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).
Military history of South America
New Granada responded to the troubles in Spain by establishing a sequence of city juntas in mid-1810, deposing the existing viceroy. The splintering of political authority continued as city juntas turned on one another militarily, marking the start of the period known as the "Patria Boba", or the Foolish Fatherland. By contrast, in Venezuela, new juntas that emerged formed a joint Congress. The Congress initially upheld the deposed Spanish king's rights, but a faction proposing complete autonomy rapidly won favour, declaring independence as a republic in 1811. Civil war rapidly broke out between the juntas and the royalists in Venezuela. Blockaded by the Spanish regency and defeated at the battle of San Mateo the first Venezuelan republic collapsed in 1812. Simón Bolívar fled Venezuela and in 1813 joined the republican army of United Provinces of New Granada, achieving dominance over the other factions by late 1814. Bolívar was then authorised to lead a liberating force back into Venezuela in what became known as the Admirable Campaign, quickly defeating the royalist troops at the battle of Alto de los Godos. The Llanero people of the southern plains, however, then rebelled against the Criollo republicans, defeating them and reestablishing royalist control of Venezuela. Bolívar fought on, but a stalemate ensued in which the royalists controlled the highly populated, urban north and the republicans the vast, under-populated plains of the south.