Bolívar's grandfather, Juan de Bolívar y Martínez de Villegas, paid 22,000 ducats to the monastery at Santa Maria de Montserrat in 1728 for a title of nobility that had been granted by the king, Philip V of Spain, for its maintenance.
Delovno silo v rudnikih in na plantažah so večinoma sestavljali Indijanci in afriški sužnji.