Cádiz could be convened. Establishment On 18 April 1810, agents of the Spanish Regency arrived in the city of Caracas. After considerable political tumult, the local nobility announced an extraordinary open hearing of the cabildo (the municipal council), set for the morning of 19 April, Maundy Thursday. On that day, an expanded municipal government of Caracas took power in the name of Ferdinand VII, calling itself The Supreme Junta to Preserve the Rights of Ferdinand VII (La Suprema Junta Conservadora de los Derechos de Fernando VII) and consequently deposed Captain General Vicente Emparán and other colonial officials. This initiated a process that would lead to a declaration of independence from Spain. Soon after 19 April, many other Venezuelan provinces also established juntas, most of which recognized the Caracas one (though a few recognized both the Regency in Spain and the Junta in Caracas). Still other regions never established juntas, but rather kept their established authorities and continued to recognize the government in Spain. This situation consequently led to a civil war between Venezuelans who were in favor of the new autonomous juntas and those still loyal to the Spanish Crown. The Caracas Junta called for the convention of a congress of the Venezuelan provinces which began meeting the following March, at which time the Junta dissolved itself. The Congress set up a triumvirate to handle the executive functions of Congress and of the provinces that supported it. Shortly after the juntas were set up, Venezuelan émigré Francisco de Miranda had returned to his homeland taking advantage of the rapidly changing political climate. He had been a persona non grata since his failed attempt at liberating Venezuela in 1806. Miranda was elected to the Congress and began agitating for independence, gathered around him a group of similarly-minded individuals, who formed an association, modeled on the Jacobin Club, to pressure the Congress. Independence was formally declared on 5 July 1811. The Congress established a Confederation called the American Confederation of Venezuela in its Declaration of Independence, referred variously as States of Venezuela (in its opening sentence) and afterwards United States of Venezuela, and American Confederation of Venezuela in the Constitution, crafted mostly by lawyer Juan Germán Roscio, that it ratified on 21 December 1811. The Constitution created a strong bicameral legislature and, as also happened in neighboring New Granada, the Congress kept the weak executive consisting of a triumvirate. This government was