A number of local caudillos keep the independence movement alive in Venezuela.

One, Jose Antonio Paez, a mestizo, is able to convince his fellow llaneros along the Rio Apure that Boves (who had been killed in battle in late 1814) had been mistaken: that the Spanish, not the criollo patriots, are the true enemies of social equality.

The alliance of his fierce cavalrymen with Bolivar proves indispensable during the critical 1816-20 stage of the independence struggle.

Another caudillo chief named Manuel Piar, after outspokenly encouraging his black and pardo troops to assert their claims for social change, however, is promptly captured, tried, and executed under Bolivar's direction.

This ruthless disposition of Piar as an enemy of the cause of independence enhances Bolivar's stature and military leadership as the "maximum caudillo."

Based near the mouth of the Rio Orinoco, Bolivar defeats the royalist forces in the east with the help of several thousand volunteer European recruits, veterans of the Napoleonic Wars.

Although Caracas remains in royalist hands, the 1819 Congress at Angostura (present-day Ciudad Bolivar) establishes the Third Republic and names Bolivar as its first president.

Simón Bolívar now quickly marches his troops across the llanos and into the Andes, where a surprise attack on the Spanish garrison at Boyaca, near Bogota, routs the royalist forces and liberates New Granada.

Nearly two years later, in June 1821, Bolivar's troops fought the decisive Battle of Carabobo that liberates Caracas from Spanish rule.

In August delegates from Venezuela and Colombia meet at the border town of Cucuta to formally sign the Constitution of the Republic of Gran Colombia, with its capital in Bogota.

Bolivar is named president, and Francisco de Paula Santander, a Colombian, is named vice president.

Bolivar, however, continues the fight for the liberation of Spanish America, leading his forces against the royalist troops remaining in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.

In the meantime, the Bolivarian dream of Gran Colombia is proving to be politically unworkable.

Bolivar's fellow Venezuelans become his enemies.

King Ferdinand, after an 1820 revolt by liberals in Spain, has lost the political will to recover the rebellious American colonies, but the Venezuelans themselves express resentment at being governed once again from far-off Bogota.

Venezuelan nationalism, politically and economically centered in Caracas, has been an ever-increasing force for over a century.

During the 1820s, Venezuelan nationalism is embodied in the figure of José Antonio Páez.

Even the tremendous prestige of Bolivar cannot overcome the historical reality of nationalism, and in 1829 Páez will lead Venezuela in its separation from Gran Colombia, and order the ailing and friendless Bolivar into exile.

Shortly before his death in December 1830, the liberator of northern South America will liken his efforts at Latin American unity to having "plowed the sea."