The Venezuelan War of Independence (Spanish: Guerra de Independencia de Venezuela, 1810–1823) was one of the Spanish American wars of independence of the early nineteenth century, when independence movements in South America fought a civil war for secession and against unity of the Spanish Empire, emboldened by Spain's troubles in the Napoleonic Wars.
The establishment of the Supreme Caracas Junta following the forced deposition of Vicente Emparan as Captain General of the Captaincy General of Venezuela on 19 April 1810, marked the beginnings of the war. On 5 July 1811, seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela declared their independence in the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence. The First Republic of Venezuela was lost in 1812 following the 1812 Caracas earthquake and the 1812 Battle of La Victoria. Under the authority, resources and army of the New Granadan government, Simón Bolívar commanded the Admirable Campaign of 1813 to retake and liberate Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813; but this too did not last, falling to a combination of a local uprising and Spanish royalist reconquest of New Granada. Only as part of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada in 1819-20 did Venezuela achieve a lasting independence from Spain (initially as part of Gran Colombia).
Following the liberation campaign of New Granada and the republican victory at the Battle of Boyacá in august 1819, New Granada became an important military and political base for the continuation of the independence struggle in northern South America. On 17 December 1819, the Congress of Angostura, convened as the Congress of Venezuela, adpoted the Fundamental Law of the Republic of Venezuela proclaiming the union of Venezuela and New Granada under the name Republic of Colombia. The union was subsequently ratified in Bogotá 1820 and later by representatives of both New Granada and Venezuela at the Congress of Cúcuta on 12 July 1821. The congress also adopted the Colombian Constitution of 1821 on 30 august 1821, establishing the constitutional framework of the new republic.
First Republic (1810–1812)
The French invasion of Spain in 1808 led to the fall of the Spanish Monarchy. Most subjects of Spain did not accept the government of Joseph Bonaparte, placed on the Spanish throne by his brother, Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France. At the same time, the process of creating a stable government in Spain, which would be widely recognized throughout the empire, took two years. (See Junta (Peninsular War).) This created a power vacuum in the Spanish possessions in America, which created further political uncertainty. On April 19, 1810 the municipal council of Caracas headed a successful movement to depose the Spanish Governor and Captain-General, Vicente Emparán. A junta was established in Caracas, and soon other Venezuelan provinces followed suit. The reverberations of this act of independence could be felt throughout Venezuela almost immediately. Across Venezuela, towns and cities decided to either side with the movement based in Caracas or not, and de facto civil war ensued throughout much of Venezuela. The Caracas Junta called for a congress of Venezuelan provinces to establish a government for the region. Initially, both the Junta and Congress upheld the "rights of Ferdinand VII," meaning that they recognized themselves to still be part of the Spanish Monarchy, but had established a separate government due to the French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. As Congress deliberated, a faction proposing outright independence quickly won favor. Persons such as Francisco de Miranda, a long-term Venezuelan expatriate, and Simón Bolívar, a young, Criollo aristocrat—both influenced by Age of Enlightenment ideas and the example of the French Revolution—led the movement. The Congress declared Venezuela's independence on 5 July 1811, establishing the Republic of Venezuela.
Even before the Congress began its sessions in November 1810, a civil war started between those who supported the juntas, and eventually independence, and royalists who wanted to maintain the union with Spain. Two provinces, Maracaibo Province and Guayana Province, and one district, Coro, never recognized the Caracas Junta and remained loyal to the governments in Spain. Military expeditions to bring Coro and Guayana under the control of the Republic failed. In 1811 an uprising in Valencia against the Republic was successfully suppressed. By 1812 the situation increasingly became aggravated for the young Republic. It was short of funds, Spanish Regency set up a blockade (although it was easily bypassed by British and American merchant ships), and, shortly after, on 26 March 1812, a devastating earthquake affected republican areas. In these desperate moments, Miranda was given dictatorial powers, nevertheless, he was unable to stem the royalist advance headed by Captain Domingo de Monteverde. By midyear, after the Battle of La Victoria, the Republic collapsed. Miranda capitulated to Monteverde and signed an armistice on 25 July 1812.
Second Republic (1813–1815)
Bolívar and other republicans continued the resistance from other parts of the Spanish South America and the Caribbean, or organized guerrilla movements in the interior of the country. In 1813 Bolívar joined the army of the United Provinces of New Granada. After winning a series of battles, Bolívar received the approval of the New Granadan Congress to lead a liberating force into Venezuela in what became known as the Admirable Campaign. At the same time, Santiago Mariño invaded from the northeast in an independently organized campaign. Both forces quickly defeated the royalist troops in various battles, such as Alto de los Godos. Bolívar entered Caracas on 6 August 1813, proclaiming the restoration of the Venezuelan Republic and his supreme leadership of it, something which was not fully recognized by Mariño based in Cumaná, although the two leaders did cooperate militarily.
