220 years ago, a Venezuelan ‘Influencer’ took Trinidad by storm

By Ál­varo Sánchez Cordero, Am­bas­sador of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go

One of the most icon­ic mo­ments in the his­to­ry of Venezuela oc­curred on Au­gust 3rd, 1806, when Venezue­lan Fran­cis­co de Mi­ran­da, a vet­er­an of the Span­ish Army, the Amer­i­can War of In­de­pen­dence, the French Rev­o­lu­tion and the Russ­ian Army, land­ed in the north-west­ern town of La Vela de Coro, be­com­ing the first per­son ever to hoist the Venezue­lan flag on Venezue­lan soil. Al­though such a his­tor­i­cal ac­count is prover­bial among Venezue­lans, what is cer­tain­ly not wide­ly known – nei­ther in Venezuela nor abroad – is that Mi­ran­da’s lib­er­a­tion force against Spain in La Vela de Coro – manned by 500 sol­diers on 11 ships – had sailed from, and been most­ly re­cruit­ed in, Trinidad, as re­count­ed by Venezue­lan his­to­ri­an Car­men Bo­hórquez in her book Fran­cis­co de Mi­ran­da. Pre­cur­sor of Latin Amer­i­can In­de­pen­den­cies.

In­deed, Bo­hórquez fur­ther ex­plains that Mi­ran­da ar­rived in Trinidad on June 24th, 1806, 220 years ago to­day, com­ing from Bar­ba­dos, lead­ing his ship, the fa­mous Le­an­der, af­ter his fail­ure against the Span­ish at the coastal town of Ocumare, north-west of Cara­cas, two months ear­li­er. In spite of such a fail­ure, Bo­hórquez tells us that Mi­ran­da knew he was not done, for he still count­ed on British sup­port via Ad­mi­ral Alexan­der Cochrane in Bar­ba­dos and Gov­er­nor Sir Thomas His­lop in Trinidad, both of whom as­sist­ed him great­ly in spite of po­lit­i­cal con­straints.

Mi­ran­da in Trinidad: Sources and His­tor­i­cal Ac­counts

But how was Mi­ran­da’s stay in Trinidad dur­ing those 31 days, from June 24th to Ju­ly 25th, 1806? To try to an­swer this ques­tion, I have drawn most­ly on sec­ondary sources, in­clud­ing two his­tor­i­cal nov­els (which must be read with cau­tion), to ap­prox­i­mate Mi­ran­da’s ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad. So, here you are:

In his book The Gate­way to South Amer­i­ca: Trinidad and the South Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion, the late Trin­bag­on­ian mil­i­tary his­to­ri­an Gay­lord Kelshall says that Mi­ran­da ar­rived in Trinidad in style, es­cort­ed by Roy­al Navy ships HMS Ex­press and HMS Lily, and was then ac­com­mo­dat­ed at the Gov­ern­ment House as Gov­er­nor His­lop’s spe­cial guest.

“No ad­ven­tur­er ever re­ceived such treat­ment in a British colony. It cer­tain­ly nev­er be­fore hap­pened in Trinidad’s his­to­ry, nor would such an event ever take place again,” Kelshall adds, de­scrib­ing Mi­ran­da’s en­trance in­to Trinidad.

Sim­i­lar­ly, the late Trin­bag­on­ian No­bel Lau­re­ate Vidi­ad­har S. Naipaul re­counts in his his­tor­i­cal nov­el A Way in the World that Gov­er­nor His­lop would have told Mi­ran­da: “You are the most fa­mous man to have come here [to Trinidad]. Be­fore you came, I sup­pose Com­modore Samuel Hood was the most fa­mous man we had here [in Trinidad]. Nel­son’s sec­ond-in-com­mand at the Bat­tle of the Nile.”

