Cristóbal Mendoza

Early life and education

José Cristóbal Hurtado de Mendoza y Montilla was born in the Trujillo city and area of Venezuela on 23 June 1772 to his parents Luis Bernardo Hurtado de Mendoza y Valera and Gertrudis Eulalia Montilla y Briceño. He was educated by his father in a Franciscan Monastery under the tutelage of Friar Antonio de Pereira. At the age of 16, he was sent to Caracas to complete his education at the university, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy in 1791. He studied for his master's degree at the university until 1793. He afterwards began attending university in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, where in 1794 obtained his doctorate degree in both canonical rights and civil rights, becoming a doctor utriusque juris (Doctor of Canon and Civil Law).

After obtaining his doctorate, Mendoza returned to Venezuela in his early twenties to begin working in his hometown. He first worked in the law office of Antonio Nicolás Briceño in Trujillo, and in the city of Merida in 1975 he practiced law with Juan Marimón y Henríquez e Hipólito Elías González. In 1795 he briefly taught as a professor of philosophy at the seminary college of San Buenaventura de Mérida. Mendoza eventually moved to Caracas to finish his academic and vocational training in law, and he had the lawyer title conferred to him by the Real Audiencia of Caracas on 10 July 1796. He moved to Barinas in late 1796 and continued to practice law.

1807-1809: Governor of Barinas and Congress

After obtaining his law degree, Mendoza moved to Barinas, where he became known for defending local tribal groups and helping invest their profits in several agricultural properties. In January of 1807, he was elected Mayor of Barinas by the Council of Barinas. After charges of nepotism in the election process that had led to Mendoza's appointment, the Royal Court ruled in favor of Mendoza retaining the governorship in 1808. On 19 April 1810, Mendoza joined the insurgent movement started by the Caracan elite against the Spanish crown. In May 1810, he was elected the secretary of the newly created Board of Local Government of Barinas, and he also led a movement among Caracas' wealthy citizens with the slogan "Peace and tranquility are our desires. Die or be free is our currency." Both Mendoza and his brother Luis Ignacio Mendoza were among those elected to represent the province of Barinas when the Constituent Congress of Venezuela was founded on 2 March 2011. Mendoza was not given the opportunity serve in the congress, however, before he was informed he had been appointed as president of the First Republic of Venezuela as of 5 March 1811. At the time of being appointed to president, he had been preparing to travel to Caracas while also fulfilling his duties with the newly formed Board of Governors.

1811-1812: President of Venezuela

In March 1811 during the Spanish American wars of independence, the first Venezuelan constitutional congress established as the executive power a triumvirate in which three men shared executive power and rotated the presidency every week. At age 39, Mendoza became a member of the triumvirate that headed the First Republic of Venezuela and was unanimously elected by the other two as the first to go in rotation on 5 March 1811. With Manuel Moreno de Mendoza serving as the interim first president in his absence, Mendoza arrived in Caracas to begin serving his first week-long term on 25 April 1811. As part of the triumvirate, Mendoza began the war for independence against the parts of Venezuela that still supported the Spanish monarchy. He also was the author of the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, issued on 5 July 1811. While in office he formed part of the constitutional convention that designed and promulgated the first Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela in December 1811. In March 1812, a second presidential triumvirate was appointed, with Mendoza, Juan Escalona and Baltazar Padron resigning and Fernando Toro, Francisco Javier Ustáriz and Francisco Espejo taking power.

1813-1820: Governor of Mérida and Caracas

The First Republic fell following a royalist invasion led by Captain Domingo de Monteverde in 1813. After that, Mendoza moved to the island of Grenada. He joined the cause of Brigadier Simon Bolivar, becoming Bolivar's aide as Bolivar was preparing to fight the Spanish for the liberation of Venezuela. Bolivar appointed Mendoza the governor of Merida, a city that had joined Bolivar's cause that May, with Mendoza entering the city on 23 May 1813. Mendoza also became governor of the province of Mérida. During the War to the Death initiated by Bolivar in Trujillo on 15 June 1813, Mendoza served multiple functions, including "political administration, taxes, provisions, stores and changing rooms for the army, hospitals, civic patrolling and surveillance of spies."

Bolívar appointed Mendoza governor of the province of Caracas, with Mendoza making his entrance into the city of Caracas on 6 August 1813. In Caracas, Mendoza formally proposed holding the Open Meeting held on 14 October 1813 where Bolivar was granted the title Liberator. A popular assembly on 2 January 1814 ratified Bolivar as the supreme commander of the Liberation Army (Ejército Libertador) fighting for independence from Spanish rule. In July 1814, the forces of José Tomás Boves conquered Caracas. Mendoza and his family escaped and went into exile, and after touring a number of islands in the West Indies, moved to Trinidad. Between 1819 and 1820, while in Trinidad Mendoza supported the cause of the Republic of Venezuela by writing newspaper articles under the pseudonym "a patriot" for the Correo del Orinoco. Under that pseudonym he also published articles on both civic and international political issues, in particular arguing against efforts to found monarchies in the Americas.

