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.