Domingo Caycedo

Domingo de Caycedo y Sanz de Santamaría (August 4, 1783 – July 1, 1843) was a Colombian statesman who served as the vice president of Gran Colombia and the Republic of New Granada. He served as acting President of Colombia a total of eleven times, the most terms any president has served to date. He is also credited for creating the Republic of New Granada after the division of Venezuela and Ecuador.

Personal life Domingo Caicedo was born in Santa Fe de Bogotá on August 4, 1783, son of , Caballero de la Real y Muy Distinguida Orden de Carlos III, and Josefa Sanz de Santamaría y Prieto, both criollos from aristocratic families of the colonial era. His father Luis Caicedo y Flórez was a caudillo from Tolima, where his family owned many estates, including the haciendas Saldaña and Santa Bárbara de Contreras. His uncle was the first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Bogotá. Among his paternal ancestors was , a Spanish-born writer and historian who authored the well-known books .

Caicedo studied Law at the Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario (now known as Universidad del Rosario) in Bogotá, where he later became vice-rector (deputy headmaster). At an early age, he decided not to practice law, and instead pursued military and political activities. He later became a general in the army and then president of the country. He traveled to Spain, where he joined the army to fight against Napoleon, and he also worked as a secretary in the Spanish Cortes (Congress).

In 1815, he married the Spanish-born Juana Jurado y Bertendona, daughter of Juan Jurado y Laynes and María Concepción Bertendona, in Bogotá, with whom he had eight children. He died in Puente Aranda, near Bogotá, on July 1, 1843.

Later that same year, when Bolívar irrevocably resigned the presidency, Congress elected Don Joaquín de Mosquera as president and Caycedo as vice president. Because Mosquera was very ill and frail, Caycedo assumed the executive power as acting president on August 2, 1830.

A few years later Caycedo was elected to Congress, appointed Secretary of the Treasury. Caycedo would act as interim president for the six times president José Ignacio de Márquez would be absent from office for short periods of time. During the presidency of Pedro Alcántara Herrán (1841-1845), Caycedo acted as interim president twice during temporary absences by the president.