José María Obando
(Caloto, Colombia, 1795-Cruzverde, 1861) Colombian politician.The son of two young men from the regional aristocracy, he was adopted at two years of age by Juan Luis Obando, a rich Pastuso merchant living in Popayán.Faithful to the royalist cause, José María Obando served as a young man in the king's armies; General Sebastián de la Calzada made him captain in 1819.Two years later he returned his position, supplies and men to the Spanish government and embraced the independence cause.
José María Obando
He developed a brilliant military career and obtained great popular fervor in southern Colombia, being promoted to colonel by Simón Bolívar.Later he rebelled against El Libertador and defeated Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera in the battle of La Ladera in 1828.Although he returned to befriend Bolívar, who promoted him to general, Obando fought to prevent the Bolivarian constitution from being imposed.
When Rafael Urdaneta assumed the dictatorship in September 1830, Obando restored Vice President Domingo Caicedo to power, who appointed him Secretary of War and then of Government; after his resignation, Congress made him provisional vice president in November 1831.The following year he sanctioned the Constitution of the State of New Granada.He was Minister of War during the administration of Francisco de Paula Santander and defended the southern region of the country from the expansionist appetites of General Flórez of Ecuador.
He then withdrew from politics, but General Mosquera's animosity did not stop stinging him, as well as the accusations that pointed to him as the intellectual author of the murder of Marshal Antonio José de Sucre.He then rose in civil war and was defeated on July 11, 1841 in Chanca.He fled to Peru and then to Chile, a country to which Mosquera, carried away by his hatred, requested extradition.In 1849 he was pardoned and returned to his homeland, where José Hilario López appointed him governor of Cartagena.
His enormous popularity led him to the presidency on April 1, 1853.That same year he sanctioned the new liberal constitution, but the following year, on April 17, he was deposed by General Melo.Accused by Congress, he was finally acquitted, returned to Cauca and reconciled with Mosquera.In 1861, on April 29, he returned to Bogotá to defend his old enemy, but was assassinated in El Rosal by the legitimist troops of Mariano Ospina Rodríguez.
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