Captaincy General of Venezuela
The independence movement for Venezuela began with the establishment of the Caracas Junta in 1810. After the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence in 1811, the provinces of Caracas, Cumaná, Barinas, Margarita, and the newly separated ones of Barcelona, Trujillo, and Mérida established a Republic of Venezuela, which claimed the area of the Captaincy General. The provinces of Maracaibo and Guayana, along with the city of Coro, rejected the republic, and after a year of war against the royalists, this First Republic collapsed. The provinces that had created the Venezuelan Republic were reconquered by Frigate Captain Domingo de Monteverde, who usurped power from the appointed Captain General Fernando Miyares. Because of this the Cádiz Cortes erected the Province of Maracaibo into a separate Captaincy General with Miyares at its head, but did ratify Monteverde as Captain General of the smaller Venezuela. During this period, the Province of Maracaibo elected a representative to the Cortes, José Domingo Rus, who served from March 3, 1812, to May 10, 1814, and continued to represent the province before the crown after Ferdinand VII abolished the Cortes. With Ferdinand VII's return, Venezuela was reunited in one captaincy general.
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.