| Description |
This thesis deals with the United States perception of Simón Bolívar, the liberator of six South American republics. Heralded today as a hero, in his lifetime, Bolívar endured a barrage of criticism from United States diplomats and other public figures who saw him as power hungry and monarchical in his designs. Diplomatic correspondences, congressional debates, personal memoirs, and press articles during the years 1811 to 1831 reveal the origins of these views of the Liberator. The sources demonstrated that people in the United States failed to understand Bolívar's actions or motives as a military and political leader in northern South America. At first these North Americans saw Bolívar embracing United States style of republicanism and following George Washington's example of peacefully giving up power in the interests of the republic. Critics began to suspect Bolívar as having imperial ambitions and lusting for power, the very antithesis of Washington. Only Bolívar's public resignation from his position of power silenced these critics. As important, some public figures never abandoned their positive view of Bolívar. Certainly President Andrew Jackson saw him as a model of republicanism, a sentiment that ultimately prevailed in the United States. During the development of relations between North and South America, new racial ideologies emerged in the United States. The notion of innate racial differences and natural superiority of white United States citizens profoundly shaped the image many in the United States held of South Americans. Those who embraced the innate superiority of white North Americans in the United States saw their South America neighbors as lacking the necessary characteristics for an effective republic. The increasingly hostile opinions of Bolívar corresponded with a rising sense of the natural superiority of the U.S. embodied in the notion of descending from Anglo-Saxons. The lens of republicanism, notions of race, and perceptions of a model government help us capture how the young republic of the United States interpreted the development of republicanism in the Western Hemisphere. |
