Francisco de Miranda

1750–1816

Francisco de Miranda was a Venezuelan soldier, traveller and revolutionary whose career connected the American, French and Spanish Atlantic worlds. He served in the Spanish army, supported the American Revolution, became a general during the French Revolution and spent years seeking foreign support for Spanish American independence.

His 1806 expedition to Venezuela failed, but he returned in 1810 and became a leader of the first Venezuelan republic. After its collapse he was handed to the Spanish and died in prison in 1816. Francisco de Miranda was born in Caracas and died in Cádiz.

Robert Harvey’s Bolivar presents Francisco de Miranda as the veteran revolutionary whose earlier schemes for Spanish American independence draw the young Simón Bolívar into the Venezuelan struggle, before defeat and civil conflict divide them. Harvey’s Liberators broadens that treatment, making Miranda one of the principal figures in the continental collapse of Spanish rule alongside Bolívar, San Martín and O’Higgins. C. S. Forester’s Hornblower During the Crisis brings Miranda into the Napoleonic-era world of British naval strategy, reflecting the real attempts to enlist British support for an uprising against Spain in the Americas.

Periods

Periods linked to Francisco de Miranda

American Revolutionary Era1763–1783 CE French Revolution1789–1799 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Francisco de Miranda (1 series)

Hornblower Saga in Order

by C. S. Forester 12 books 4.3(138,286)

The Horatio Hornblower novels follow a Royal Navy officer from his first service as a midshipman during the French Revolutionary Wars to senior command after the defeat of Napoleon. The books combine shipboard life, naval combat, intelligence work, diplomacy and the practical burdens of command with Hornblower’s private…