Cristóbal de Mendoza

José Cristóbal Hurtado de Mendoza y Montilla (23 June 1772 – 8 February 1829), commonly known as Cristóbal Mendoza, was a Venezuelan lawyer, politician, writer, and academic. Cristóbal is best known for serving as the first official President of Venezuela from 1811 to 1812. Mendoza arrived in Caracas to begin serving his first week-long term on 25 April 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. 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. Mendoza returned to Caracas with his family

Death

With ailing health, in the middle of 1828 he resigned from his post as intendant, 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 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. 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."

Personal life

Mendoza 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. under Spanish rule and fought for the independence of the island during the Ten Years War (1868–1878). Cristóbal Mendoza Durán, who worked as journalist in Camagüey, later joined the Liberating Army and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, in appreciation of his intellectual and moral values, appointed him Foreign Secretary of the first government of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. His brother Tomás, who was also a journalist and who in the ranks mambises acted as assistant secretary of General Manuel de Quesada. Both Cristóbal and Tomás Mendoza gave their lives on the battlefields of Cuba.

Other descendants of Cristóbal Mendoza include Eugenio Mendoza, Eduardo Mendoza Goiticoa, Lorenzo Mendoza and Leopoldo López.