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In the spring of 1816, with the backing of the small republic of Haiti, BolIvar launched an invasion of Venezuela. After a disastrous failure, he returned to Haiti. In 1817, he returned to his homeland to lead the revolutionary army. He recruited JosE Antonio PAez, who led an army of llaneros (plainsmen) and European veterans of the Napoleonic wars. Resuming the war, he occupied part of the lower Orinoco basin. At Angostura (now Ciudad BolIvar) a congress elected him president of Venezuela.
There, in 1819, he conceived his brilliant strategy of attack. With a force : made up largely of llaneros under Francisco de Paula Santander and PAez : he crossed the flooded Apure valley, climbed the bitterly cold Andean passes, and defeated the surprised Spanish forces at BoyacA (Aug. 7, 1819) in one of the great campaigns of military history. The same year, he was made president of Greater Colombia (present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama). Venezuela's freedom was secure following his victory at Carabobo (June, 1821). Ecuador was liberated when he and Antonio JosE de Sucre won the battle of Pichincha in May, 1822. In Quito, BolIvar met the woman who was to accompany him for much of his life, Manuela Saenz, herself a devoted revolutionary and progressive thinker.
From Quito, BolIvar undertook to free Peru, where the forces of the great Argentine liberator JosE de San MartIn were already operating. At GuayaquIl in July, 1822, BolIvar and San MartIn met in secret. What occurred there is still unknown, although speculation continues to this day. The outcome was the withdrawal of San MartIn. BolIvar commanded the patriot forces that won at JunIn and Ayacucho in 1824, bringing to a victorious conclusion the revolution in South America. He organized the government of Peru, and dispatched Sucre to conquer Alto PerU, which became Bolivia.
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