Francisco de Miranda (2024)

Francisco de Miranda (1)

Sebastian Francisco de Miranda y Rodriguez de Espinoza (28 March 1750-14 July 1816), nicknamed "the Precusror", was the Supreme Chief of Venezuela from 25 April to 26 June 1812, succeeding Francisco Espejo and preceding Simon Bolivar. Miranda deserted from the Spanish Army in 1783 after being accused of espionage, and, during his exile, he developed a wide web of the Western world's leading intellectuals and political leaders, from George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Catherine the Great and William Pitt the Younger. He became a Russian count, a French general, and the leader of a failed attempt to liberate Venezuela in 1816, and, while he played a major role in the establishment of the First Republic of Venezuela, he controversially surrendered to the Royalists and died in a Spanish prison in 1816.

Biography[]

Francisco de Miranda (2)

Sebastian Francisco de Miranda y Rodriguez de Espinoza was born in Caracas, Viceroyalty of New Granada, Spanish Empire in 1750, the son of a Canarian merchant and his Venezuelan wife. While his family was wealthy, they were shunned by the Caracas elite due to the Miranda family's Canarian roots. Miranda received a quality education, including the elarning of modern languages in Spain, and he served in the Spanish Army at the Siege of Melilla in 1774-1775 before being sent to the Americas. Miranda fought at the 1781 Siege of Pensacola before being sent to British Jamaica to arrange for the release of 900 prisoners-of-war, to acquire ships for the Spanish Navy, and to spy on his British hosts. However, he secretly agreed to smuggle British goods back to Spain, and this incident and his insubordination in taking part in the unauthorized capture of the Bahamas in 1782 led to his arrest and subsequent conversion to the Latin American patriot cause.

In 1783, Miranda deserted the Spanish Army and escaped to North Carolina in the United States, where he met people through the gift or loan of books, visited America's prominent cities and even its battlefields (where he met with American Revolutionary War veterans), and became personally acquainted with George Washington, Henry Knox, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. He then embarked on a tour of Europe, including London, Norway, Sweden, Istanbul, and Russia, evading Spanish agents. While in Crimea, he met Prince Grigory Potemkin, who introduced him to Queen Catherine the Great. Catherine took an interest in Miranda's unique social circle and offered him the protection of the Russian Empire's embassies across Europe, while also making him a count. Through Catherine, Miranda met King Stanislaw II August of Poland-Lithuania, and he later met the musician Joseph Haydn through Prince Nicholas Esterhazy.

Miranda was in Paris at the time of the Storming of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution, and he enlisted in the French Revolutionary Army after they - mistakenly believing him to have been a colonel in the Spanish Army - gave him the rank of brigadier-general. Miranda fell in with the Girondins and served under Charles-Francois Dumouriez at the Battle of Valmy in 1792. He was arrested during the Reign of Terror as the Girondins were purged, but the French government was unable to decide what to do with him before the Thermidorian Reaction resulted in his freedom. He came to be involved with moderate royalist plots against the French Directory, forcing him into exile in 1798. Returning to Britain, he attempted to solicit Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger's help with liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule, but Pitt instead used him to learn about Latin American affairs rather than provided any help. In November 1805, Miranda returned to New York, where he lobbied President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison for help with his project. When they refused, Miranda organized a private venture to liberate Venezuela, working with William Stephens Smith to raise 200 volunteers for a filibustering expedition. The expedition stopped in Haiti before failing in its attempt to land in Venezuela; 60 men were imprisoneda nd put on trial for piracy, and 10 were executed. Miranda escaped, escorted by the British Royal Navy, and he made a second attempt to attack Venezuela, capturing the port of Coro before finding no support from the locals and being chased off by 2,000 Spanish soldiers. Miranda again abandoned his venture under British protection, abandoning many of his soldiers. Miranda spent the next year in Trinidad and later lobbied the British for aid in invading Venezuela, but the start of the Peninsular War in 1808 saw Spain suddenly become a British ally, leading to the British cancelling plans to help Miranda. Arthur Wellesley, who had assembled an army in preparation for the invasion of Venezuela, was forced to tell Miranda of the cancellation of the invasion, chosing to do so in Hyde Park with the hope that a public setting would cause Miranda to respond with a tamed temper; Miranda still had an angry outburst.

After Venezuela deposed its Spanish captain-general on 19 April 1810, the Supreme Junta of Caracas invited Miranda to return to Venezuela. Simon Bolivar and Andres Bello visited Miranda at his Grafton Way house in Bloomsbury, London and persuaded him to return to his native land, and he was enthusiastically received by commoners at La Guaira. Miranda established the Patriotic Society, modeled on France's revolutionary clubs, and he also established the Gran Reunion lodge of Freemasons to cultivate a cadre of Latin American patriot leaders.

In 1812, as Spanish Royalists moved to crush the First Republic of Venezuela, Miranda was granted dictatorial powers, but Cumana refused to acknowledge his leadership, and a royalist brought Barcelona over to the royalist side. Domingo de Monteverde arrived in Venezuela from Puerto Rico with a force of Spanish marines and captured muh of the country before Miranda was compelled to negotiate an armistice on 25 July 1812, causing Bolivar and other revolutionarierrs to view Miranda as a traitor. Bolivar and the others arrested Miranda and handed him over to the Spanish at La Guaira; Bolivar was granted free passage to exile in Curacao in recognition of his apparent services to the royalist cause. Miranda never saw freedom again, being taken to the Penal de las Cuatro Torres outside Cadiz in Europe, and he died in 1816 and was buried in a mass grave.

Francisco de Miranda (2024)

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