1 She and husband Cosmo Duff Gordon were accused in the press of bribing crew to row faster after 12 were saved in their boat, which was built for 40. 2  Tabloids of the day dubbed it the 'Money Boat' though a British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry would later clear the couple of wrongdoing.
Updated March 30, 2017. Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) was the greatest leader of Latin America's independence movement from Spain. A superb general and a charismatic politician, he not only drove the Spanish from northern South America but also was instrumental in the early formative years of the republics that sprang up once the Spanish had gone.
Bolivar, defeated, went into exile. In late 1812 he went to New Granada (now Colombia) to look for a commission as an officer in the growing Independence movement there. He was given 200 men and control of a remote outpost. He aggressively attacked all Spanish forces in the area, and his prestige and army grew.