Palacio Fajardo, Manuel (1784–1819)

Manuel Palacio Fajardo (b. 1784; d. 8 May 1819), diplomat and political activist in the Venezuelan independence movement. From early on Palacio Fajardo belonged to the independence movement. He was a member of the Constituent Congress of 1811. After the fall of the First Republic in 1812, he traveled to New Granada and was sent on a diplomatic mission to the United States and France. He later passed through London, where he devoted himself to garnering support for the cause of Venezuelan independence. While there, he published his book, Outline of the Revolution in Spanish America (1817), which was translated into French and German. He returned to Venezuela in 1818 with men and supplies for the war and was a participant in the Angostura Congress of 1819. On Simón Bolívar's request he revised and made suggestions for the speech that the former would present to that gathering. Palacio Fajardo also collaborated in El Correo del Orinoco, a newspaper dedicated to the independence cause, and in 1819 was designated the infant republic's secretary of finance.

See alsoAngostura, Congress of; Venezuela: The Colonial Era; Venezuela, Congresses of 1811, 1830, and 1864.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caracciolo Parra-Pérez, Una misión diplomática venezolana ante Napoleón en 1813 (1953).

José Abel Montilla, Manuel Palacio Fajardo (1956).

Amilcar Plaza Delgado, Manuel Palacio Fajardo (1975).

Additional Bibliography

Elliott, J. H. Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492–1830. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006.

Racine, Karen. Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003.

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