1821-1926: Justice Minister and private practice

After the Battle of Carabobo assured Venezuelan independence in June 1821, Mendoza returned to Caracas with his family in late 1821. He was designated Justice Minister of Gran Colombia (now Venezuela), a title which can also be translated president of the Superior Court of Justice of the department of Venezuela (Corte Superior de Justicia del departamento de Venezuela). While in this role, Mendoza continued to study law and history, while also editing El Observador Caraqueño along with Francisco Javier Yanes. Mendoza resigned from his role as Justice Minister in 1825 and again went into private practice, his firm meeting with mixed success. He dedicated himself to civic projects as well, for example promoting the construction of a highway between La Guaira and Caracas as an alternative to the railway, although the project failed to materialize. Although not a candidate, he was the most voted person to serve as the vice president of the Department of Venezuela (Vicepresidencia del Departamento de Venezuela) in 1825. In 1826, he and Francisco Javier Yánez published the first major study of Bolivar and his time, with the first edition entitled Collection of documents relating to the public life of the Liberator of Colombia and Peru, Simon Bolivar. Mendoza published 22 volumes overall.

1826-1828: Mayor of the Department of Venezuela

In April 1826, under the will of Gran Colombia Vice President Francisco de Paula Santander, Mendoza was appointed Mayor of the Department of Venezuela (Intendente del Departamento de Venezuela). His appointment occurred during the time of El Cosiata, a separatist movement founded by José Antonio Páez that was opposed to Bolivar's unification movement in South America. While in his new position, Mendoza tried and failed to quell tensions between opposing parties in Venezuela, in an effort to avoid more conflict and civil war. He also failed in convincing Caracas not to join the insurrection plan aimed at dissolving Bolivar's Gran Colombia. Mendoza was exiled from Venezuela by General Jose Antonio Paez, and fled to the island of Saint Thomas on 27 November 1826, with his family remaining in Caracas. Bolivar returned to Caracas at the end of 1826, and peace was restored in the city by January 1827.

After Bolivar again secured power in Caracas and conflict between the factions abated, Bolivar invited Mendoza to return to Venezuela. Bolivar appointed Mendoza Mayor of the Department of Venezuela, a role Medoza kept until resigning in the middle of 1828. According to essayist Luis Britto Garcia, Mendoza’s resignation was potentially motivated by new tax measures, with Britto writing "The mere announcement of rigorous tax measures strikes fear into the hearts of civil servants like the Intendant Cristóbal Mendoza, who suddenly tendered his resignation."

Death

With ailing health, in the middle of 1828 he resigned from his post as intendant, retiring to the outskirts of Caracas. On his deathbed, he wrote his political will in a letter to Bolívar where he stated his possessions as being "the remembrance of my weak services for the republic and the memories of our lifelong friendship." Cristóbal Mendoza died in Caracas on 8 February 1829. Mendoza’s funeral took place on 9 February 1829 in the Parish Church of San Pablo (now Santa Teresa). He was initially buried in the "Brothers of San Pedro" (Corner of Canons). Years later, he was buried in the Church of Altagracia (Iglesia de Altagracia). In October 2014, a legislator of the Legislative Council of Trujillo state proposed that Mendoza’s remains be moved to the National Pantheon of Venezuela as a national hero.

Views and legacy

Cristóbal Mendoza supported a federation of Latin American republics. He opposed the separatist efforts of José Antonio Páez, and according to the publication Entorno Inteligente, the triumvirate presidential model Mendoza helped initiate in 1811 was "bitterly criticized by Simon Bolivar in his Cartagena Manifesto, [with the model reflecting an] ideology of liberal constitutionalism which prevailed in the United States...."

Mendoza was a loyal and trusted advisor to Simon Bolivar, and he collected documents on Bolivar's public life, publishing 20 small volumes of the documents between 1824 and 1828. Bolivar purportedly stated about Mendoza that "you are the man I admire most in this world, because you carry and retain the model of virtue and helpful goodness."

In 1972, Venezuela enacted National Lawyer Day (Día Nacional del Abogado) on Mendoza's birth date of 23 June in commemoration of Mendoza. The holiday was enacted by president Rafael Caldera Rodriguez at the request of the Federation of Associations of Venezuela (Federación de Colegios de Abogados de Venezuela).

Personal life

Mendonza moved to Barinas from Caracas in late 1796, where he married Juana Mendez Mendoza Briceño. He was widowed shortly after, and in the early nineteenth century he remarried Maria Regina Montilla of Pumar, a relation of Jose Ignacio of Pumar. He had been widowed a second time by 1810. On 14 August 1811, Mendoza married for the third time to Gertrudis Buroz Tovar.