from "Epilogue"

 Simon Bolivar: American Liberator (2013)

Simon and Schuster Publishers

AUTHOR: Marie Arana of Lima Peru

who also lives in Washington, DC

"Dead, Bolivar became

less man than symbol.

As the years went by --

as chaos continued to plague

the region - South Americans

recalled the extraordinary feat

of freeing so many nations in

so dire a time.  His failures as

a politician receded.  His

successes as a liberator took

center stage.  Indeed, the

accomplishments were 

irrefutable.  It was he who

had disseminated the spirit of

the Enlightenment, brought

the promise of democracy to

the hinterlands, opened the minds

and hearts of Latin Americans to

what they might become.  It was

he who, with a higher moral instinct

than even Washington or Jefferson,

saw the absurdity of embarking on

a war for liberty without first

emancipating his own slaves.  It 

was he who had led the armies,

slept on the ground with his

soldiers, fretted about their horses,

their bullets, their maps, their blankets --

inspired men to unimaginable heroism.

Revolutionaries called for him in

Mexico, Chile, Cuba, Argentina.  He

rode, "Fighting all the way," as

Thomas Carlyle put, "More miles 

than Ulysses ever sailed.  Let the

coming Homers take note of it!"

Never before in the history of the

Americas had one man's will 

transformed so much territory,

united so many races.  Never had

Latin America dreamed so large!