By 1808: The Expedition of Francisco de Miranda, the Émigrés from Santo Domingo, and Other Loose Ends of Venezuelan History

The paradigm of the Hispanic Revolutions, already half a century old, has rewritten the timeline of Latin American history with its focus on the crisis of the Spanish Monarchy. Chronologies are powerful analytical and narrative devices that focus our attention on specific themes, people, and places. Cut-off dates, though, can, at times, be too successful at compartmentalizing history. For most of the twentieth century, historians privileged the perspective of creole independence when dividing the colonial and independence periods around the year 1810. By shifting the focus to the crisis of the Monarchy, several generations of scholars decisively moved the end of the colonial period to the year 1808 to coincide with the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, the emergence of supreme juntas in Spain, and the ensuing war against the French. This paper takes a step back to reflect upon how changing chronological approaches affects the study of the late colonial period. There is a long tradition of examining the years preceding 1810 to probe the causes of Latin American independence, retrospectively looking for signs of proto-independence ideas and emerging identities. This paper asks how the chronology of the Hispanic Revolution recasts our understanding of the years preceding 1808. Specifically, I am interested in identifying issues (outside of the scope of pre-independence studies) relevant to how officials and vassals experienced the crisis of the Monarchy in the Captaincy General of Venezuela. Some of these ‘loose ends’ include the lingering effects of the mobilization against the 1806 Miranda’s expedition, the influx of émigrés from Santo Domingo after the Treaty of Basel, and the death of Captain General Manuel Guevara Vasconcelos. Ultimately, the goal is to enrich our knowledge of the context in which officials and vassals received unimaginable, cataclysmic news in 1808.