Santiago Mariño Carige Fitzgerald (25 July 1788 in Valle Espíritu Santo, Margarita – 4 September 1854 in La Victoria, Aragua), was a nineteenth-century Venezuelan revolutionary leader and hero in the Venezuelan War of Independence (1811–1823). He became an important leader of eastern Venezuela and for a short while in 1835 seized power over the new state of Venezuela.
Family
His father was the captain of the "Santiago Mariño de Acuña" militias and "Lieutenant Greater Justice of the Gulf of Paria". His mother, Atanasia Carige Fitzgerald, of Creole and Irish descent, was from Chaguaramas in the island of Trinidad, where his parents resided while he was a boy. He had a sister, Concepción Mariño. Due to his parents' wealth he was well educated. After his father's death in 1808, he moved to the island of Margarita (about 250 km west of Trinidad, off the Venezuelan coast), to take possession of his inheritance.
Masonry
Mariño was also one of the greatest figures in the history of Freemasonry in Venezuela, although he was apparently initiated in Trinidad. He was awarded the title of "Serenismo Gran Maestro del Gran Oriente Nacional" ('The Most Serene Grand Master of the Great National East", a title equivalent to the modern Grand Master).
Revolutionary Wars
Napoleonic Wars: War of Spanish Independence (1808–1814)
The rise of the revolutionary movement in Venezuela was strongly influenced by the confusing and rapidly changing situation in Spain. Spain was initially against France in the Napoleonic Wars, but in 1795 France declared war on Spain which concluded an alliance with France and declared war on Great Britain. The British responded by blockading Spain, whose colonies were for the first time cut off from their colonial rulers, and began to trade independently with Britain.
British support for the Venezuelan revolutionaries from Trinidad
Thomas Picton, the first British Governor of Trinidad after the capitulation of the Spanish, who held office from 1797 to 1803, was a great support to the revolutionaries or "Patriots" in Venezuela. Soon after becoming governor, he issued a proclamation on 6 June 1797, based on suggestions from Britain, which stated:
"The object which at present I desire most particularly to bring to your attention, is the means which might best be adopted to liberate the people of the continent near to the Island of Trinidad from the oppressive and tyrannic system which supports with so much vigour the monopoly of commerce.... In order to fulfil this intention with the greater facility, it will be prudent for your Excellency to animate the inhabitants of Trinidad in keeping up the communication which they had with those of Tierra Firma previous to the reduction of that Island, under assurance that they will find there an entrepot or general magazines of every sort of every sort of goods whatsoever. To this end His Britannic Majesty has determined in Council to grant freedom to the ports of Trinidad, with a direct trade to Great Britain...."
Ironically, the 1807 devastating defeat of the British invasions of the River Plate in South America, largely by local militias, encouraged a more independent attitude in Spain's American colonies.
Spanish power weakens, paving the way to Independence
After the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), Spain changed sides again, only to realign itself with France after Napoleon defeated Prussia in 1807. However, Spain was had been severely weakened by all these wars, opening an opportunity for the revolutionaries in South America.
Following this, the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, was deposed by Napoleon in 1808. He had been on the throne just 48 days after his father Charles IV abdicated in his favor. He was replaced by Joseph Bonaparte, the elder brother of Napoleon, who ruled as king of Spain from 6 June 1808 to 11 December 1813. A "Supreme Central Junta" was formed to govern in the name of Ferdinand, marking the beginning of Spain's War of Independence from French domination.
Joseph Bonaparte and his brother, Napoleon, led a long and bitter war against the British forces under the Duke of Wellington, culminating in Napoleon being forced to allow the reinstatement of Ferdinand VII on 11 December 1813, who ruled Spain until his death in 1833.
First Republic
On 19 April 1810 the city council or cabildo of Caracas reformed itself as a Junta, soon to be followed by the provincial centres such as Barcelona, Cumaná, Mérida, and Trujillo. They saw themselves as allied with the Junta of Seville which ruled in the name of the king. Simón Bolívar saw the setting up of the Junta as a step toward outright independence.