The first part of this book examines the rhetorical strategies employed in Spanish American independence discourse, which predicates individual rights on the male universal subject. A strategic rereading of the canonical works of the military and political leaders of the Spanish American revolutions will draw attention to what Bourdieu refers to as ‘le mode d'opération propre de l'habitus sexué et sexuant et les conditions de sa formation’ in those texts (Bourdieu 1990: 11). Simón Bolívar, the wealthy, white, European-educated, Venezuelan aristocrat (son of a Basque landowner), fought between 1810 and 1824 to emancipate Spanish America from the Spanish Crown. He did this primarily for the benefit of his class, the white, native-born elite. Today, Bolívar is revered as the Liberator, an iconic figure representing the subcontinent's independence from European domination; his name has acquired mythic proportions, above all in the northern republics (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia). This status is due to his military achievements and political ideas, his oratory and his vision of a united South America. The bibliography about him is immense. Bolívar produced (wrote or dictated) over 10,000 documents during his lifetime (letters, speeches, essays, declarations and constitutions), some 22 tomes of which were published by 1833 (Lecuna 1947: 175). His speeches, writing style and poetry have been studied at length. Venezuelan author and critic Rufino Blanco Fombona described him as ‘en punto a letras, lo más alto de su época en lengua de Castilla. Con Bolívar se realiza la Revolución de Independencia en las letras castellanas o, para no salir de casa, en las letras americanas’; he is even included as one of the founders of the Colombian literary tradition (Vergara y Vergara 1958: 136–45, 142).

Bolívar's writings – political, military and personal – are multilayered texts worthy of literary study in their own right. Often turned out on the spur of the moment, in response to specific events, to argue a point and persuade to his cause, they project a self-image that is larger than life: the canny politician, the confident soldier, the frank and faithful comrade-in-arms. In many respects, Bolívar writes himself as the manly ideal (Mosse 1996).