Background
Francisco De Miranda was born in Caracas into a well-to-do family on 28 May 1750.
Francisco De Miranda was born in Caracas into a well-to-do family on 28 May 1750.
He got his education in Caracas.
He went to Spain, where he bought a military commission. He rose to colonel, participating in campaigns in North Africa and the West Indies.
Miranda aroused the enmity of his Spanish military colleagues, perhaps because of his colonial origins. In 1783 he fled to the United States, where he stayed two years, traveling widely and meeting many leaders of the new republic. He then moved to England. In the 1780s he traveled widely on the European continent. In the early 1790s he rose to the rank of general with the French revolutionary armies.
Miranda was committed to the cause of Spanish-American (and specifically Venezuelan) independence. He sought the backing of the British government and also tried to get U.S. government support. In 1805 he went to the United States, whence, in February 1808, he undertook a private expedition to try to free Venezuela. Although he captured the city of Coro, he was soon defeated and returned to Britain.
With the outbreak of revolution in Caracas in 1810, Francisco de Miranda hurried home. His long advocacy of independence and his revolutionary experience made him a natural leader of the independence movement. He strongly urged a declaration of independence and on July 5, 1811, such a document was signed. Shortly afterward, he suppressed a counterrevolutionary movement in Valencia.
The new republic adopted a loose federal form of government, over the objections of both Miranda and Simón Bolívar. In spite of the incursion of new Spanish forces against the republic, other leaders of the independence movement hesitated to give Miranda the centralized authority he thought necessary. After a very disastrous earthquake in March 1812, however, and substantial advances by Spanish troops, Miranda was finally given dictatorial power to confront the emergency.
The forces led by Miranda were defeated by the Spaniards. On July 25, Miranda signed a document of capitulation which permitted him to leave the country. However, Bolivar and others prevented Miranda’s departure, and shortly afterward he was arrested by the Spanish forces, in violation of the agreement they had signed with him. He was shipped off to a Spanish prison, where he died four years later.
