Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez (commonly known as Francisco de Miranda March 28, 1750 – July 14, 1816) was a South American revolutionary whose own plan for the independence of the Spanish American colonies failed, but who is regarded as a forerunner of Simón Bolívar and other more effective American fighters for independence.

His greatest contribution is probably in the independence struggle for the liberation of the colonies in Spanish America. Miranda envisioned an independent empire consisting of all the territories which had been under Spanish and Portuguese rule, stretching from the Mississippi River to Cape Horn. The empire would be under the leadership of a hereditary emperor called "Inca" to appease the Native Americans and would have a bicameral legislature. He conceived the name "Colombia" for this empire, after the explorer Christopher Columbus.

With British help, Miranda made an invasion attempt of Venezuela in 1806. He landed at the port of La Vela de Coro, where the tricolour Venezuelan flag was raised for the first time. Among the volunteers who served under him in this revolt was David G. Burnet of the United States, who would later serve as interim president of the Republic of Texas after its secession from Mexico in 1836.

After Venezuela achieved de facto independence on April 19, 1810, Simón Bolívar persuaded Miranda to return to his native land, where he was made a general in the revolutionary army. When the country formally declared independence on July 5, 1811, he assumed dictatorial powers.

The Spanish forces counterattacked (see Venezuelan War of Independence), and Miranda, fearing a brutal and hopeless defeat, signed an armistice with them in July 1812. Bolivar and other revolutionaries believed his surrender was treason and thwarted Miranda's attempt to escape; they handed him over to the Spanish Royal Army. He died in a prison in Cádiz, Spain, in 1816. An oil painting by the Venezuelan artist Arturo Michelena titled Miranda en la Carraca (1896) that portrays the hero in the Spanish jail where he died has become a graphic symbol of Venezuelan history and has immortalized the image of Miranda for generations of Venezuelans.