José Antonio Páez
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| José Antonio Páez | |
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| In office January 13, 1830 – January 20, 1835 February 1, 1839 - January 26, 1843 |
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| Preceded by | Simón Bolívar (1830) Carlos Soublette (1839) Pedro Gual (1861) |
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| Succeeded by | José María Vargas (1835) Carlos Soublette (1843) Juan Crisóstomo Falcón (1863) |
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| Born | June 13, 1790 Curpa, Portuguesa, Venezuela |
| Died | May 6, 1873 New York City, USA |
José Antonio Páez (June 13, 1790 - May 6, 1873) was General in Chief of the army fighting Spain during the Venezuelan Wars of Independence, in addition to becoming the President of Venezuela once it was independent of the Gran Colombia (1830-1835; 1839-1843; 1861-1863). He is considered a prime example of a 19th century South American caudillo.
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[edit] Early life
Páez was born in Curpa, Portuguesa state in Venezuela. He was of humble origins, his father being a low level employee of the colonial government. By the age of 20, his father already dead, Páez was married and earning a living by trading cattle.
Late in 1810, he joined a cavalry squadron, led by a former employer, set up with the purpose of fighting the colonial government. In 1813, he asked for leave from his squadron with the intent of setting and leading his own, which he did, joining the western republican army with the rank of sergeant.
Páez, a soldier at heart, started moving up the ranks by winning year after year several engagements against the royalists with his band of marauding llaneros (plainsmen). He came to be known by the nicknames of "El Centauro de los Lanos" (The Centaur of the Plains) and "El Leon de Payara" (The Lion of Payara).
Páez had been leading the fighting in the plains while Simón Bolívar was busy with the eastern part of the country. Early in 1818, both men met to discuss better coordination of their efforts. After shortly fighting in the center of the country, Páez was ordered to go back to the western plains, where he took from the Spanish the city of San Fernando in Apure.
[edit] Las Queseras del Medio
Páez won all of six major battles that he led by himself, the most celebrated one being the Battle of Las Queseras del Medio.
It was April 1819 when Bolívar upon reaching the Arauca River, a tributary of the Orinoco south of the Apure plains, met cavalry division of General Páez encamped on the southern bank of the mighty river, some 300 miles south of Caracas. Together the llaneros of Paez and Bolívar's troops numbered about 3,000 men.
The army of Spanish General Pablo Morillo, which was stationed across the river at "Las Queseras del Medio" about a mile from its banks, was 6,000 strong.
Paez took command of 153 llaneros and with their horses crossed the river swimming to a point some two miles above Morillo's encampment. Upon reaching the protection of the steep river bank on the opposite side, Páez formed his men into six or seven platoons and advanced into the open savannah. Morillo on seeing Páez organized his forces; the vanguard consisting of 800 cavalry armed with lances, and 200 cavalry armed with carbines, which he placed in the center with his infantry and artillery and charged. Páez and his men retreated in the direction where one of Bolivar's infantry units was stationed. Morillo's cavalry tried to surround Páez by flanking him on both sides. Páez ordered one of his platoons to attack the infantry in the center. The purpose of this action was to force the two flanking cavalry columns to come together, at which moment Páez would pull back his men to avoid being enveloped. The maneuver was well executed and with great speed, creating pandemonium in the royalists ranks, while withdrawing before the two wings of the Spanish cavalry closed ranks into a solid mass.
It was, at this point, with the Spanish cavalry in full pursuit, that Páez gave his famous order, Vuelvan Caras! (turn around) and ordered all his llaneros to fall back upon the disconcerted enemy; many contemporary historians believe the actual phrase he said was "Vuelvan carajo!". "Carajo" being a curse word in Spanish but was embellished for historical purposes [1]. The Spanish cavalry, confused, turned around in panic and fled, leaving a trail of casualties in their wake. Spanish casualties amounted to 400 dead, while Páez lost 8 men in the action.
After the battle Bolívar awarded Páez and his men with the Cruz de los Libertadores (Cross of the Liberators).
