The Independence of Venezuela

The independence of Venezuela from the Spanish Empire is a process developed between 1810 to 1823 to emancipate the territories of present-day  Venezuela .It began in parallel to the rest of the Wars of Independence of the Spanish-American nations as a result of the French invasion of Spain in 1808. Here we will provide you the information about the Venezuelan war of independence timeline.

Chronology of the Independence of  Venezuela 

• 1810 
  • April 19: The emancipation of Venezuela begins after the Proclamation of Independence of Venezuela from Spanish rule signed in Caracas. Captain General Vicente Emparan resigns from office
  • November 4: Battle of Aguanegra
• 1811
  • March 2: First National Congress of Venezuela to replace the Supreme Board of Caracas
  • March 5: The new Executive Power is organized, appointing Cristóbal Mendoza in Congress as the first President of Venezuela
  • July 5: The Board of Caracas declares the independence of Venezuelan territory through the Act of the Declaration of Independence of Venezuela .
• 1813 – May 14 to August 6: Admirable Campaign
• 1819 – December 17: Simón Bolívar proclaims the founding of Gran Colombia
• 1821 – June 24: Battle of Carabolo, Simón Bolívar together with General José Antonio Páez defeat Miguel de la Torre
• 1823
  • July 24: Naval Battle of Lake Maracaibo by José Prudencio Padilla. Decisive victory for independence
  • September 23: Siege of Puerto Cabello, General José Antonio Páez takes the Castle of San Felipe de Puerto Cabello ending the war of independence
• 1826 – April 30: José Antonio Páez leads the La Cosiata or Morrocoyes Revolution movement with the aim of separating Venezuela from Greater Colombia
• 1830
  • May 6: A new Constitution is drafted in the Valencia Congress
  • September 22: The Congress of Valencia ratifies the new Constitution of Venezuela, being legally separated from Greater Colombia
• 1845 – April 30: Spain recognizes the Definitive Independence of Venez

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Further Timelines of Venezuela 

• 1846 : A popular revolt led by Ezequiel Zamora and the Indian Rangel begins in the provinces. Hardly repressed, its leaders are sentenced to death and the Liberal Party declared illegal. Páez rejects a third term as president.
• 1847 : January 20 : José Tadeo Monagas is elected as president, backed by Páez.
• 1848 : January 24 : The president, turned dictator, backs an assault on Congress, dominated by the opposition. Fact that is known by the name of “Assassination of Congress.” Congress ceases to exist as an autonomous entity and becomes a mere appendix to the Executive.
• 1849 : April 3 : The death penalty for political crimes is abolished. August 15 : Páez who leads a revolt against Monagas is taken prisoner.
• 1850 : March 20 : Congress decides the expulsion of Páez from Venezuela.
• 1851 : José Gregorio Monagas, José Tadeo’s brother, is nominated President for the period 1851-1855.
• 1854 : March 24 : The Law of Perpetual Abolition of slavery is enacted.
• 1855 : José Tadeo Monagas resumes the dictatorship.
• 1857 : April : The Constitution of 1830 is reformed, lengthening the presidential term.
• 1858 : March 5 : General Julián Castro, from Valencia, marches on Caracas and takes power. José Tadeo Monagas goes into exile. The general liberal leaders Juan Crisóstomo Falcón and Ezequiel Zamora, and the founder of the Liberal Party Antonio Leocadio Guzmán are also exiles.
• 1859 : February 20 : General Ezequiel Zamora disembarks in the Vela de Coro. The Federal War begins. August 1 : The government of Julián Castro falls and is replaced, after the episode in which a provisional federalist government lasts less than 24 hours, by one of a conservative tendency led by Pedro Gual. December 9 : Zamora, at the head of the federal army, destroys the constitutional army in the battle of Santa Inés, Barinas.
• 1860 : January 10 : Zamora dies in San Carlos. Juan Crisóstomo Falcón is elected Commander in Chief of the liberal forces and marches on Caracas. February 17 : The federals are defeated at the site of Coplé, Guarico. Falcón flees to Nueva Granada and the army is dissolved. April . Manuel Felipe de Tovar is elected president by universal suffrage. September 10 : General Páez, Minister of War and Navy, returned from US exile in an attempt to stabilize the country torn by civil war, officially assumes the dictatorship.
• 1861 : Falcón returns to continue the war.
• 1862 : August : Falcón sends Antonio Guzmán Blanco to organize the war in the center, which obtained some victories.
• 1863 : April 24 : By the Treaty of Coche, Páez hands over power to the triumphant revolution. July 2 : The Decree of Guarantees is published, by which Venezuelans are guaranteed public liberties, the rights of man and the citizen.
• 1864 : April 13 : The new federal Constitution is promulgated. The Republic takes the name of the United States of Venezuela.
• 1865 : Falcón is elected president.
• 1868 : Monagas, in the so-called “Blue Revolution” throws Falcón from power, but dies in November. The civil war continues in various areas of the country. Venezuela is bankrupt.
• 1869 : José Rupercio Monagas, son of José Tadeo takes over the presidency.
• 1870 : The feds finally secure complete control of the country. April 27 : General Antonio Guzmán Blanco, after disembarking in Falcón, takes Caracas. He will be president, in alternate terms, for the next 20 years, but, throughout the term, he will be the one who holds the reins of power. June 27 : Decree the Public, Free and Compulsory Instruction.
• 1870/76 : The Septenium . First as provisional president, 1870/73, then as Constitutional President, 1873/77.
• 1872 : September 12 : Decree that orders the extinction of clerical seminaries, consequence of the complaint maintained with the Catholic Church.
• 1873 : January 1 : Decree that establishes the civil marriage with precedence to the ecclesiastical one and creates the Civil Registry of births, unions and deaths. It puts into effect the Civil, Commercial, Criminal, Military, Finance, Criminal Procedure and Civil Procedure Codes. April 19 : Honors Decree agreed by Congress naming him “Illustrious American Regenerator of Venezuela.”
• 1877 : February : General Francisco Linares Alcántara is elected president.
• 1879 : An anti-Zman reaction takes place. In defense of Guzmán Blanco, Joaquín Crespo heads the “Reclamation Revolution” and installs the dictator again.
• 1879/84 : The quinquennium. Guzmán directly assumes power.
• 1881 : April : A new Constitution is promulgated, a copy of the Swiss one, which will be called “La Suiza”. May 25 : “Gloria al Bravo Pueblo” is declared as the National Anthem of the Republic.
• 1884/86 : Presidency of General Joaquín Crespo.
• 1886/87 : The biennium or the National Acclamation. Guzmán Blanco has his third term as dictator. It is voluntarily withdrawn before finishing it.
• 1888/90 : Presidency of Juan Pablo Rojas Paúl.
• 1890/92 : Presidency of Raimundo Andueza Palacios.
• 1892 : October 6 : General Joaquín Crespo defeats Andueza in the so-called “Legalist Revolution”.
• 1893 : A new Constitution is promulgated, establishing four-year presidential terms.
• 1894 : March 5 : Crespo is appointed president for the period 1894/98.
• 1898 : Crespo is assassinated. He is succeeded by General Ignacio Andrade.
• 1899 : May 24 . The Andean general Cipriano Castro declares war on the government of General Ignacio Andrade. From Cúcuta he organizes the Invasion of the Sixties, with which the so-called Restorative Liberal Revolution begins. October 22 . Castro enters Caracas and assumes power. His men camped out in Plaza Bolívar.

