Montúfar Montes de Oca, Lorenzo (1743–1808)

Lorenzo Montúfar Montes de Oca (b. 1743; d. 7 May 1808), Guatemalan soldier and politician. Montúfar was born in Santiago de Guatemala and earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy from San Carlos University in 1763. He served as provisional magistrate of Quezaltenango, magistrate of Tecpán-Atitlán and of Verapaz, and first mayor of Guatemala City in 1783. As lieutenant field marshal and magistrate of Sacatepéquez, he was a major figure in the Terronistas, who between 1773 and 1776 opposed moving the capital of the realm to Valle de la Ermita after the destruction of Santiago de los Caballeros (Antigua) by earthquakes. In 1793, as mayor of Antigua, he firmly opposed the order of the Royal Tribunal to destroy the ruins of the former capital, in gratitude for which his portrait in oil has hung in the chapter room of city hall in Antigua since 1936. He was the father of historian, soldier, and conservative politician Manuel Montúfar y Coronado.

See alsoAntigua (La Antigula Guatemala) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edgar Juan Aparicio y Aparicio, "Los Montúfar," in Anales de la Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala 56 (1982): 303-319.

José Arzú, Pepe Batres íntimo. Su familia, su correspondencia, sus papeles (1940).

Julio Galicia Díaz, Destrucción y traslado de la ciudad de Santiago de Guatemala (1976).

Agustín Estrada Monroy, ed., Hombres, fechas y documentos de la patria (1977).

Pedro Pérez Valenzuela, La nueva Guatemala de la Asunción (1934).

Additional Bibliography

Alvarez P., Rafael V. Terremotos en Antigua: Secuencias y secuelas. Guatemala: s.n., 2001.

                                       Arturo Taracena Arriola