Venezuela Posters, Art Prints, Charts, Photographs & Maps
for social studies classrooms, home schoolers, offices.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is located in northern South America bordering the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Guyana on the east, Brazil to the south and Colombia to the west. The capital is Caracas.

It is believed that explorer Amerigo Vespucci named this area “Little Venice” because he was reminded of the canals of Venice by the stilt villages found built over the water.

The Caribbean states of Aruba, the Netherlands Antilles and Trinidad and Tobago are off the Venezuelan coast.

Simón Bolivar, Hispanic Heritage, Wall Poster

Simón Bolivar
b. 7-24-1783; Caracas, Venezuela
d. 12-17-1830; Santa Marta, Colombia (tuberculosis)

Simón Bolivar is often called “the George Washington of South America.” His heroic deeds helped many South American nations win their independence. During his lifetime, he helped millions of Latin Americans realize the dream of freedom. But he died without ever seeing his own fondest dream come true.

Simón Bolivar was born to a wealthy family in Caracas, Venezuela. His parents died when he was just a child, and he inherited a fortune. While on a trip to Europe, he met and married a young Spanish girl. But she died a short time after they returned to Caracas. Returning to Europe, Bolivar vowed that he would one day liberate Venezuela from the Spanish. He fulfilled this promise in 1811 when he captured Caracas and proclaimed Venezuela independent. The Spanish fought back, and soon forced Bolivar to flee to Jamaica and then to Haiti. But Bolivar gathered a force of fighting men and returned to South America. There, his victories over the Spanish led to independence for Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.

Bolivar's dream was to unite all the countries of South America into one large and powerful nation. But one by one, the countries withdrew from the Colombian Union, as Bolivar called his union. By 1828, Simón Bolivar ruled only what is now Colombia. In 1830 health problems forced him to resign as Colombia's President, and he died in December of that year.

• Hispanic Heritage posters
• Panama

William Henry Hudson

William Henry Hudson
b. 8-4-1841; Buenos Aires, Argentina
d. 8-18-1922; London

William Henry Hudson, the son of U.S. settlers in Argentina, is best remembered as the author of the 1904 Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest about a traveller to the Guyana jungle of southeastern Venezuela and his encounter with a forest dwelling girl named Rima. It was made into a movie.

Hudson was also a naturalist and ornithologist who as instrumental in the back-to-nature movement of the 1920s-1930s.

William Henry Hudson quotes ~
• “We know that our senses are subject ot decay, that from our middle years they are decaying all the time; but happily it is as if we didn't know and didn't care.”
• “You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren.”
• “I... thanked the Author of my being for the gift of that wild forest, those green mansions where I had found so great a happiness!”