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• 1 899/1908 : Dictatorship of General Cipriano Castro. His motto is: New Men, New Ideals, New Procedures .
• 1 900 : October 3 . The Government convenes, by decree, a National Constituent Assembly.
• 1 901 : March 29 . A new Constitution is sanctioned. Numerous uprisings occur throughout the country. July 17-29 . The invasion, sponsored by the Colombian conservatives, of Dr. Carlos Rangel Garviras is destroyed in San Cristóbal. December . The Liberating Revolution begins, a movement organized by the banker Manuel Antonio Matos and financed by important foreign companies with concessions in the country. Castro appoints Juan Vicente Gómez Expeditionary Chief with the rank of Major General to face the different uprisings in which the country breaks out.
• 1 902 : November 2 . With the triumph of Castro, the battle of La Victoria ends, the most important military action of the Liberating Revolution. December . Blockade of the ports of Venezuela by the foreign creditor powers, England, Germany and Italy, trying to occupy the customs in order to collect their debt. The mediation of the United States allowed the case to be referred to the International Court of The Hague, which ruled in favor of the creditor powers.
• 1 903 : July . Juan Vicente Gómez defeats the eastern general Nicolás Rolando in Ciudad Bolívar, ending the Liberation Revolution, the last Venezuelan civil war and, also, the last expression of the caudillista resistance against the sovereignty of the modern State represented by Castro and Gómez.
• 1 904 : Congress voted for a new constitution.
• 1 908 : November 24 . Castro, ill, goes to Europe, leaving Juan Vicente Gómez as president in charge. Gómez accuses Castro of a series of crimes and offenses and has a court incapacitate him from holding public office. Castro is suspended from the presidency and threatened with prison if he returns to the country. November 24. Juan Vicente Gómez assumes power.
• 1 909/1935 : Dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez, the Rehabilitation. Motto: Union, Peace and Work .
• 1 913/1914 : José Gil Fortoul assumes the provisional presidency of the Republic. Gómez suspends constitutional guarantees, entering the dictatorship in a highly repressive phase.
• 1 914 : A new Constitution is promulgated, with an elected President and Commander-in-Chief of the army, Juan Vicente Gómez, and a provisional President, with administrative functions, Victorino Márquez Bustillos.
• 1 922 : The third constitutional reform is carried out creating two Vice Presidencies, positions held by his brother Juan Crisóstomo and his son José Vicente. December . The beginning of the exploitation of the large oil fields of Lake Maracaibo inaugurates the oil boom in Venezuela.
• 1 923 : The policy of modernization of the military apparatus continues and the despotic character of the regime is affirmed.
• 1925 : A new constitutional reform abolishes the Vice Presidencies.
• 1928 : Student demonstrations take place with broad popular support against the Gomez regime. Those who later would be the most prominent figures in national politics participated in them: Jóvito Villalba, Rómulo Betancourt, Raúl Leoni, Miguel Otero Silva, Isaac Pardo, Carlos Irazábal, and many others. Economically, it is a significant moment in which oil consolidates its validity. The fifth Constitution is sanctioned. Juan Bautista Pérez is sworn in as President.
• 1931 : The Venezuelan Communist Party is founded. Gómez has the Constitution reformed again.
• 1935 : December 17 . Juan Vicente Gómez dies in Maracay. December 31 . General Eleazar López Contreras is appointed President in charge.
• 1936/1941 : Presidency of General Eleazar López Contreras, Minister of War and Navy in the Gómez government. The Lopecist five-year period led to the transition from dictatorship to democracy.