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).
Independence Day (Venezuela)
That same afternoon, representatives Cristóbal Mendoza and Juan Germán Roscio presented to Congress the declaration of national independence with the approval of the secretary general, Francisco Isnardi. In the document, representatives from seven of the ten provinces belonging to the Captaincy General (Caracas Province, Cumaná Province, Barinas Province, Margarita Province, Barcelona Province, Mérida Province and Trujillo Province) declared their independence and explained their reasons for this action, among them, that it was baneful that a small European nation ruled the great expanses of the Americas (the New World), that Spanish America recovered its right to self-government after the abdications of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII at Bayonne, and that the political instability in Spain dictated that Venezuelans rule themselves, despite the brotherhood they shared with Spain and the Spanish people at large. The declaration proclaimed a new nation called the American Confederacy of Venezuela, as an independent state under the republican form of government on the basis of the 7 provinces belonging to the former Captaincy General. The declaration was passed by Congress on July 7, with 43 votes for and one vote against, and was granted the full force of law in a decree published on July 8 by the president of the Executive Triumviate, Cristóbal Mendoza. It was later presented to the public in Caracas and read out in what is now the Plaza Bolivar on July 14, 1811.