History of Venezuela
Word of Spain's troubles in 1808 in the Napoleonic Wars soon reached Caracas, but only on 19 April 1810 did its "cabildo" (city council) decide to follow the example set by the Spanish provinces two years earlier. 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 Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813; but this did not last either, 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).
First Republic of Venezuela
Though the Congress declared independence, the provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana and the district of Coro remained loyal to the Supreme Central Junta of Spain and the Cádiz Cortes that followed it. The new Confederation claimed the right to govern the territory of the former Captaincy General, and the region plunged into full civil war by 1810 with fighting breaking out between royalist and republican areas. A military expedition from Caracas to bring Coro back under its control, was defeated in November. The Caracas Junta, which continued to govern Caracas Province, did not have much power in the newly declared Confederation, and had a hard time getting supplies and reinforcements from the other confederated provinces. The Confederation was led by "criollos", but was not able to appeal to the lower classes, despite attempts to do so, because of a declining economic situation. Cut off from Spain, Venezuela lost the market for its main export, cocoa. As a result, Venezuela experienced severe losses of specie, using it to purchase much needed supplies from its new trading partners, such as the British and the Americans, which could not take the full output of agricultural products as payment. The federal government resorted to printing paper money to pay its debts with Venezuelans, but the paper money rapidly lost value, turning many against the government.