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The Spanish troops remaining in Venezuela were defeated by Bolivar in the battle of Carabobo, June 23, 1821. Only a few fortresses on the coast were still held by the Spaniards. Bolivar entered Caracas once more in triumph and tendered his resignation, an act always considered by him necessary for giving the proper dramatic setting to such occasions.
It is not our purpose to tell the whole story of this implacable war, but simply to relate the dramatic invasion and conquest of New Granada. It must suffice, then, to state that the war dragged on for two years longer, ending finally in 1821 with the victory of Carabobo, in which the Spaniards were totally defeated and lost more than six thousand men.
In order to debouch upon the Plain of Carabobo, the Patriots must penetrate a defile, forming a narrow and tortuous pass, the road through which was a mere seam at the base of a deep ravine.
As other independent commanders were harassing Latorre at different points, the Spaniard had to send some of his troops to repel these attacks, and so was forced to weaken his own army. Then he placed himself on the plain of Carabobo, where Bolivar, in 1814, had defeated the royalists commanded by Cagigal and Ceballos. There he was attacked by Bolivar on June 24, 1821.
The struggle for Venezuelan independence opened on April 19, 1810, in Caracas, and closed on June 24, 1821, at Carabobo. The Congress decreed the highest honors to the conquerors of Carabobo, ordered a day of public rejoicing throughout the whole country, and set the following day for the funerals of all those who had fallen on the field of battle.
Carabobo decided the War of Independence throughout South America. It snapped the chain which held Venezuela down, and the Spaniards, hemmed in for two years longer at Puerto Cabello, which place they defended with honorable pertinacity, were finally expelled from the free Republic in November, 1823. The city was taken by storm on the 7th of that month, and on the 9th the citadel surrendered.
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