Margarita campaign

Margarita campaign
Part of the Venezuelan War of Independence
File:Map of Nueva Esparta.svg Map of Margarita Island.
Date 14 July – 17 August 1817 Location Margarita Island, Venezuela Result Decisive patriot victory
Belligerents
Spanish Empire	Third Republic of Venezuela
Commanders and leaders
Pablo Morillo José María Chacón y Sánchez de Soto Carlos Tolrá	Francisco Esteban Gómez José Joaquín Maneiro Meneses
Strength
3,000 troops 22 ships (3 corvettes, 5 brigs, 5 schooners, 1 felucca, 4 flecheras and 2 gunboats)	1,300 men (poorly armed infantry, 200 cavalry and some artillery)

The Margarita campaign () was a Spanish military expedition that took place on Margarita Island, Venezuela, between 14 July and 17 August 1817 during the Venezuelan War of Independence. Its aim was to suppress the patriot insurgency that controlled the island. After being repulsed at the Battle of Matasiete and at Juan Griego, the Spanish forces under General Pablo Morillo re-embarked, leaving Margarita definitively in patriot hands. The island would serve for the rest of the war as one of the main patriot military bases, from which weapons and reinforcements were funnelled to the mainland.

Background

On 4 May 1810, Margarita Island recognised the authority of the Supreme Junta of Caracas. Two years later, slave uprisings in Margarita and in Cumaná and the killings of Mantuanos in the name of the king were among the events that brought down the First Republic of Venezuela.

The royalist commander Juan Domingo de Monteverde appointed Pascual Martínez as governor of the island. Martínez imprisoned numerous revolutionary leaders — including Juan Bautista Arismendi — in early 1813, in open violation of the Capitulation of San Mateo of 25 July 1812. These measures provoked widespread resentment among the islanders. The dungeon of the Castillo San Carlos de Borromeo was used as the main prison.

On 12 June 1813, José Rafael de Guevara led a revolt that forced Martínez to capitulate. The royalist governor was imprisoned in the same dungeon and Arismendi was acclaimed governor. On 3 August, Arismendi assisted Santiago Mariño in the capture of Cumaná and, applying Simón Bolívar's decree of War to the death, led the brutal executions of Peninsulars and Canary Islanders in La Guaira and Caracas in February 1814. Throughout that year, Margarita served as a refuge for defeated revolutionaries fleeing the massacres carried out by the llaneros of José Tomás Boves. While Arismendi was returning to the island, his replacement Manuel Piar led a small army to Cumaná but was quickly defeated by Boves at El Salado on 16 October. Piar then took refuge in Guayana Province.

Arismendi had 400 troops when the "Pacifying Expedition" of Pablo Morillo landed at Pampatar on 9 April 1815. Shortly before, governor José Francisco Bermúdez and 300 men, mostly officers, had escaped to Cartagena de Indias. On 11 April, La Asunción was occupied. Arismendi surrendered without fighting and begged Morillo on his knees for mercy. The Spanish general, convinced of his repentance, pardoned him and even dined with him, ignoring the advice of Francisco Tomás Morales — Boves's successor — who urged severity toward Arismendi given his role in the previous year's killings. On 25 April Morillo sailed to Cumaná to begin the Siege of Cartagena (1815). Simón Bolívar was preparing the Expedition of Los Cayos in Haiti and needed a secure base. Arismendi resolved to recover the island for the independence cause, breaking his pact with Morillo, and furious with the royalist authorities because his wife Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi remained imprisoned in dire conditions.

Rebellion

File:Caribbean - Isla Margarita.PNG

Location of Margarita Island in the Caribbean Sea.

In November 1815, Arismendi wrote letters to several contacts on the island calling them to a conspiracy. The plotters arranged to meet at the village of Los Martínez on 15 November, but on the previous night the royalist commander Urreiztieta learned of the plan and attacked them, killing many of the conspirators. Arismendi took refuge in the woods of the San Juan valley with thirty men, three muskets and 120 cartridges. On 16 November he stormed Juan Griego, slaughtering the defenders with machetes. With the help of the local population he massacred the 200-man garrison, of whom only three or four escaped; he captured 80 muskets and other weapons. That same evening the rebels rallied 1,500 men, most armed only with machetes and hoes, and repulsed a counter-attack by Urreiztieta. Two further attacks were repelled at dawn on 17 November in the village of Villa del Norte, pushing the royalists into the Castillo Santa Rosa and the Pampatar fortifications. Urreiztieta then sacked the villages of San Juan and Norte in reprisal.

On 27 and 28 November the patriot commander offered the royalist governor terms to capitulate and evacuate the island peacefully, but Urreiztieta refused. On 5 December Arismendi was repulsed at La Línea, on the outskirts of the provincial capital La Asunción. On 14 December the royalists fell back to Pampatar, leaving Castillo Santa Rosa under a small garrison commanded by Francisco Maya. On 15 December a patriot assault was repulsed; on 16 December the defenders killed seven prisoners as a warning, to which the patriots responded by executing 13 officers and 178 soldiers held at Norte. Urreiztieta then offered 25,000 pesos for Arismendi's head and on 17 December received reinforcements of 250 infantry and 100 dragoons, with which he led a raid against the Espíritu Santo hamlet, which he burned to the ground.

On 3 January 1816, the governor left Pampatar with 400 troops and the next day broke the siege lines around Castillo Santa Rosa, resupplying the defenders. Much of the nearby village was burned in the fighting. On 12 January, 600 royalist reinforcements landed under the command of Brigadier Juan Bautista Pardo and Colonel Salvador Gorrín. Meanwhile, Urreiztieta was trapped in Castillo Santa Rosa; the reinforcements had to march to relieve him. The governor managed to break out via the San Juan valley, burning the town of San Juan but being forced back to the fortress. On 25 January, Urreiztieta was wounded in combat. Four days later the royalists threatened to execute Arismendi's wife and newborn son if he did not surrender, which only intensified the brutality of the conflict.

