You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (February 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,150 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Conspiración de Gual y España]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Conspiración de Gual y España}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

The Gual and España conspiracy (1797)^[1] was a pro-independence movement that originated in the port city of La Guaira in Colonial Venezuela.^[2] It was led by José María España and Manuel Gual, two white creoles.^[2] The Spanish revolutionary, Juan Bautista Mariano Picornell y Gomila, was involved. It is also believed that Simón Rodríguez, an early teacher of Simón Bolívar, was involved.^[3]

The conspiracy of Gual and España was reported on 13 July to Captain General Pedro Carbonell, who ordered a persecution against the conspirators, in which 49 Creoles and 21 Spaniards were arrested. Both Gual and España escaped to the neighboring English colony of Trinidad. A reward was put on their heads.

Despite the reward offered for his capture, in 1799, José María España secretly returned to Venezuela, but was arrested in La Guaira and sent to Caracas, where the Royal Court sentenced him to the death penalty on 6 May. He was tortured, hanged, beheaded and dismembered on 8 May in the Plaza Mayor (current Plaza Bolívar).
Manuel Gual remained in Trinidad, from where he maintained communication with the precursor Francisco de Miranda, who was in London. On 25 October 1800 he died in San José de Oruña, Trinidad, possibly poisoned by a Spanish spy named Valecillos.