Anzoátegui, José Antonio (1789–1819)

José Antonio Anzoátegui (b. 14 November 1789; d. 15 November 1819), officer in the Venezuelan Emancipating Army. Anzoátegui was on the pro-independence side from the beginning of the independence movement in 1810. In his birthplace of Barcelona, Venezuela, he stood out as a leader of the Sociedad Patriotica de Caracas who was in favor of emancipation. Anzoátegui took part in the Guiana campaign of 1812, and when the First Republic fell, he was imprisoned in the vaults of La Guaira.

Anzoátegui returned to war in 1813 and fought in numerous battles. He helped Simón Bolívar take the city of Bogotá in 1814; participated in the two Los Cayos expeditions financed by Alexandre Pétion, president of Haiti; was present at the taking of Angostura in 1817, in the Los Llanos campaign of 1818, and in the campaign for the liberation of New Granada in 1819. Bolívar placed him in charge of operations in Santa Marta and Maracaibo, but his death prevented him from carrying out his mission. For his military actions, he was decorated with the Order of the Liberators of Venezuela and the Boyacá Cross.

See alsoVenezuela: The Colonial Era .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Esteban Chalbaud-Cardona, Anzoátegui (general de infantería) (1941).

Fabio Lozano y Lozano, Anzoátegui: Visiones de la Guerra de Independencia (1963).

Carlos Sánchez Espejo, Vida útil y gloriosa (1970).

Additional Bibliography

Franco Brizuela, Jovito. Anzoátegui (general bolivariano). Caracas: Academia Nacional de la Historia, 1994.

Quintero, José Gilberto. "Vida de un titan," Boletín de la Academia Nacional de Historia (Venezuela) 72: 228 (Oct.-Dec. 1989), pp. 85-93.

                                          InÉs Quintero