Roscio, Juan Germán (1763–1821)

Juan Germán Roscio (b. 27 May 1763; d. 10 March 1821), Venezuelan political activist and ideologue in the movement for independence. Roscio earned doctorates in canonical and civil law from the University of Caracas, where he was later a professor, and held the post of provisional treasurer in the Audiencia of Caracas. He played a role in the declaration of a cabildo abierto and in the ouster of the Spanish governor on 19 April 1810 in Caracas and was a member of the Junta Suprema de Caracas, secretary of foreign affairs, and representative to the Constituent Congress of 1811. Roscio helped draw up the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of 1811, distinguishing himself as one of the foremost publicists regarding the American right to independence.

With the fall of the First Republic in 1812, Roscio was sent to the military prison in Ceuta, Africa. When released, he traveled to Jamaica in 1816 and later to Philadelphia, where he published his principal work, El triunfo de la libertad sobre el despotismo (1817). In 1818 he returned to Venezuela, became editor of El Correo del Orinoco, presided at the Congress of Angostura in 1819, and was appointed vice president of the department of Venezuela. Later that year, when Gran Colombia was formed (17 December 1819), he was appointed vice president of that new republic.

See alsoCaracas, Audiencia of .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benito Raúl Losada, Juan Germán Roscio, 1763–1821 (1953).

Juan Germán Roscio, Obras, 3 vols. (1953).

Pedro Grases, El catecismo religioso político del Doctor Juan Germán Roscio (1964).

Additional Bibliography

Ruiz, Nydia M. El pensamiento teológico-político de Juan Germán Roscio. Caracas: Ediciones La Casa de Bell, 1992.

Ugalde, Luis. Las confesiones de un pecador arrepentido: Juan Germán Roscio y los orígenes del discurso liberal venezolano. Caracas: Fondo Editorial Tropykos/Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, 1996.

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