Simon Bolivar is forced to flee Venezuela to Jamaica, where he issues an eloquent letter that establishes his intellectual leadership of the Spanish American independence movement.

Bolivar was born in 1783 into one of Caracas's most aristocratic criollo families.

Orphaned at age nine, he was educated in Europe, where he became intrigued by the intellectual revolution called the Enlightenment and the political revolution in France.

As a young man, Bolivar had pledged himself to see a united Latin America, not simply his native Venezuela, liberated from Spanish rule.

His brilliant career as a field general begins in 1813 with the famous cry of "war to the death" against Venezuela's Spanish rulers.

The cry is followed by a lightning campaign through the Andes to capture Caracas.

Here he is proclaimed "The Liberator" and, following the establishment of the Second Republic, is given dictatorial powers.

Once again, however, Bolivar overlooks the aspirations of common, nonwhite Venezuelans.

The llaneros (plainsmen), who are excellent horsemen, fight under the leadership of the royalist caudillo, José Tomás Boves, for what they see as social equality against a revolutionary army that represents the white, criollo elite.

By September 1814, having won a series of victories, Boves's troops force Bolivar and his army out of Caracas, bringing an end to the Second Republic.

After Ferdinand VII regains the Spanish throne in late 1814, he sends reinforcements to the American colonies that crush most remaining pockets of resistance to royal control.