Venezuelan War of Independence
The establishment of the Supreme Caracas Junta following the forced deposition of Vicente Emparan as Captain General of the Captaincy General of Venezuela on April 19, 1810, marked the beginnings of the war. On July 5, 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 Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake 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. 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).
Second Republic of Venezuela
Historians use the name Third Republic of Venezuela to refer to the period from about 1817 to 1819, when a rump government, organized by Bolívar began functioning in the Venezuelan "Llanos". The year before, various Venezuelan guerilla forces managed to permanently establish themselves in the "Llanos" and captured the city of Angostura, which became their headquarters. This period culminated with the formation of the Congress of Angostura in 1819, which wrote a new constitution for Venezuela, replacing the one from 1811, which in theory, was still valid, although suspended since the collapse of the first republic in 1812. The congress decreed the union of Venezuela with New Granada in a new republic, known as "Gran Colombia", bringing an end to the Third Republic.