Down the Is­lands and the Re­cruit­ment Dri­ve

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter such a ma­jes­tic ar­rival, Mi­ran­da set to work, as there was no time to waste. Hence, he went DDI, “Down de Is­lands,” specif­i­cal­ly to Cha­cachacare, but not for fun, though. Kelshall tells us that – un­sur­pris­ing­ly – one of the first places where Mi­ran­da be­gan his re­cruit­ing dri­ve was Cha­cachacare Is­land, where he met San­ti­a­go Mar­iño de Acuña and Doña Atana­cia Carige, par­ents of sib­lings San­ti­a­go Mar­iño and María Con­cep­ción Mar­iño, both of whom were in­stru­men­tal years lat­er, in 1813, in lead­ing an­oth­er lib­er­a­tion ex­pe­di­tion from Cha­cachacare to the Venezue­lan town of Güiria. In fact, Kelshall vivid­ly de­scribes the con­sid­er­able im­pres­sion that Mi­ran­da made on the Mar­iño teenagers while on Cha­cachacare, re­sult­ing in their un­con­di­tion­al loy­al­ty and de­sire to lib­er­ate Venezuela, in­spired by Mi­ran­da.

An­oth­er ac­count, by Amer­i­can James Big­gs, one of Mi­ran­da’s lieu­tenants, al­beit al­so an in­sti­ga­tor and ring­leader, ac­cord­ing to Naipaul’s his­tor­i­cal nov­el, de­scribes Mi­ran­da’s re­cruits in Trinidad as be­ing:

“low or worth­less char­ac­ters,” as stat­ed in his rec­ol­lec­tion, The His­to­ry of Don Fran­cis­co de Mi­ran­da’s At­tempt to Ef­fect a Rev­o­lu­tion in South Amer­i­ca. Nonethe­less, in it, Big­gs refers that “a few of them are re­spectable men,” adding that “the prin­ci­pal and most re­spectable per­sons [of Trinidad] are William Gage Hall, with the rank of colonel of en­gi­neers; Count de Rou­vray, colonel; Chavli­er Lop­penot, cap­tain of horse, James Adrien, in­ter­preter and of­fi­cer of en­gi­neers; and two Spaniards rank­ing as colonels…”

The Hand­bill and Call to Arms

In­deed, to pro­mote his mil­i­tary en­ter­prise, Mi­ran­da pub­lished a hand­bill cir­cu­lat­ed through­out Port of Spain on Ju­ly 21st, 1806, which, al­though de­scribed as fool­ish by Lieu­tenant Big­gs, in­duced peo­ple, both Venezue­lan and for­eign, to join Mi­ran­da’s cause. “The glo­ri­ous op­por­tu­ni­ty now presents it­self, of re­liev­ing from op­pres­sion and ar­bi­trary gov­ern­ment, a peo­ple who are wor­thy of a bet­ter fate; who ought to en­joy the bless­ing of the finest coun­try in the uni­verse, which boun­ti­ful prov­i­dence has giv­en them…” read the said hand­bill, and it end­ed with a mes­sage to the peo­ple of Trinidad: “And you, brave vol­un­teers of the is­land, who have nobly come for­ward to par­take with us our ho­n­ours, and to share with us our pros­per­i­ty, has­ten to fol­low those of­fi­cers un­der whose care you have been al­ready trained, and who are im­pa­tient to lead you on to vic­to­ry and wealth.”

Freema­son­ry, Manuel Gual and Sym­bol­ic Acts

But Mi­ran­da would al­so have in­clud­ed en­rich­ing and sym­bol­ic ac­tiv­i­ties while in Trinidad. In fact, he would not leave Trinidad with­out pay­ing trib­ute to one of his clos­est rev­o­lu­tion­ary as­so­ciates, Venezue­lan Manuel Gual, who, ac­cord­ing to the book Gen­er­al His­to­ry of Venezuela by Venezue­lan his­to­ri­an Miguel Án­gel Mu­dar­ra, had been as­sas­si­nat­ed by monar­chists in Trinidad six years ear­li­er, in 1800, af­ter lead­ing an im­por­tant in­sur­rec­tion against Span­ish rule in Cara­cas and La Guaira, along with Venezue­lan José María Es­paña, in 1797.

