BioFile - Jos� Antonio P�ez

A native of Venezuela, Jos� Antonio P�ez (1790-1878) was born into a family of some status, though by no means great wealth.� He received a decent education, and as young man was employed by some of his richer relatives in various tasks suitable to member of the middle class.� When he was 17, P�ez was entrusted with some money, which he had to deliver to a rather distant town.� While en route, he was ambushed by four robbers, but managed to kill one, and drive off the others.� The young man panicked.� Fearing that he might be charged with murder, he fled to the llanos � the plains � of Barinas Province, a wild frontier area.� There he worked as a cowboy, and soon entered the cattle business himself (perhaps he made good use of that cash with which he had been entrusted?).� It was a hard life, but P�ez soon became almost the archetypical llanero �� plainsman.� Inured to all hardships and a seasoned horseman, he was adept with the pistol, sword, and lance, skills needed to defend the herds against bandits and Indians.� Eyewitnesses reported that he could cut a bull out of a herd and drop it with a single lance thrust, or, leaping from his mount, wrestle it to the ground.

In 1812 Venezuela declared its independence from Spain.� P�ez supported the patriot cause.� By 1813 Simon Bolivar's Army of Liberation had ensconced itself in Venezuela, coming over from New Granada (i.e., Colombia).� The Spanish commander in Barinas conscripted P�ez, making him a captain and ordering him to recruit a troop cavalry from among the llaneros, the cowboys of the Venezuelan plains.� Unwilling to serve against his country, P�ez fled and was shortly commanding a company of llaneros in the service of the revolution.� The war did not go well for the patriots.� Strong Spanish reinforcements arrived, and Bolivar was driven out of the country.� But P�ez refused to retreat.� With some 500 llaneros, he routed an Spanish column at Mata de la Miel on February 16, 1816, inflicting over 400 killed and taking 500 prisoners.� This earned him a promotion to lieutenant colonel.

A few months later, responding to criticism from senior officers concerning mismanagement of the war effort, Venezuela's revolutionary commander-in-chief, Francisco Santander, resigned.� In a surprise development, the assembled senior leaders of the revolutionary movement elected P�ez, then only about 26, both supreme political leader and military chief of the revolution, with the rank of brigadier general.� These titles were rather more impressive than the forces with which P�ez was entrusted, just 700 troops, mostly llaneros, poorly-armed, poorly-clothed, and poorly-fed.� Many of the llaneros were equipped with simple bamboo poles or palm-trunks rather than proper lances.� Worse, the "army" was encumbered by a great number of refugees.

Having few options, P�ez decided to attack.� After making arrangements for the security of the large number of refugees, he undertook a series of raids against the Spanish.� A number of small victories resulted, which brought recruits to his forces.� Then, on January 28, 1817, at Mucuritas, P�ez, his army by then numbering about 1,100, met and defeated over 4,500 Spanish troops, scattering their cavalry on the first charge, and then disrupting their infantry by a combination of grass fires and lancer charges. This almost totally reversed patriot fortunes in Venezuela.� Shortly, Bolivar's army returned to the fray, and P�ez put himself under the authority of Bolivar.� Bolivar proclaimed P�ez supreme chief of Venezuela, and promoted him to major general.

The war for Venezuelan independence was long and hard.� P�ez played an important role, often in spectacular ways.� Once, while on a reconnaissance along the Orinoco, Bolivar spotted some Spanish gunboats that had proven troublesome.� He made a casual remark to the effect that it was too bad the gunboats didn't belong to the patriots, for they could prove useful in carrying the struggle across the great river.� Hearing this, P�ez agreed that it would be a very good idea. Almost immediately P�ez and some of his most intrepid men plunged into the river � allegedly with swords tightly held in their teeth � and began to swim towards the gunboats.� The Spaniards, not suspecting an attack in so unorthodox a fashion, were quickly overwhelmed, with little loss to the Venezuelans.�

Over the next few years P�ez played an important role in the war for independence, defeating the Spanish repeatedly, most notably at Carabobo (June 24, 1821), after which Bolivar promoted him to general-in-chief of Venezuela, and later at Puerto Cabello (November 7, 1823), the fall of which effectively secured the independence of Gran Colombia, as the federation of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador was called.� In the new post-war government, P�ez was named commander-general of Venezuela.

The early years of independence were acrimonious, and P�ez was right in the middle of it. Ultimately, the Federation of Gran Colombia came to pieces in 1829, when Venezuela seceded.� A constituent assembly was called to form a provisional government and write a constitution.� In 1830 P�ez was appointed provisional president, and was later confirmed in the office.� P�ez left office in 1835, honored by a presentation sword from the Venezuelan Congress, and the tide "Illustrious Citizen."� Despite some military unrest � some former war heroes being dissatisfied with peace � his administration had been firm, but constitutional, and the country prospered.� This pattern prevailed over the next few years, and continued when P�ez was again elected President in 1839.� He left office in 1843, and soon after a military coup installed an authoritarian government dominated by the Monagas family.� In 1848 P�ez attempted to lead a revolution against the dictatorship, but was defeated in August of 1849, and imprisoned until the Spring of 1850.� He went into exile in New York, where he remained until the Monagas family was ousted from power in 1858 by a what we would today call a "rainbow" coalition of all parties.

P�ez returned to Venezuela at the invitation of the new provisional government.� But the coalition soon fell apart, initiating a dozen years of coups and counter-coups.� P�ez soon left the country again, as Minister to the United States. In 1861 he was returned to the presidency, but, unable to quash yet another military adventurer, in May of 1863 he resigned in the hope of avoiding further bloodshed.� It was to no avail, for the country would endure decades of barracks rule, including a come back by the Monagas family.�

P�ez spent his last years in various Latin American countries, where he was generally welcome as a hero of the wars for independence, and then settled in New York, where he wrote his memoirs, Autobiografia del General Jos� Antonio P�ez (New York: Hallet & Breen,, 1867). Jos� Antonio P�ez died in New York in 1878 and was buried there.� A decade later he was reinterred in Venezuela with full military honors.