The answer to the blank is: politically.
Simon Bolivar is one of the most important liberators of South America and his efforts during the 19th century against the rule of the Spanish Crown in South America led to the liberation of what is now Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Panama, Ecuador, and Venezuela.
After some military successes and failures, Bolivar, beginning in 1816, came to understand that only if all South American liberators and regions united politically under one single form of rule, could they stand a chance of permanently defeating the Spanish. It is at this point that he envisioned the Great Colombia project, a nation that could hold all of the regions mentioned above under one single rule.
