Miranda, Francisco de
, 1750–1816, Venezuelan revolutionist and
adventurer.
A hero of the struggle
for independence from Spain, he is sometimes called the Precursor
to distinguish him from Simón Bolívar, who completed
the task of liberation. Before he championed the independence of
the Spanish colonies, Miranda involved himself in a number of
adventures. As an officer in the Spanish army he served under
Bernardo de Gálvez in the Spanish attack on Pensacola
(1781), when Spain was an ally of the rebels in the American
Revolution. He later visited Philadelphia and Boston and met George
Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and other notables. He traveled
widely in Europe, particularly in Russia, where he became a
favorite of Catherine the Great. In France he fought in the French
Revolutionary Wars; running afoul of the Jacobins he fled to
England, where he was helped by William Pitt. Imbued with
revolutionary ideas, Miranda sought foreign aid and led (1806) an
unsuccessful expedition to the Venezuelan coast. After the start of
the revolution in 1810, he returned to Venezuela and soon took a
commanding position in the patriot forces. He was dictator for a
short time, but after increasing misfortunes, including the loss of
Puerto Cabello by Bolívar and a destructive earthquake in
Caracas, he surrendered (1812) to the Spanish. Bolívar and
other patriots, angered by his capitulation, seized him and turned
him over to the Spanish who failed to honor the terms of surrender,
deported him to Cádiz, and kept him in a dungeon for the
rest of his life.
During and after the Battle of
Pensacola, Miranda saw how the American colonists stood up to
England, and it sparked a fire within him. He took those ideas back
to his adopted country of Venezuela and led the beginning of the
struggle for freedom there. While his efforts did help lead to
freedom for Venezuela, it didn't happen in his lifetime. Imagine
how terrible it must have been for him to have followed the dream
of freedom his entire life only to see it go down the
drain.
