July is a month of revolutions, many countries in Latin America declared their independence during July. Such is the case for Venezuela, this beautiful country was first discovered by Christopher Columbus on his third voyage to America back in 1498 and other expeditions followed. Fun fact, the name Venezuela was given because it reminded them of Venice, so it was like “little Venice”.
The Spanish empire took over the land and a ranking system was established, which put the “peninsulares” (people born in Spain) at the top, below we had the “criollos” (Spanish people born in America) and finally the slaves and the workers. This system was replicated throughout the whole region as we’ll see in other articles.
There was a lot of tension in society and people wanted more autonomy, then we had the American independence from the United Kingdom, the French revolution and Napoleon’s invasion in Spain. All of this combined ignited the idea of independence from Spain and a very important character arose: Simon Bolivar, he was one of the main leaders in the independence movement in Latin America.
Finally, on the 5th of July 1811 the people of Venezuela declared independence from Spain and conflict broke out because a lot of people still supported the crown (the “royalists”). Armies from both sides fought until finally, years later, “La Gran Colombia” (the great Colombia) was created; this country included Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama.
This big union was Simon Bolivar’s dream. He wanted to unite the Hispanic part of the continent to face the world as one, but alas, this dream that began with Greater Colombia only lasted around 10 years before collapsing. From that break, we got different countries, one of which was Venezuela in 1830.
Have fun learning!
