The battle began at dawn and lasted approximately six hours. The royalist troops were numerically superior to the patriotic troops. The patriots were left with 200 prisoners, four flags and numerous artillery pieces. In this single clash, passionate and violent, more than 500 horsemen of Yáñez, the Ñaña of the Llaneros, perished with their lance. The battalion that fought here on the last day of Barquisimeto was punished by the Liberator, denying him the name and the right to carry a flag. On April 10, 1851, by decree of the Congress of the Republic under the mandate of General José Gregorio Monagas, the territory that currently makes up the state of Portuguesa became a province, with Guanare as its capital.