[edit] Carabobo
Late in 1820, an armistice had been signed with the Spanish commander and a temporary suspension of hostilities had taken place. However, ongoing developments were making difficult to maintain the armistice and, consequently, it was agreed it would lapse on April 28, 1821.
All five major fighting groups of the Venezuelan army were to start moving towards a central area. Some with the purpose of joining together in one single group and others with the intention of guarding the approach to that region to prevent royalists units from other far away areas from converging and reinforcing the main Spanish army stationed in the same area.
In early June 1821, the 6,500 men republican army was divided and organized in three divisions. The 1st division, made up of 2,500 men, was under Páez's command and formed by two battalions: Bravos de Apure (Apure Braves) and Cazadores Britanicos (British Hunters or as more often translated to English, the British Legion) and seven cavalry regiments.
By June 20, all three republican divisions converge from different directions in the plain of Carabobo. With the royalists well entrenched in the center and the south, on the morning of June 21, Páez was given command of an additional cavalry regiment and ordered to take it together with his own division through the hills on the north side and into the plain and to engage the Spanish, while the 2nd division would stay behind Páez and the 3rd would remain in a defensive position waiting to engage the enemy in the center.
On seeing Páez's men move, the Spanish commander, Miguel de la Torre orders one of his elite battalions, the Burgos, to reinforce and defend the north flank. Initially, the Spanish so fiercely engage the Bravos de Apure battalion that it had to fall back on two occasions. Páez sent his Cazadores Britanicos to help the Bravos and together they fought back the Spanish, now reinforced themselves by two additional battalions. As the fighting intensified, de la Torre sent more troops to the north. Páez then sent his cavalry further north to outflank the Spanish and come down on the plain from behind. At this moment, the battle is obviously going against the Spanish, who in desperation kept sending reinforcements. In the meantime, Páez's men were gaining terrain and closing on falling Spanish from all sides. Some of the Spanish battalions supposed to join and reinforce the engagement in the north, on seeing how their comrades are faring, decide to disobey orders and retreat. As it becomes evident that the republicans were winning the battle, the other divisions moved forward, but by now the bulk of the work had already been done by Páez and his men.
With the Battle of Carabobo, the military fate of the Spanish army in Venezuela was sealed. The victory was carried by Páez. Bolívar promoted him on site to General in Chief of the republican army.
In the battle, the Spanish lost over 65% of their men; the survivors took refuge in the castle of Puerto Cabello, which, until it was taken by Páez and his men in 1823, was the last Spanish stronghold in Venezuela territory.
[edit] Politics, La Cosiata
Following the Battle of Carabobo, Páez was named General Commander of the provinces of Caracas and Barinas (at the time they included the important regions of Caracas, Barquisimeto, Barinas and Apure).
It had been Bolivar's dream to unite the liberated Spanish provinces into a single great country: La Gran Colombia. It was made up of present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. As the war against Spain came to an end, federalist and regionalist sentiments began to arise once again.
While Bolívar was engaged in military campaigns in Peru, he was unable to carry on his duties as president of Gran Colombia. As a result, the center of power of the executive branch was in Bogotá under the leadership of Vice President Francisco de Paula Santander, from New Granada (modern-day Colombia and Panama). While some leaders saw Gran Colombia as only a military necessity, others saw it as a real administrative entity. Thus confusion arose between the central government in Bogotá and the provinces and the municipalities. This made Páez and some Venezuelan politicians uncomfortable. Then in 1826, Páez led a movement that became know as "La Cosiata" (a word that has never existed in Spanish language and that at the time was made up to refer to this movement and meaning something along the lines of "that weird thing without a name").
