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.

At the age of 16 Boves was licensed to be a pilot in the merchant marine, later joining the Pla y Portal company, which traded between Spain and the Americas.

[1] He participated in the unsuccessful attempts to stop Santiago Mariño's invasion of eastern Venezuela, and after the royalist government collapsed, he was granted temporary permission to act at his own discretion by his superior, Field Marshal Juan Manuel Cajigal.

Making use of his knowledge of the llanos, he amassed a large army of llaneros, known as the Legions of Hell,[2] most of whom were Indigenous, pardo (mixed-race), and formerly enslaved, that dominated the south of the country for the next two years until his death.

Boves's army became feared for its liberal use of pillage and summary executions, which became notorious even in this period when such actions were common on both sides of the conflict.

His actions laid the groundwork for Pablo Morillo's expeditionary force to easily occupy Venezuela and to spend its massive resources in neighboring New Granada.