Bolívar. The children of Mr. Sherwell have kindly
given their consent to the publication of this edition which is made
under the auspices of the Junta de Gobierno of the United States of
Venezuela.

Introduction
In the history of peoples, the veneration of national heroes has been one
of the most powerful forces behind great deeds. National consciousness,
rather than a matter of frontiers, racial strain or community of customs,
is a feeling of attachment to one of those men who symbolize best the
higher thoughts and aspirations of the country and most deeply impress
the hearts of their fellow citizens. Despite efforts to write the history of
peoples exclusively from the social point of view, history has been, and
will continue to be, mainly a record of great names and great deeds of
national heroes.
The Greeks, for us and for themselves, are not so much the people who
lived in the various city-states of Hellas, nor the people dominated and
more or less influenced by the Romans and later the Mohammedan
conquerors, nor even the present population in which the old pure
Hellenic element is in a proportion much smaller than is generally
thought. Greece is what she is, lives in the life of men and shapes the
minds and souls of peoples, through her great heroes, through her
various gods, which were nothing but divinized heroes. Greece is for us
Apollo, as a symbol of whatever is filled with light, high, beautiful and
noble; Heracles for what is strength, energy, organization, life as it
should be lived by human beings. Leonidas stands for us as a symbol of
heroic deeds; Demosthenes as a symbol of the convincing powers of
oratory and Pericles as the crystallization of Grecian life in its totality
of beauty, learning and social and civic life. Greece is a type, is an
attitude, is a protest against oppression, is an aspiration towards beauty,
is an inspiration and a guide for men who live in the higher