Simón Bolívar's Formative Years

This gallery shows the figures central to Bolívar’s early world. His mother, María de la Concepción Palacios y Blanco, shaped his character, while his father, Juan Vicente Bolívar y Ponte, instilled duty and status. His wife, María Teresa del Toro, whose early death transformed him, set him on a path of searching and study. Daniel Florencio O’Leary, later his ally and chronicler, preserved the record of Bolívar’s formative years.