More­over, in his his­tor­i­cal nov­el From the Gates of Ak­sum, the late Trin­bag­on­ian his­to­ri­an Ger­ard Besson de­picts Mi­ran­da’s vis­it to St Joseph (San José de Oruña, Trinidad’s orig­i­nal cap­i­tal), with the ob­jec­tive of ac­quir­ing Manuel Gual’s death cer­tifi­cate and vis­it­ing his tomb. How­ev­er, to Mi­ran­da’s dis­may, there was nei­ther a death cer­tifi­cate to be seen nor a grave to be vis­it­ed, for Gual’s body had been ex­humed. Why? Besson ex­plains that Gual would have died from poi­son­ing and then would have been “buried with a fu­ner­al ser­vice that was hereti­cal, apos­tate, ag­nos­tic and pa­gan.”

Read­ing from Besson’s his­tor­i­cal nov­el, one con­cludes that the friend­ship be­tween Mi­ran­da and Gual was fur­ther sealed by Freema­son­ry. The de­scrip­tion of Gual’s fu­ner­al as “hereti­cal, apos­tate, ag­nos­tic and pa­gan” refers to the Catholic view of Ma­son­ic rit­u­als. Besson re­minds us that while in ex­ile in Port of Spain, Gual would have lived in the head­quar­ters of the Lodge Unit­ed Broth­ers, lo­cat­ed “in the town-house of the Cor­si­can planter Si­mon Agos­ti­ni.”

Al­so, Trin­bag­on­ian re­searcher Jalaludin Khan adds in his pa­per Free Ma­son­ry Links with Venezuela and Trinidad and the War for In­de­pen­dence that the Lodge Unit­ed Broth­ers, al­so known by its orig­i­nal French name as Les Frères Unis (first lo­cat­ed on Dun­can and Up­per Prince Street, and lat­er near Queen Street, La­van­tille, in Port of Spain), func­tioned as a safe har­bour for Caribbean, French, Span­ish and South Amer­i­can rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies dur­ing the late 18th and ear­ly 19th cen­turies.

More­over, Besson and Khan go fur­ther in ex­plain­ing that in 1798 Mi­ran­da would have found­ed the Lodge “Gran Re­unión Amer­i­cana” in Lon­don, “as an ide­o­log­i­cal so­ci­ety for in­de­pen­dence ac­tivists” (Khan). No­tably, such was the ex­cite­ment about Mi­ran­da’s vis­it to Trinidad among Freema­sons that Besson de­scribes in de­tail the Ma­son­ic cer­e­mo­ny tak­ing place to wel­come Mi­ran­da to the Unit­ed Broth­ers Lodge in Port of Spain.

“It re­lieved him of his mar­tial cloak, plumed, gold-trimmed lieu­tenant gen­er­al’s hat and ebony stick with its gold death’s head knob and as­sist­ed him with his apron, sash, col­lar and gold­en chain of Ven­er­a­ble Grand Maitre of La Gran Re­unión Amer­i­cana, found­ed by him,” (Besson).

De­par­ture and Ex­pe­di­tion to Venezuela

It was then time to leave Trinidad and head to­wards La Vela de Coro to lib­er­ate Venezuela. Big­gs’ en­try for Ju­ly 25th is de­vot­ed to the sail­ing, as well as some com­men­tary about their one-month stay in Trinidad: “At length we have weighed an­chor and bent our course for the land we are to de­liv­er. We are in the Gulf of Paria about 15 miles away from the Port of Spain, be­calmed. With the first fair wind, we shall run through the Bo­cas. The male­dic­tions of many and the bless­ings of few at­tend us from Trinidad, where we were far from be­ing pop­u­lar; though in­di­vid­u­als of us ex­pe­ri­enced great hos­pi­tal­i­ty and kind­ness from some of the in­hab­i­tants.”

