Simón Bolívar’s caretakers

-La Negra Hipólita

Hipólita Bolivar, was born in San Mateo, Aragua, Venezuela in 1763. She died in Caracas on June 25, 1835. She was a slave to the Bolivar Palacios family.

Simon Bolívar’s father died in his sleep when Bolívar was two and a half years old and his mother, Maria Concepción de Palacios y Blanco, died when he was approaching nine years of age. He was mostly cared for by his nurse, a black enslaved woman named Hipólita, whom he later called “the only father I have known. She even breastfed him as his mother had health problems that prevented her from doing so.

There is a park in her honor in Valencia, Venezuela, Parque Negra Hipólita.

-La Negra Matea

Matea Bolivar was born in San Jose de Tiznado. September 21, 1773. She died in Caracas on March 29, 1889 aged 112 years and 6 months. Also known as La Negra Matea. She took care of Bolivar’s upbringing and education. Bolivar gave freedom to the Negra Matea, but she did not want to go and stayed with the family. She went with María Antonia Bolívar, Simon’s sister to Havana, fleeing the persecution of the royalists. She outlived Simon Bolivar and laid a wreath at his burial.