Gaspar Marcano

Gaspar Melchor Marcano Boadas (5 January 1781 – 1821) was a Venezuelan lawyer, poet, soldier and politician who took part in the Venezuelan War of Independence and represented the Province of Margarita at the Congress of Angostura which proclaimed the Republic of Gran Colombia.

Early life

Marcano was born in San Juan Bautista on Margarita Island, at the time within the Province of Margarita of the Captaincy General of Venezuela, to José Domingo Marcano Hernández and Juana Boadas Marval, members of one of the island's long-established families. He was educated at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Caracas (today the Central University of Venezuela), where he graduated in law and developed a lasting interest in poetry.

Independence wars

Marcano joined the patriot cause from the earliest stages of the Venezuelan independence movement in 1810. He took part in several campaigns on Margarita Island, where local resistance against the Spanish Crown was especially intense, and supported general Juan Bautista Arismendi and the islanders during the Royalist sieges of 1816–1817. The town of San Juan Bautista, his birthplace, was burned twice by Royalist troops during these campaigns.

In 1819 he was elected as one of the deputies for the Province of Margarita at the Congress of Angostura convened by Simón Bolívar. At Angostura he signed the act that proclaimed the Republic of Gran Colombia, uniting the former Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Captaincy General of Venezuela. He continued to serve as a deputy of the Congress until shortly before his death.

Death

Marcano died in 1821 in Maracaibo, aged 40, during the final stages of the war of independence. The exact cause of death is not preserved in available sources.

Works

• Epopeya de Margarita (published posthumously in 1825) — an epic poem chronicling the resistance of the people of Margarita Island during the Venezuelan War of Independence.

Legacy

A square in his honour, Plaza Licenciado Gaspar Marcano, stands close to the parish church of San Juan Bautista. His grandson Vicente Marcano (1848–1891) would become one of the first internationally recognised Venezuelan scientists; a separate square in San Juan Bautista, the Plaza Dr. Vicente Marcano, commemorates him.

See also

• San Juan Bautista, Nueva Esparta
• Congress of Angostura
• Venezuelan War of Independence
• Juan Bautista Arismendi