page_title: Military career of Simón Bolívar
section_title: The Republic restored and lost
hierarchical_section_title: Military career of Simón Bolívar / Exile and the Second Republic (1812-1814) / The Republic restored and lost
context_page_description: The military and political career of Simón Bolívar, which included both formal service in the armies of various revolutionary regimes and actions organized by himself or in collaboration with other exiled patriot leaders during the years from 1811 to 1830, was an important element in the success of the independence wars in South America. Given the unstable political climate during these years, Bolívar and other patriot leaders, such as Santiago Mariño, Manuel Piar, José Francisco Bermúdez and Francisco de Paula Santander often had to go into exile in the Caribbean or nearby areas of Spanish America that at the moment were controlled by those favoring independence, and from there, carry on the struggle. These wars resulted in the creation of several South American states out of the former Spanish colonies, the currently existing Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, and the now defunct Gran Colombia.
  In his 21-year career, Bolívar faced two main challenges. First was gaining acceptance as undisputed leader of the republican cause.
context_section_description: Bolívar's push towards Caracas was aided by the fact that the general population, which had welcomed Monteverde a year earlier, had become disillusioned by his failure to implement the terms of the San Mateo Capitulation or the Spanish Constitution of 1812, which the capitulation promised. Monteverde also faced attacks on two fronts, since Santiago Mariño had already opened a front on the east in January 1813. Bolívar's forces easily defeated the overtaxed and underpaid royalist army in a series of battles, entered Caracas on August 6, 1813, and laid siege to Monteverde, who had retreated to Puerto Cabello. In Caracas Bolívar announced the restoration of the Venezuelan Republic, but placed himself at the head of a military government, since the situation did not allow for the restoration of the old authorities or new elections. Bolívar would base his subsequent and enduring claim to be the sole head of the Venezuelan republic and commander-in-chief of its forces on this accomplishment, although even at this time he was not universally acknowledged as head of the state or the republican forces. Mariño, based in Cumaná, did not recognize Bolívar's claim, but did collaborate with him militarily. Reprisals were carried out against Peninsular royalists that were captured. It was during this period that the republican city fathers of Caracas, following the example of Mérida, granted Bolívar the title of Liberator and office of captain general in the Church of San Francisco (the more appropriate site, the Cathedral of Caracas, was still damaged from the 1812 earthquake).
  Bolívar and Mariño's success, like Monteverde's a year earlier, was short-lived. The new Republic failed to convince the common people that it was not a tool of the urban elite. Lower-class people, especially the southern, rural llaneros (cowboys), flocked to the royalist cause. Llaneros played a key military role in the region's struggle. Turning the tide against independence, these highly mobile, ferocious fighters made up a formidable military force that pushed Bolívar out of his home country once more. By 1814, the regular royalist army headed by Governor and Captain General Juan Manuel Cajigal was overshadowed by a large, irregular force of llaneros recruited and led by José Tomás Boves. With the royalist irregulars displaying the same passion and violence that Bolívar had demonstrated in his "war to the death" decree, the republicans suffered their first major setback at the Battle of La Puerta on June 15, 1814, and Boves took Caracas on July 16. The republicans and Criollo royalists in Caracas, who also feared Boves's llanero hoards, had to flee en masse to Mariño's strongholds in the east. The combined forces of Mariño's and Bolívar were defeated again at Aragua de Barcelona on August 18, at a cost of 2,000 royalist casualties of the 10,000 troops they fielded, most of the 3,000 combatants in the republican army, in addition to many civilian casualties. Due to their series of repeated reverses both Bolívar and Mariño were arrested and removed from power by José Félix Ribas and Manuel Piar, each representing the two republican commands then in place in Venezuela. A few days later Ribas and Piar decided not to try them and instead released them into exile. On September 8, Bolívar and Mariño set sail for Cartagena de Indias, leaving Piar and Ribas to lead the increasingly encircled republicans.
caption: Portrait of Bolívar made in Haiti in 1816.
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