Manuel García de Sena y Silva

Manuel García de Sena y Silva ( 1780 – before 1838) was a Venezuelan translator. His translations of revolutionary texts of the United States while living in Philadelphia—including Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States—contributed to the independence movement in Spanish America during the 1810s. These translations were widely distributed and influenced the early constitutions of several Latin American republics. After returning to South America, García de Sena held positions in the revolutionary government of Cartagena Province.

Biography García de Sena was born 1780 to Ramón García de Sena y Rodríguez and raised in La Victoria, Aragua. He was a cadet in an Aragua militia battalion in 1802 under Bernardo Rodríguez del Toro Ascanio, the father-in-law of Simón Bolívar. He joined his brother Domingo in Philadelphia in 1803, where he was exposed to American revolutionary literature. The 288-page volume was printed in Philadelphia in the mid-summer of 1811 and was shortened in later editions to La Independencia.

The full title of La Independencia indicated García de Sena's revolutionary sympathies in applying the American texts to the situation in Spanish America; translated into English, it reads ''The Independence of Costa Firme ("Costa Firme" refers to parts of present-day Colombia, Panama and Venezuela.) This volume was dedicated to the "Spanish Americans" in support of their fight for independence. He was one of several translators of U.S. and European texts that influenced the South American revolutions, including Francisco de Miranda, Juan Picornell and .