Mariano Montilla

Mariano Montilla (8 September 1782 in Caracas – 22 September 1851 in Caracas) was a major general of the Army of Venezuela in the Venezuelan War of Independence.

As a young man he went to Spain where he joined the American bodyguard company. In 1801, under the command of Manuel Godoy, he fought in the Oranges War between Spain and Portugal and was wounded at the battle of Olivenza. He then returned to Caracas. In 1808 he was active in the emerging revolution for the independence of Venezuela. Following the events of the where Montilla participated activelly, the commanding General and other colonial officials designated by Joseph Bonaparte to oversee the Captaincy General of Venezuela, were deposed by an expanded municipal government in Caracas that called itself: the Supreme Junta to Preserve the Rights of Ferdinand VII (La Suprema Junta Conservadora de los Derechos de Fernando VII). One of the first measures of revolutionaries was to send diplomatic missions abroad to seek support and recognition of the Supreme Junta of Caracas as the legitimate councilor of Venezuela in the absence of the King. Montilla along with Vicente Salias were sent by the Junta to Jamaica and Curaçao to spread the news about revolutionaries events in Venezuela. Later that year he was appointed commander of a squadron of militia volunteers from the valleys of Aragua. Subordinate first to the Marquis del Toro, then to Francisco de Miranda, in 1811 he fought in the insurgency that erupted in Valencia. Between 1811 and 1812 he retired to Philadelphia in the United States to recover his health.

After the campaign of 1813 Mariano Montilla joined the forces of Simón Bolívar and was engaged in several battles between 1813 and 1814. In 1814, following defeat by the royalists, he was forced to emigrate to Cartagena de Indias in the New Granada, where he undertook the defense of the city against the siege imposed by the Spanish general Pablo Morillo. He was named military governor of the city and promoted to colonel in 1815. When the city fell to Morillo army on December 6, 1815, he escaped to Haiti, and later aided general Bolívar in the unsuccessful naval . After a period of residence in the United States, in 1817 he took command of the island of Margarita, from which base he led the campaigns against Barcelona and Cumana.

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