In his re­port, Big­gs al­so pro­vides a list of the ves­sels, as well as oth­er as­sets, gath­ered by Mi­ran­da in Trinidad be­fore sail­ing: “The squadron con­sists of the Le­an­der, 16 guns, Lily, 24, Ex­press, 12, At­ten­tive, 14, Pro­vo, 10; Bull-dog, Dis­patch, Mas­tiff, gun boats of two and three guns; Trim­mer and Com­modore Bar­ry, un­armed mer­chant­men.” In­ter­est­ing­ly, Big­gs states that Mi­ran­da board­ed the Lily, not his beloved Le­an­der. In A Way in the World, Naipaul would have Mi­ran­da say­ing: “I will not be on the Le­an­der. I will be on H.M.S. Lily. This is Cochrane’s idea: he thinks that if there is a bat­tle, the Spaniards will go for the Le­an­der.”

Nev­er­the­less, one im­por­tant weapon not list­ed in Big­gs’ afore­men­tioned in­ven­to­ry was per­haps Mi­ran­da’s most ef­fec­tive one: a print­ing press. Un­til 1806 Venezuela did not have a print­ing press, al­beit Trinidad did have one by 1789, and at that time, Trinidad was part of the Gen­er­al Cap­tain­cy of Venezuela, as re­ferred to by Venezue­lan his­to­ri­an Ilde­fon­so Leal in his book The First Venezue­lan Jour­nal and the State of Cul­ture in the 18th Cen­tu­ry. There­fore, Mi­ran­da’s print­ing press, ob­tained in New York and tak­en with him on the Le­an­der, was meant to be the first one to be de­liv­ered in main­land Venezuela, as ex­plained by Mex­i­can his­to­ri­an Ma­ri­na Garone Gravier in her es­say The Be­gin­nings of the Print­ing Press in Venezuela from Some Sec­ondary Sources in Mex­i­co. How­ev­er, Garone Gravier ex­plains that Mi­ran­da sold his print­ing press to Ma­teo Gal­lagher and Diego Lamb up­on his re­turn to Trinidad af­ter his fail­ure at La Vela de Coro. Iron­i­cal­ly, both Gal­lagher and Lamb lat­er took Mi­ran­da’s print­ing press to Venezuela in 1808 to be put to the ser­vice of the Cara­cas Gazette, a pub­li­ca­tion by the Span­ish Crown in Venezuela.

With re­spect to Mi­ran­da’s re­turn to Trinidad af­ter his fail­ure at La Vela de Coro in 1806, who bet­ter than Besson to de­pict Mi­ran­da’s sec­ond – and last – ar­rival in Port of Spain, through Fort San An­drés, near Ma­rine Square (cur­rent­ly In­de­pen­dence Square): “He looked good, though, Smart. He was fresh­ly shaven, his uni­form im­pec­ca­ble, his di­a­mond-stud­ded sword worn high on the hip, Russ­ian style. His boots gleamed; his spurs jin­gled. His hair white as snow.”

Mi­ran­da’s Lega­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go

Un­doubt­ed­ly, Mi­ran­da was an in­flu­encer of his time, a wide­ly trav­elled in­di­vid­ual in pos­ses­sion of one of the largest li­braries then, with a sub­stan­tial num­ber of fol­low­ers in the Amer­i­c­as and Eu­rope, as ex­plained by Venezue­lan Car­men Bo­hórquez, among oth­er re­searchers and his­to­ri­ans. This is why, as you trav­el to­day along the Bay of Ch­aguara­mas in north-west­ern Trinidad, fac­ing the shin­ing Gulf of Paria, and head in­side the Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um, you will see a scowl­ing bust of Gen­er­al Fran­cis­co de Mi­ran­da with an in­scrip­tion that reads: “Un­veiled on the Bi­cen­ten­ni­al of His De­par­ture from Trinidad in 1806 to Start the South Amer­i­can Wars of In­de­pen­dence.”

Such is a 20-year-old to­ken of ap­pre­ci­a­tion from Venezuela to Trinidad and To­ba­go, ac­knowl­edg­ing the sup­port pro­vid­ed by Trinidad to Mi­ran­da. A hero­ic deed that still calls for fur­ther re­search and pub­li­ca­tions to strength­en the in­deli­ble cul­tur­al and aca­d­e­m­ic re­la­tion­ship that binds both coun­tries to­geth­er.