Battle of Matasiete
1817 battle
The Battle of Matasiete was a battle in the Venezuelan War of Independence that took place on 31 July 1817 near the city of La Asunción on Isla Margarita in Venezuela.
It was fought between pro-independence Republican revolutionaries led by Francisco Esteban Gómez and Spanish Royalist forces under the command of Pablo Morillo.
The outcome was a Spanish defeat.
Background
The revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar arrived in the island of Margarita in May 1816. On 6 May 1816 Bolívar declared the Third Republic of Venezuela and an Assembly of Notables recognized Simón Bolívar as Supreme Chief in the church of Santa Ana. Bolívar then went on to the mainland. That year the Republicans were generally successful in their struggle with the Royalist forces. The Spanish general Pablo Morillo returned to Venezuela in December 1816, and decided to first take Margarita, then move on to Guayana Province, both important Republican bases. After some difficulties in collecting supplies and troops, Morillo sailed to Margarita in late June 1817, where he steadily gained control in a hard-fought campaign.
On 24 July 1817 Morillo occupied the San Carlos de Borromeo Fortress at Pampatar, at the southeast tip of the island a few miles from Asunción.
“Battle of Matasiete” enters the record as 1817 battle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Matasiete and battle can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8244305. Authority coordinates are 11.037, -63.852. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1817 and 1816.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Matasiete” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.