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).
Cristóbal Mendoza
In March 1811 during the Spanish American wars of independence, the first Venezuelan constitutional congress established as the executive power a triumvirate in which three men shared executive power and rotated the presidency every week. At age 39, Mendoza became a member of the triumvirate that headed the First Republic of Venezuela and was unanimously elected by the other two as the first to go in rotation on 5 March 1811. With Manuel Moreno de Mendoza serving as the interim first president in his absence, Mendoza arrived in Caracas to begin serving his first week-long term on 25 April 1811. As part of the triumvirate, Mendoza began the war for independence against the parts of Venezuela that still supported the Spanish monarchy. He also was the author of the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, issued on 5 July 1811. While in office he formed part of the constitutional convention that designed and promulgated the first Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela in December 1811. In March 1812, a second presidential triumvirate was appointed, with Mendoza, Juan Escalona and Baltazar Padron resigning and Fernando Toro, Francisco Javier Ustáriz and Francisco Espejo taking power.