Venezuela Was the First Spanish Colony in the Americas to Declare Absolute Independence
On this day · 5 July 1811
On a July afternoon in Caracas, a congress voted to cut three centuries of ties to Spain and invent a republic from scratch.
On 5 July 1811, delegates of Venezuela’s National Congress, meeting in Caracas, voted to sever the colony’s bond with the Spanish Crown. Seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General signed on; Coro, Maracaibo, and Guayana refused and stayed loyal. With that act Venezuela became the first Spanish American colony to declare its absolute independence, ahead of every other nation on the continent.
The formal Acta de Declaración de Independencia was largely drafted by Juan Germán Roscio and the congressional secretary Francisco Isnardi. Behind the vote stood two figures who would dominate the era: the veteran revolutionary Francisco de Miranda, who had pressed Congress to act, and the young aristocrat Simón Bolívar, soon to be called the Liberator.
Three hundred years of calm, isn’t it enough?
Independence on paper did not bring peace. Civil war, royalist resistance, and a catastrophic 1812 earthquake toppled this First Republic within a year. Yet the date endured: 5 July remains Venezuela’s national day, marking the moment a colony first dared to imagine itself a free nation.
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