Joaquín Infante

Lawyer, promoter of Cuban independence and creator of a Constitutional project for Cuba written and printed in Venezuela. He studied Law in La Habana. From 1809 on, he participated with a group of Freemasons in conspiracy movements against the Spanish regime. Persecuted in La Habana, he fled to the United States and then to Venezuela.

In 1811 he settled in Caracas where he worked as a lawyer. In Venezuela he participated in different revolutionary groups. In 1812, his Constitutional Project for the island of Cuba was published in Caracas. In this document he proposed the creation of four state powers—the Executive, Legislative, Judicial, and Military—the maintenance of the slavery regime, and an anticlerical tendency.

The following year he was appointed auditor of war in Puerto Cabello, alongside the then colonel Simón Bolívar. Captured in a military campaign by royalist forces, he was imprisoned and sent to Cuba to be tried.

In 1813 he was released by Cuban authorities. He then dedicated himself to publishing articles about his experiences in Venezuela. With the return of Fernando VII, he was persecuted for his Masonic ideas and emigrated to Cartagena.

In 1814 he met with Bolívar again. Two years later he arrived in the United States, where he established relations with some Venezuelans, among them Juan Germán Roscio, Mariano Montilla, and José Rafael Revenga. Later he participated in some battles in Mexico. It is known that he returned to Cartagena and Cuba. In 1825 he wrote to the Libertador who answered him from Lima. It was never known where or when he died and he does not usually appear among Cuban patriots.