<P> In neighboring New Granada tensions also existed with the Crown but had not evolved into an outright desire for separation . In 1779 the Revolt of the Comuneros pitted middle - class and rural residents against the royal authorities over the issue of new taxes instituted as part of the Bourbon Reforms . Although the revolt was stopped and the leaders punished or executed, the uprising did manage to slow down the economic reforms that the Crown had planned for New Granada . In the subsequent decades, a few New Granadans, like Antonio Nariño, became intrigued by the ideas of the French Revolution and attempted to promote its values by disseminating translated documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen . Again, this was a minority and not necessarily a sign that the majority in New Granada did not see themselves as members of the Spanish Monarchy . </P> <P> The break with the Crown came in 1808 with the disappearance of a stable government in Spain . The crisis was precipitated by Napoleon's removal of Bourbon Dynasty from the throne of Spain (he convinced Ferdinand VII to abdicate, and his father Charles IV to renounce any claim to returning to the throne he had abdicated only months earlier) and his invasion of Spain . As the entire Spanish world rejected the new Bonaparte Dynasty (Napoleon gave the crown of Spain to his brother, the King of Naples and Sicily), Spain itself fell into chaos and it took almost a year for a coordinated, centralized provisional government (the Supreme Central and Governmental Junta of Spain and the Indies) to form . Even then, the rapid and large French advances in the Peninsula seemed to make the idea of a stable government in Spain pointless . By 1810, the Supreme Junta was cornered in the island city of Cadiz during the two - year Siege of Cádiz . Throughout Spanish America, people felt it was time to take the government into their own hands, if a Spanish world, independent of the French, were to continue to exist at all, and therefore in 1810 juntas were set up throughout the Americas, including in Caracas and Bogotá, just as they had been in Spain two years earlier . </P> <P> In 1809 a twenty - six - year - old Bolívar had retreated to his estate in the Valleys of Aragua, refusing to openly participate in calls for the establishment of a Venezuelan junta, because the plans did not consider the option of independence . He was still in his country estates when a junta was successfully established on April 19, 1810 . The new Junta of Caracas chose him to be part of a delegation to the United Kingdom to seek British aid . The delegation did not have much success, but Bolívar did return in December 1810 with Francisco de Miranda, who saw an opportunity in the political turmoil to return to Venezuela . </P> <P> Civil war broke out between the provinces of Venezuela that recognized the Caracas Junta and those that still recognized the Regency in Spain that had replaced the Supreme Central Junta . The situation became more tense when a congress, called by the Caracas Junta, declared independence on July 5, 1811, sparking rebellions in favor of the Regency and Cádiz Cortes in Valencia . Bolívar's first military service was as an officer under Miranda's command in the units created to put down this revolt . Bolívar was promoted to colonel and made commandant of Puerto Cabello the following year . At the same time that Frigate Captain Domingo de Monteverde was making fast and vast advances into republican territory from the west (his forces had entered Valencia on May 3, 1812), Bolívar lost control of San Felipe Castle along with its ammunition stores on June 30, when the royalist prisoners held there managed to take it over and attack the small number of troops in the city . Deciding that the situation was lost, Bolívar effectively abandoned his post and retreated to his estate farm in San Mateo . Miranda also saw the republican cause as lost and authorized a capitulation with Monteverde on July 25 . </P>

When did bolivar defeats spain in south america