José Tomás Boves

José Tomás Boves (Oviedo, Asturias, September 18, 1782 – Urica, Venezuela, December 5, 1814), was a royalist caudillo of the Llanos during the Venezuelan War of Independence, particularly remembered for his brutality and atrocities against those who supported Venezuelan independence. Though nominally pro-Spanish, Boves showed little deference to any superior authority and independently carried out his own military campaign and political agenda, even challenging Royalist norms by arguing for land ownership to pass into the hands of the pardos, mestizos, and Indigenous rather than the landowning elite.