Colonel Juan Aldama relieved the governor and in mid-February Pardo returned to Pampatar with 250 reinforcements and 200,000 rations. At that point Pardo wrote to the captain general, Brigadier Salvador de Moxó y Quadrado Morato y Naranjo (c. 1777–after 1817), to request further reinforcements or warn that he would have to evacuate the island, his position being untenable. On 9 March the rebels unsuccessfully attempted to storm Pampatar. The next day two royalist columns sallied from Pampatar and Porlamar to plunder the Margarita valley, meeting no resistance. A further assault on Castillo Santa Rosa on 15 March was also repulsed. By that time the royalists were writing to Morillo to request reinforcements for Venezuela. Events on Margarita led Morillo to harden his repression of the Creoles, since the islanders had applied the War to the death decree on the island, refusing to grant further pardons.

Los Cayos expeditions

Main article: Expedition of Los Cayos

File:AGHRC (1890) - Carta VII - Guerras de independencia en Colombia, 1815-1819.jpg

Map of military operations between 1815 and 1819.

Meanwhile, Bolívar was assembling an expeditionary force with the help of Alexandre Pétion, head of the State of Haiti. On 31 March 1816 he sailed from Port-au-Prince and on 3 May reached Margarita. Four days later he met Arismendi but, rather than committing to the conquest of the entire island, Bolívar preferred to continue to the mainland. Nevertheless, news of the expedition spread alarm among the royalists, who abandoned Castillo Santa Rosa — the fortress was later demolished by Arismendi — and withdrew to Pampatar. On 13 May, Bolívar offered Pardo a safe conduct if he handed over Pampatar, but Pardo refused. On 1 June Bolívar sailed for Carúpano.

Increasingly concerned with patriot operations elsewhere, the royalists were unable to prevent the fall of Pampatar on 3 November, and had to evacuate their remaining positions on the island. On 20 December Arismendi occupied Barcelona with 400 troops. Eight days later Bolívar returned to Juan Griego, and on 31 December landed at Barcelona, marking a new phase of the war. Around the same time Morillo returned to Venezuela from New Granada with more than 3,500 Spanish reinforcements.

Campaign

File:Pablo-morillo.jpg

Pablo Morillo, the Spanish commander.

In mid-1817 Morillo's second-in-command, Brigadier Miguel de la Torre, was being besieged by Bolívar at Angostura. Recognising that the rebels were occupied on that front and that he had to cut their supply route, Morillo decided to invade Margarita. After General José de Canterac had expelled Mariño from Cariaco on 10 June, Morillo began concentrating a powerful force of 3,000 troops and 22 ships to invade the island. The fleet was placed under the command of Admiral José María Chacón y Sánchez de Soto (1747–1833).

The expedition sailed on 14 July, and disembarkation began on 22 July, although the Spanish met strong resistance from Colonel José Joaquín Maneiro Meneses, chief of staff to General Gómez. Engagements followed on 23 and 26 July at Porlamar and Pampatar respectively, and the patriots were forced to entrench at La Asunción and especially at Juan Griego. On 30 July, the Spanish commander decided to storm Cerro Matasiete in order to enter La Asunción. In the battle that followed on 31 July, the Spanish came up against well-prepared positions — ditches, parapets, trenches and a redoubt placed against the hillside and a nearby river, together with a small artillery position known as "La Libertad" on a precipice. The patriot commander, General Francisco Esteban Gómez (1783–1853), nearly died that day, but after hours of fighting under fire from every direction the defenders held the position. That same day Morillo had sent his fleet to bombard Juan Griego, Manzanillo, Paraguachí and Constanza. At dawn the royalists withdrew to Pampatar, suffering an ambush at the Gasparico lagoon in which they lost some 900 men.

The royalists suffered a further defeat at Los Robles on 3 August, forcing Morillo to fall back to Pampatar on 4 August. Two days later, Morillo was defeated when he tried to occupy the village of San Juan. Finally, on 8 August, the assault on Juan Griego ended with the capture of the town, though at heavy cost. By this point the Spanish forces were depleted and demoralised, and news began to arrive that Bolívar had taken control of Guayana Province. Recognising that his veterans would be needed more on other fronts — Bolívar could now attack from the east — Morillo decided to begin the re-embarkation on 17 August. Margarita passed definitively into patriot hands.

Aftermath

The island spent the rest of the war as one of the principal patriot military bases, channelling weapons and mercenaries to the mainland. On 20 August the Spanish forces returned to Caracas. Bolívar and Morillo would eventually face each other again in the central Venezuelan campaign.

See also

• Venezuelan War of Independence
• Battle of Matasiete
• Expedition of Los Cayos
• Spanish reconquest of New Granada

Bibliography

• Esteves González, Edgar (2004). Batallas de Venezuela, 1810-1824 (in español). Caracas: El Nacional. ISBN 978-980-388-074-3. Search this book on
• López Contreras, Eleazar (2005) [1930]. Bolívar, conductor de tropas (in español). Caracas: Presidencia de la República. Search this book on
• Marley, David (2008). Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the Western Hemisphere, 1492 to the Present. II. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-100-8. Search this book on
• Montenegro Colón, Feliciano (1837). Geografía general para el uso de la juventud de Venezuela (in español). IV. Caracas: Imprenta de Damiron y Dupouy. Search this book on
• Restrepo, José Manuel (1945). Historia de la revolución de la República de Colombia en la América Meridional (in español). V. Bogotá: Ministerio de Educación Nacional. Search this book on

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