Revolution of the Reforms

The "Godo's" were so named for their support of Spanish rule and Royalist allegiance during the independence war, while the "conservatives" were primarily white criollos, economically and politically liberal, led by General Páez and his followers.

Pedro Carujo, chief of the Anzoátegui battalion, and then-Captain Julián Castro, placed President Vargas under house arrest on 8 July.

After taking power in Caracas, on July 9, 1835, the military commander Pedro Briceño Méndez released a Manifesto in which he condemned both the National Constitution and the set of laws enacted during the presidency of José Antonio Páez, and it was proposed that the leadership of the reform process would be in charge of the Patriots who years before had shed their blood in the War of Independence.

[6] Páez, who had temporarily been removed from government, after the defeat of his candidate Carlos Soublette in the presidential elections of 1835, marched from his property in San Pablo, 190 km from Caracas, to support the dismissed authorities,[7] from 15 July 1835.

Given his military prestige and his popularity, when Páez passed through Valencia, Maracay and La Victoria, he recruited numerous militiamen and also part of the troops that, under the command of General José Laurencio Silva, had been sent from Caracas to fight it.

He established a Government Council and entrusted General José María Carreño in charge of the Presidency, at the same time he sent a commission to Saint Thomas to bring back Vargas and Narvarte.

Most of the rebels stopped fighting, but on 17 December 1835, a group of reformers under the command of Blas Bruzual and Pedro Carujo took the plaza of Puerto Cabello and declared the port under a state of siege.