Venezuelan War of Independence

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Venezuela
Date 1811-1823
Location Venezuela and New Granada
Result Venezuelan independence
Belligerents
Flag of Venezuela Venezuela
Gran Colombia		 Flag of Spain Kingdom of Spain
Commanders
Francisco de Miranda
Manuel Piar
Simón Bolívar		 Juan Domingo Monteverde
Juan Manuel Cajigal
Jose Tomas Boves
Pablo Morillo
Miguel de la Torre

The Venezuelan War of Independence was a war fought for the emancipation of what is today Venezuela, between 1811 and 1823. It was part of a series of emancipation movements in South America known as the South American wars of independence.

After the Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the power vacuum that created in the Spanish possessions in America, a congress of the Criollos, influenced by the Age of Enlightenment ideas and the French Revolution, having previously overthrown the Spanish Governor Vicente Emparán on April 19, 1810, declared on July 5, 1811 Venezuela's independence. Miranda assumed the dictatorship.

Quickly thereafter a civil war started between the republicans and the royalists who still wanted a union with Spain. The provinces of Coro, Valencia, and Guayana rebelled, and with the increasingly aggravated situation of the republic: short funds, Spanish blockade, and a major earthquake; collapsed in 1812 to Monteverde's attack. Miranda capitulated. An armistice was signed in July 1812.

Bolívar and other republicans continued the resistance in exile or organized guerrillas. In 1813 after a series of battles in New Granada and having received the approval of the Granadian congress Bolivar invaded Venezuela, defeated the royalist troops in various battles. He entered Caracas on August 6 1813. The Second Republic was founded.

The royalists, under the command of José Tomás Boves with a strengthened army of llaneros, harassed the patriots in the center of the country. Finally Boves marched to Caracas and forced the republicans to flee to the east of the country, ending the second republic. The Spanish enlisted the Llaneros, playing on their dislike of the criollos of the independence movement. José Tomás Boves led an army of llaneros which routinely killed white Venezuelans.[1]

The patriots once more dispersed, and again the war took a local character. The patriots launched an expedition to eastern Venezuela that ended in failure. Bolivar thereafter sought to join forces with Piar, but differences between them prevented a united republican front. Bolivar 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. The Spanish, under the leadership of Morillo counterattacked successfully but where defeated at the Queseras del Medio.

Bolivar invaded New Granada and decisively defeated the royalists at Boyacá, after which the union of New Granada and Venezuela was established as the Republic of Great Colombia by the Angostura Congress.

In 1821 the patriots won a decisive victory at the Battle of Carabobo, after which the only cities in the hands of the Spanish were Cumaná, which fell shortly after, and Puerto Cabello, which managed to hold off a siege for two years, finally capitulating in October 1823.

The Spanish sent a fleet in 1823 to reconquer the country but were defeated at the Battle of Lake Maracaibo. The fight for independence, which killed half of Venezuela's white population,[2] was over in Venezuela; in the following years Bolivar and the Gran Colombia continued campaigning in the south.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ A First-Hand Impression of the Venezuelan Opposition
  2. ^ Venezuela
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