Simon Bolivar

The surname Bolívar derives from the Bolívar aristocrats who came from a small village in the Basque Country, Spain, called La Puebla de Bolívar.[1] His father came from the male line of the Ardanza family.[2][3] His maternal grandmother was descended from some families from the Canary Islands that settled in the country.[a]

The Bolívars settled in Venezuela in the sixteenth century. His first South American Bolívar ancestor was Simón de Bolívar (or Simon de Bolibar; the spelling was not standardized until the nineteenth century), who went to live and work with the governor of Santo Domingo from 1550 to 1570. When the governor of Santo Domingo was reassigned to Venezuela by the Spanish Crown in 1589, Simón de Bolívar came back with him. As an early settler in Caracas Province, he became prominent in the local society and he and his descendants were granted estates, encomiendas, and positions in the Caracas cabildo.[4]

The social position of the family is illustrated by the fact that when the Caracas Cathedral was built in 1594, the Bolívar family had one of the first dedicated side chapels. The majority of the wealth of Simón de Bolívar's descendants came from the estates. The most important of these estates was a sugar plantation with an encomienda that provided the labor needed to run the estate.[5] Another portion of Bolívar wealth came from the silver, gold, and more importantly, copper mines in Venezuela. In 1632, small gold deposits first were mined in Venezuela, leading to further discoveries of much more extensive copper deposits. From his mother's side, the Palacios family, Bolívar inherited the copper mines at Cocorote. Native American and African slaves provided the majority of the labor in these mines.[6]

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, copper exploitation became so promi

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