From Italy, he came to the United States, where he visited Boston, New
York, Philadelphia and other towns, sailing from Charleston for Venezuela.
He arrived in Caracas at the end of 1806.

Upon his return home, Bolivar devoted himself to the care and improvement
of his estate. Yet his ideas continued to seethe, especially when the
constant spectacle of the state of affairs in Venezuela stimulated this
ferment of his mind.

Among the American colonies, Venezuela was not considered by Spain as one
of the most important. Mexico and Peru, celebrated by their production of
mineral wealth, were those which attracted most of the attention of the
Spaniards. Venezuela was apparently poor, and certainly did not contribute
many remittances of gold and silver to the mother country. It had been
organized as a captaincy general in 1731, after having been governed in
different ways and having had very little communication with Spain. It is
said that from 1706 to 1722, not a single boat sailed from any Venezuelan
port for Spain. Commercial intercourse between the provinces was forbidden,
and local industries could not prosper because the purchase of the products
of Spanish industries was compulsory for the natives, at prices set after
all transportation expenses and high taxes were taken into account. The
colonists were oppressed by taxes and kept in ignorance.

This state of affairs had produced a latent feeling of irritation and a
desire for a change. The native white population read the books of the
French philosophers, especially those of Rousseau and Montesquieu. The
ideas proclaimed by the United States of America and those preached by the
most radical men of the French Revolution were smuggled in and known in
spite of prohibition.