La Cosiata started in April 1826 as a quasi-spontaneous movement (as existing historical interpretations differ) of local politicians and personalities supporting Páez against a decision of the Congress in Santa Fe de Bogotá. There was pressure in favor of Páez's removal from his office by locals in Venezuela, who had accused him of abusing his authority in relation to implementing orders coming from Bogotá -orders which Páez himself allegedly did not agree much with-: the forced recruitment of men for the army. The Congress in Bogotá, including several of the Venezuelans among it, received the complaints coming from Venezuela, which alleged that Páez had not properly understood the extent of his orders and had exceeded them in his implementation. Congress decided that it alone could judge Páez for his actions, and ordered him to go to Bogotá for his trial. Páez was initially willing to go. However, the irony now dictated that some of the same local personalities that were originally unhappy with Páez for implementing Santander's orders now felt insulted for their leader's having to go to Bogotá to be tried. After a few days of uncertainty and tension in the streets, the municipality of Valencia broke with Bogotá and submitted itself to Páez as military commander. In the following days, more municipalities would follow suit, including Caracas, which had been the one that first had accused Páez. Other municipalities and local officials did not join in this change of opinion.
In July, Santander declared that Páez was in open rebellion against the central government. While all this was happening, Páez wrote to Bolívar, asking him to come back to take charge and solve the imbroglio.
While Páez and his supporters were willing to have Bolívar as supreme leader, they were reluctant to follow Santander. While they wanted changes to be made to the constitution, they initially wanted to do it under Bolívar as part of the Gran Colombia.
Bolívar, finally returned from his campaigns in the south and took command of the executive towards the end of 1826 assuming the extraordinary powers granted to him by the Congress. Conflicting letters between Santander and Bolívar, and Bolívar and Páez, created a degree of uncertainty as to what his actions would be. He finally declared a general amnesty to all those that were involved in La Cosiata, notwithstanding from then on that any disobedience of his orders would be considered a crime against the state. Páez welcomed Bolívar and accepted his authority, and Bolívar named him Supreme Civil and Military Commander of Venezuela. This action confused and disappointed both Santander in Bogotá and the few local officials in Venezuela that had not supported the La Cosiata, who found themselves being removed or transferred to other posts while those that had backed Páez remained or were subsequently promoted.
Until La Cosiata, Páez had been mostly respected as a result of his military successes during the war. From now on he started to be seen as a politician with the power and the wit needed to pursue and defend any changes, or lack thereof, made under the constitutional order. Páez came out from La Cosiata -the weird thing without a name- with more power than he ever had before.
[edit] President
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In 1830, Páez declared Venezuela independent from Gran Colombia and became president. Although he was not the first president of Venezuela (which declared its independence from Spain in 1811 and named Cristobal Mendoza as president) he was the first head of government after the dissolution of Gran Colombia. In 1842, Páez arranged to have the remains of Simon Bolivar repatriated from Santa Marta, Colombia, to the Liberator's hometown of Caracas. The procession was accompanied by exuberant funeral honors before Bolivar's remains were entombed in the Cathedral of Caracas.
He would also serve as president two more times, once, from 1839-1842 and again from 1861-1863. He was exiled from the country in 1850 and did not return until 1858. In 1861, he became supreme dictator and ruled only for two years before again returning to exile. When Páez went into exile, he moved to New York, where he died in 1873.
[edit] References
- (Spanish) José Antonio Páez — Official biography.
- (Spanish) José Antonio Páez
 Presidents of Venezuela  |
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| Mendoza | Bolívar | Bolívar | Páez | Vargas | Narvarte | Carreño | Soublette | Páez | Soublette | J.T. Monagas | J.G. Monagas | J.T. Monagas | Gual | J. Castro | Gual | Tovar | Gual | Páez | Falcón | Bruzual | Villegas | J.R. Monagas | Villegas | Guzmán | Linares | Varela | Guzmán | Crespo | Guzmán | H. López | Rojas | Andueza | Villegas | Crespo | Andrade | C. Castro | Gómez | Márques | Gómez | J. Pérez | Gómez | E. López | Medina | Betancourt | Gallegos | Delgado Chalbaud | Suárez Flamerich | Pérez Jiménez | Larrazábal | Sanabria | Betancourt | Leoni | Caldera | C. Pérez | Herrera | Lusinchi | C. Pérez | Velásquez | Caldera | Chávez | Carmona | Cabello | Chávez |
