Antonio Villavicencio y Verástegui (January 9, 1775 – June 6, 1816) was a statesman and soldier of New Granada, born in Quito, and educated in Spain.

[7] There he found the political situation very tense, and the Governor of Cartagena, Francisco Montes, was using violence and terror to control the province.

The people of Cartagena had called for an open cabildo, a sort of public forum, to discuss the situation and devise a solution, but the Governor was opposed to this proposal.

[8] On May 10 the Ayuntamiento of Cartagena formed a junta, composed of native-born Spaniards (peninsulares) and locally born people of Spanish ancestry (criollos) alike; among them were: Antonio Villavicencio, Carlos Montúfar, Governor Francisco Montes, and José María García de Toledo.

The Junta recognized the Crown of Spain and Ferdinand VII as King of Spain, rather than Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte, whom he had installed on the Spanish throne as José I. Villavicencio found no reason to oppose the desire for local autonomy as long as the Junta de Cartagena acknowledged the supremacy of the Crown.

Using the arrival of Villavicencio as an excuse, they went to the house of José Gonzales Llorente to borrow a flower vase; he refused, and insulted them as well.

On October 5, 1814, The Congress of the United Provinces replaced the presidency with a Triumvirate, a three-member executive body, to govern the nation.

[12] Villavicencio accepted and on August 12, he resigned his post as Governor of Tunja,[12] and headed to Santafé de Bogotá, where he was inaugurated as President of the Triumvirate of the United Provinces of the New Granada.

[16] Thus Villavicencio, whose visit to Santafé had aroused the anger of the royalists and led to the colony breaking away from Spain, became the first victim of the reign of terror begun with the pacificación (pacification) campaign of the Spanish general, Pablo Morillo,[17] under which many other revolutionaries were sentenced to death, imprisoned or exiled.