13 Facts About Manuel Piar

Manuel Carlos Maria Francisco Piar Gomez was General-in-Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan War of Independence.

The son of Fernando Alonso Piar y Lottyn, a Spanish merchant seaman of Canarian origin and Maria Isabel Gomez, a Dutch woman born to an Afro-Venezuelan father and a Dutch mother in Willemstad, Curacao, Piar grew up as a humble quadroon subject to the discriminating limits imposed by the social norms of colonial times.

Manuel Piar arrived in Venezuela with his mother when he was ten years old and set up residence in La Guaira.

Manuel Piar started in the navy and was deployed to Puerto Cabello.

Manuel Piar lost an engagement with the forces of Jose Tomas Boves near El Salado.

Manuel Piar then asked for leave, which was granted to him in June 1817.

Besides independence, Manuel Piar wanted greater power-sharing, social rights, and political rights for the mestizos.

Unhappy with the way mestizos had been treated by the insular Spaniards under the colonial system, Manuel Piar had hoped for better treatment for the mestizos after the defeat of the royalists.

Together with Manuel Piar were other very senior military commanders opposed to Bolivar's leadership.

However, unlike Manuel Piar, they were white-criollos and their reasons for opposing Bolivar were certainly different from the need to support mestizo rights.

In what is one of the independence struggle's darkest episodes, Bolivar ordered Manuel Piar arrested and tried for desertion, insubordination, and conspiring against the government.

Since Manuel Piar was the only one charged and arrested in this episode, it is generally agreed that Bolivar simply needed to make an example of a single general from among the military leadership.

Manuel Piar was arrested on September 28,1817, and was judged by a court martial which found him guilty on all charges; and on October 15 sentenced him to death.