July 5th: Independence Day

A lot of folks know that July 2nd is a very good candidate for Independence Day in the US. That’s when Congress voted to become independent from Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence was ultimately adopted on the 4th, hence our obsession over that particular day.

Here’s John Adams:

John, I like your confidence here, even if it is badly misplaced.

July 5th is yet another great candidate for Independence Day in the Americas, though not the United States of America.

On July 5, 1811, seven provinces of Venezuela declared their independence from Spain. This wasn’t like the clean break from July 4, 1776, where all 13 colonies ultimately agreed unanimously on independence. Instead, three provinces would continue to exist as a part of the Spanish empire.

This was… messy.

It was the same battle of patriots vs royalists that had taken place in North America, but disunity made this much more like a civil war than a war for independence. Those loyal to the Spanish crown included many military leaders and local politicians and elites.

Just a year after declaring independence, the movement began to collapse. This was exacerbated by a massive earthquake in Caracas, the capital city, and the hub of the independence movement. The royalists really piled on the propaganda here, insisting it was God’s will that the royal crown be preserved—after all, it was God who had decreed that kings should rule, right?

The First Republic of Venezuela had officially fallen by August 1812, when royalists took control of Caracas. It had lasted just about a year.

This might seem like an inauspicious beginning, but I think it compares somewhat favorably to the struggle for US independence from Britain. For the first full year, it seemed utterly hopeless on the battlefields, where Washington ran from fight after fight, just trying to keep his troops alive and his army intact.

Although the initial wave of rebellion was crushed, the resistance movement kept coming back in waves. Over the next decade, the civil war reignited, ultimately leading to the creation of Gran Colombia, an even larger republic with Venezuela and other regions joining in something roughly akin to the United States of Northern South America.

Independence Day in the US is celebrated on the 4th, but declaring and having independence were two different things. Similarly, July 5th is when Venezuela’s Independence Day is celebrated, but it would take a decade before independence was won.