Venezuelan War of Independence

The Venezuelan War of Independence, fought from 1810 to 1823, was one of the Spanish American wars of independence. Independence movements in South America waged what was in part a civil war over secession and against the unity of the Spanish Empire, encouraged by Spain's troubles in the Napoleonic Wars. The war began on 19 April 1810, when the Caracas council deposed the Captain General Vicente Emparan and set up a junta, and on 5 July 1811 seven of the ten provinces declared independence. The First Republic fell in 1812 after the Caracas earthquake and the Battle of La Victoria. Simon Bolivar then led the Admirable Campaign of 1813, which established a Second Republic that also collapsed under a local uprising and a Spanish royalist reconquest of New Granada. A lasting independence came only with Bolivar's campaign to liberate New Granada in 1819 and 1820, after which Venezuela joined Gran Colombia. The infobox records a patriot and Colombian victory, with the Battle of Carabobo in 1821 and the fall of Puerto Cabello in 1823 as its closing steps, and cites an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.