Cortés de Madariaga, José (1766–1826)

José Cortés de Madariaga (b. 8 July 1766; d. March 1826), priest and political activist in the Venezuelan independence movement. A native of Chile, Cortés de Madariaga was ordained in 1788. He arrived in Venezuela by chance in 1802 and obtained a canonry in the Cathedral of Caracas. He played an active role in the events of 19 April 1810 in Caracas and was a member of the Junta Suprema of Caracas. Cortés de Madariaga traveled to New Granada in 1811 and signed the first treaty of alliance and federation between Cundinamarca and Venezuela. At the fall of the republic in 1812, he was sent to the military prison at Ceuta, in Africa, from which he escaped two years later. When Venezuela regained its independence in 1817, he returned and promoted the founding of a representative, federal government. This plan was disclaimed and condemned by Simón Bolívar. Cortés de Madariaga later traveled to Jamaica, where he again worked for independence. In 1823 the Congress of Colombia granted him a pension for his services in the cause of independence.

See alsoVenezuela: The Colonial Era .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Daniel Arias Argaez, El canónigo don José Cortés y Madariaga (1938).

Nicolás Perazzo, José Cortés de Madariaga (1972).

Additional Bibliography

Armas Chitty, José Antonio de. La independencia de Venezuela. Madrid: Editorial MAPFRE, 1992.

Ríos, Alicia. La idea de nación y cultura nacional en la independencia Venezolana: 1810–1830. Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland at College Park, 1992.

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