How Francisco de Miranda conspired in the US for the Freedom of Venezuela

A statue of Francisco de Miranda in Philadephia.

Following a brilliant career of military achievement, General Francisco de Miranda envisioned and attempted to build a republican Hispanic America united on the model of the United States.

Francisco de Miranda, often exalted as the most universal of Venezuelans, also participated in the revolution that freed the United States from British rule.

Miranda came from a wealthy family but without ancestry. His father had no noble blood, so the young Miranda failed to integrate into the strictly caste-divided 18th-century Venezuelan society. He went to Spain and there he joined the Army as an officer and progressively rose through the ranks.

With the rank of captain, he accompanied General Juan Manuel Cagigal y Montserrat to Cuba in 1780 as aide-de-camp. He knows Cagigal from the Spanish campaigns against Morocco and Algiers. In 1781, both served under the orders of General Bernardo de Gálvez in the site of the Pensacola fortress. So that town was a key possession of the English in West Florida.

His performance in combat and the leadership shown during the confrontations earned him a promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

The action, which was directly a conflict between Spain and England, weakened the English military presence in southern North America. And, consequently, it contributed to the independence of the United States. Taking that position from the British forces helped to strengthen the position of the American patriots in the interior regions.

Later, in September of that year, Miranda would have played a minor role in the naval battle of the Chesapeake Bay, off the coast of Virginia. There, a French fleet managed to defeat the British naval forces and cut off supplies to the forces stationed on the continent.

Deprived of naval support and isolated, Lord Conrwallis, the commander of the British army, was defeated and capitulated at Yorktown in October 1781. This is considered the last great battle of the American Revolution. Miranda later also participated in the British surrender in the Bahamas.

Despite his services to the Spanish crown in weakening his rival in Great Britain, Miranda had unresolved issues with the Iberian military hierarchy. Perhaps with the help of the Spanish governor of Cuba, General Cagigal, whom Miranda had diligently served.

He later evaded an attempt to jail him by fleeing on a whaling ship to the United States. There he fell in love with the North American democratic experiment. He traveled the country and garnered such notable friendships as General Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, and the Reverend Ezra Stile.

Letters to the president

He was fascinated by the ideas of freedom and republicanism that marked the nascent United States. And he was beginning to imagine a free and united Hispanic America like the 13 British colonies in North America.

Miranda was received with interest in the American political elite. He exchanged letters with notable leaders of the nascent republic. Among them, President Thomas Jefferson. On January 22, 1806, he wrote to him: “I have the honor to send you herewith the natural and civil history of Chile, about which we discussed in Washington[...] If the happy prediction that you have pronounced ever comes true in our days about the future destiny of our dear Columbia, may Providence grant that it be under her auspices and by the generous efforts of her own children."

That same day he wrote to the Secretary of State, James Madison: “On the verge of leaving the United States, allow me to address a few words to thank you for the attention you had the pleasure of showing me during my stay in Washington. The important concerns, which I later had the honor to communicate to you, I doubt will not remain a deep secret until the final outcome of that delicate matter..."

Miranda was referring to the aid he raised for a military expedition to Venezuela. From there he hoped to spread the revolution throughout South America.

For that he made those high-level contacts that paid off. Years later, at least three American ships, numerous cannons, and some 200 recruits accompanied Miranda on his unsuccessful 1806 expedition.

That operation marked the beginning of the bloody road that would culminate in South American independence almost two decades later.