Knowra Francisco de Miranda Francisco de Miranda Francisco de Miranda was a Venezuelan military leader and political thinker who campaigned for Spanish American independence and served in the French Revolution.
Spanish American wars of independence : A series of conflicts that ended Spanish rule across much of mainland Spanish America in the early nineteenth century. Miranda’s independence projects anticipated the continental wars that followed.
Simón Bolívar : A Venezuelan military and political leader who helped liberate several South American countries from Spanish rule. Bolívar later led the independence movement Miranda had tried to launch.
Leander expedition : An 1806 expedition led by Miranda that attempted to spark revolt against Spanish rule in Venezuela. It was Miranda’s most direct military attempt to initiate Venezuelan independence.
Venezuelan flag : The national flag of Venezuela, featuring yellow, blue, and red horizontal stripes and stars. Miranda’s expedition carried a tricolor design that became the basis of Venezuela’s flag.
La Carraca : A prison in Cádiz, Spain, where Francisco de Miranda died in 1816. Spanish authorities imprisoned Miranda there after his capture in Venezuela.
Enlightenment : An eighteenth-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason, inquiry, and debate about political authority. Its arguments about liberty and sovereignty shaped Miranda’s political program.
Andrés Bello : A Venezuelan humanist, poet, and legal scholar who became a leading intellectual in Chile. Bello and Bolívar were among the young Venezuelans who met Miranda in London.
Venezuelan Declaration of Independence : The 1811 declaration by Venezuela’s congress severing political ties with Spain. Miranda joined the revolutionary government that issued this declaration.
Colombia : A country in northwestern South America, independent from Spain since the early nineteenth century. Miranda’s vision of continental liberation preceded the republic Bolívar later named Colombia.
Spanish American identity : A shared political and cultural identity formed among peoples of Spain’s American colonies and their successor states. Miranda argued for a common American cause spanning colonial boundaries.
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