In the viceroyalties of La Plata and New Granada the Creoles displaced the Spanish authorities with relative ease, as Caracas had done at first. The autonomous movement swept through New Granada, but the country remained politically disunited. Bogotá inherited the role of capital from Spain, but the royalists were entrenched in southern Colombia (Popayán and Pasto). Cali was a bastion of the independence movement just north of royalist territory. Cartagena declared independence not only from Spain but also from Bogotá. Bolívar arrived in Cartagena and was well received, as he was later in Bogotá, where he joined the army of the United Provinces of New Granada. He recruited a force and invaded Venezuela from the southwest, by crossing the Andes (1813). His chief lieutenant was the headstrong José Félix Ribas. In Trujillo, an Andean province, Bolívar emitted his infamous Decree of War to the Death with which he hoped to get the pardos and any mantuano who was having second thoughts on his side. At the time that Bolívar was victorious in the west, Santiago Mariño and Manuel Piar, a pardo from the Dutch island of Curaçao, were successfully fighting royalists in eastern Venezuela. Quickly losing ground (much as Miranda had a year earlier) Monteverde took refuge in Puerto Cabello, and Bolívar occupied Caracas, re-establishing the Republic, with two "states", one in the west headed by Bolívar and one in the east headed by Mariño.
But neither the successful invasions nor Bolívar's decree were provoking a massive enrollment of pardos in the cause of Independence. Rather it was the other way around. In the Llanos a populist Spanish immigrant caudillo, José Tomás Boves, initiated a widespread pardo movement against the restored Republic. Bolívar and Ribas held and defended the mantuano-controlled center of Venezuela. In the east, the royalists started recovering territory. After suffering a setback, Mariño and Bolívar joined their forces, but they were defeated by Boves in 1814. Republicans were forced to evacuate Caracas and flee to the east, where, in the port of Carúpano, Piar was still holding out. Piar, however, did not accept Bolívar's supreme command, and once again Bolívar left Venezuela and went to New Granada (1815). (See Bolívar in New Granada).
The traditional image of the Venezuelan llanos swarming with caudillos like Boves exaggerates the situation. Boves was the only significant pro-Spain caudillo and he was acting in concert with Francisco Tomás Morales, who was a regular officer of Spain. In the Battle of Urica, Boves was killed and Morales took command and carried out mopping up operations against the remaining patriot resistance, which included the capture and execution of Ribas. As was still common in the early 19th century, Morales had his head boiled in oil (to preserve it) and sent to Caracas. (See the Execution of Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico.) Boves died shortly thereafter in battle, but the country had been returned to royalist control, ending the second republic. Morillo arrived in Venezuela and began operations with Morales.
Spanish reconquest of New Granada (1815–1816)
In Spain, anti-French forces had liberated the country, and the restored Ferdinand VII sent a large expeditionary force to Venezuela and New Granada under Pablo Morillo, who had distinguished himself during Spain's War of Independence.
Royalist forces under Morillo and Morales captured Cartagena and Bogotá in 1816. Before leaving for New Granada Morillo had decommissioned most of the irregular forces that had fought under Boves, except those that he took to New Granada. With little prospects, some pardos and llaneros began to join the rebellions that were breaking out against Spanish rule in the broad plains of southern Venezuela. In the meantime, Bolívar chose to sail to Jamaica to enlist British aid, which was refused. From there, he went to Haiti, which had been the first Latin American republic to become independent. With the support of the Haitian president Alexandre Pétion and with the naval aid of Luis Brión, another émigré, who was a merchant from Curaçao, Bolívar returned to Margarita Island, a secure republican redoubt, but his command of the republican forces was still not firm. Mariño, who had come back with Bolívar from Haiti, headed his own expeditions and succeeded in temporarily capturing Cumaná in 1817. With Brión supplying a small fleet, Bolívar sailed west along the Venezuelan coast to Ocumare de la Costa (the Expedition of Los Cayos), where, in fulfillment of Pétion's request, he officially proclaimed the end of slavery (although this went unheeded). Morales, back in Venezuela after subduing New Granada, attacked the republican expeditionary force with an army that vastly outnumbered the republicans. Bolívar fled, sailing once again to Haiti with Brión. However, Piar and Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish soldier of fortune, who had previously been active in New Granada, managed to escape with their forces into the interior of the country, defeating Morales at El Juncal in September 1816 before moving south to Guayana.
Boves's locally raised Llanero army was replaced in 1815 by a formal expedition sent from Spain under the leadership of Pablo Morillo. It was the largest expedition the Spanish had ever sent to the Americas. Venezuela's proximity to Cuba, Puerto Rico and Spain made it the first target of the royalist counterattack. The Llaneros were either demobilized or incorporated into the expeditionary units. The republican patriots found themselves once more dispersed, and again the war took a local character. Different patriot guerrilla bands formed, but could not agree on a united leadership, much less a united strategy. One group of patriots launched an expedition to eastern Venezuela that ended in failure. Bolívar thereafter sought to join forces with Manuel Piar, another patriot leader but differences between them prevented a united republican front. Bolívar then went to the Llanos where he joined forces with José Antonio Páez, but a failed attack on central Venezuela forced Bolivar to retreat back to Apure. Morillo counterattacked successfully but was defeated at the Battle of Las Queseras del Medio. A long-term stalemate ensued in which the royalists controlled the highly populated, urban north and the republicans the vast, under-populated plains of the south.