page_title: Independence Day (Venezuela)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Independence Day (Venezuela) / History
caption_attribution_description: El 5 de Julio de 1811
context_page_description: Independence Day, also known as the Fifth of July is the national independence holiday of Venezuela, marked every year on July 5 which celebrates the anniversary since the enactment of the 1811 Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, making the country the first Spanish colony in South America to declare independence. In recent years, it is also marked as National Armed Forces Day to honor the faithful service of all the serving men and women and veterans of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela.
  The Caracas Independence Day parade, or Joint Civil-Military Parade of the 5th of July is one of the largest in the Americas.
  The other independence holiday is on 19 April, honoring the declaration of a local junta in Caracas on 19 April 1810, launching the road towards the First Republic of Venezuela and the start of the independence struggle.
context_section_description: The holiday marks the anniversary since the events of July 5, 1811 when delegates from the first National Constituent Congress which convened earlier on March 2 composed of many patriotic individuals from majority of the provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela which were elected by the populace of 7 of the 10 provinces (the remainder, Maracaibo Province, Coro Province and Guayana Province, remained loyal to Spanish rule and did not hold elections for their provincial representatives) officially resolved the issue of independence when it finished 2 days of discussions beginning on July 3 that year on that manner. The manner was put into vote in the Congressional session of July 5 and out of the 44 representatives, 40 voted for independence and 4 did not, a decision confirmed by the president of the Congress, Juan Antonio Rodríguez. 
  That same afternoon, representatives Cristóbal Mendoza and  Juan Germán Roscio presented to Congress the declaration of national independence with the approval of the secretary general, Francisco Isnardi. In the document, representatives from seven of the ten provinces belonging to the Captaincy General (Caracas Province, Cumaná Province, Barinas Province, Margarita Province, Barcelona Province, Mérida Province and Trujillo Province) declared their independence and explained their reasons for this action, among them, that it was baneful that a small European nation ruled the great expanses of the Americas (the New World), that Spanish America recovered its right to self-government after the abdications of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII at Bayonne, and that the political instability in Spain dictated that Venezuelans rule themselves, despite the brotherhood they shared with Spain and the Spanish people at large. The declaration proclaimed a new nation called the American Confederacy of Venezuela, as an independent state under the republican form of government on the basis of the 7 provinces belonging to the former Captaincy General.  The declaration was passed by Congress on July 7, with 43 votes for and one vote against, and was granted the full force of law in a decree published on July 8 by the president of the Executive Triumviate, Cristóbal Mendoza. It was later presented to the public in Caracas and read out in what is now the Plaza Bolivar on July 14, 1811.
caption: The National Constituent Congress on July 5, 1811.
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