Q 01/05

In which city was Simón Bolívar born in 1783?

A) Bogotá

B) Lima

C) Quito

D) Caracas

Answer · why

D) Caracas

Caracas gave him wealth but little family: both parents died before he was ten, and as a teenager he was sent to Spain to finish his education.

Q 02/05

By what title is Bolívar known colloquially across Latin America?

A) El Padre

B) El Caudillo

C) El Libertador

D) El Generalísimo

Answer · why

C) El Libertador

El Libertador was first bestowed by the town of Mérida in 1813. He prized it for life, insisting it stood above any other title and that he would not ...

Q 03/05

What was Bolivia called before it took Bolívar's name in 1825?

A) New Granada

B) Upper Peru

C) Tierra Firme

D) Patagonia

Answer · why

B) Upper Peru

Upper Peru was one of the last corners of the continent still held by royalists. Once it was freed, the new country chose a name built on Bolívar's, a...

Q 04/05

Who was Hipólita, the woman the orphaned Bolívar came to regard as both mother and father?

A) A widowed aunt

B) An enslaved wet nurse

C) A French governess

D) A convent-school nun

Answer · why

B) An enslaved wet nurse

An enslaved wet nurse on the family's estate, Hipólita nursed him from his first weeks. As a general he wrote home ordering that she be paid an allowa...

Q 05/05

Bolívar's boyhood tutor Simón Rodríguez was a devoted follower of which Enlightenment philosopher?

A) Voltaire

B) Locke

C) Rousseau

D) Montesquieu

Answer · why

C) Rousseau

Rousseau's disciple opened the boy's mind to liberal thought, and years later Rodríguez was standing beside him when he swore to free his country.