Bolívar and the War of IndependenceThe overthrow of Spanish rule and the birth of new republican governments in northern South America at the beginning of the nineteenth century were in large part the work of one manSimn Bolvar. Bolvar was not only the soldier who built a patriot army from a small band of exiles and led them victoriously across Venezuela and down the spine of the Andes as far as Potos; he was also the statesman who framed the new republics that sprang to life after the