Battle of the Mosquito Nets: An independence strategy that defeated Boves

Published at: 14/10/2024 08:56 AM

The royalist forces, commanded by José Tomás Boves, were defeated on October 14, 1813, by the patriots Vicente Campo Elías and Manuel Cedeño, in the Sabana de Mosquiteros, present-day Guárico state.

After the Second Republic, it was in the middle of 1813, after the Admirable Campaign and the Eastern Campaign. The Liberator Simon Bolivar, with his Decree of War to the Death, orders the execution of more than 1,000 Spanish and Canarian prisoners in Valencia and La Guaira.

Under the command of the fighting armies, Bolívar and General Santiago Mariño by the independence fighters, they faced the Captain of the Frigate and self-appointed Captain General, Domingo Monteverde. The realist forces were distributed in Venezuelan territory, and so they began to reorganize to return to the offensive, but it wasn't until the Boves Campaign that the realists took up the initiative and began to attack from their strongholds on the coast.

By the month of September of the same year, Boves was moving towards the Calabozo plains to neutralize this action, gathering a powerful army of mulatas, Indians and slaves, while on the other hand Bolívar was preparing for a double offensive. Major General Rafael Urdaneta attacked with 700 infants and a squad the Western provinces where the realist governor of Coro, Lieutenant Colonel Campo Elías, was working to suppress the Boves revolt with 1,000 recruited infants in Chaguaramas and San Sebastián and 1,500 horsemen from the first city, since days before Colonel Tomás Montilla was sent with 600 men to subdue the leader. When he arrived in Villa del Cura, Montilla sent Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Padrón with the vanguard to attack the realist, but his was destroyed on September 23 in the Caño de Santa Catalina and five days later Boves took Dungeon.

Finally, on October 14, 1813, the patriots arrived in Sa Bana de Mosquiteros, two peninsular Spaniards fought for opposing causes, Colonel Vicente Campo Elías, the same one who swore to “Annihilate the Spaniards” being the same Spaniard, but commanded in favor of the patriot cause, carrying out orders from Bolívar with 1,300 men, attacked, while José Tomas Boves, feared for bloodthirsty and cruel, was in charge of about 2,500 laneros, he supported the realistic cause, although not it was precisely out of loyalty to King Ferdinand VII, but because of the hatred he had for white Creoles.

Campo Elías launches the attack, with the support of the infantry, Maya, Torres and Cedeño charged against the realistic squadrons, with whose action the victory was obtained. Campo Elías took the city, and Boves was forced to retreat with only 17 of his men. Later he arrived in Guayabal where he began to reorganize his new army, which would number more than 6,000 men: Llaneros, Indians, mulattos, blacks and all those whose hatred of whites could exploit, were known as “the Infernal Legion”.

The historic site is located in the Mosquiteros sector (Hato el Mosquito Net), 25 kilometers from the city of Calabozo to El Calvario, where there is a small monument built by the Mayor's Office of the Francisco de Miranda municipality (Guárico).

CAVIM PRESS