Molina, Marcelo (1800–1879)

Marcelo Molina (b. 19 February 1800; d. 20 May 1879), Guatemalan lawyer, political leader, and first governor of Los Altos, the sixth state of the Central American Federation. The son of a notable Quetzaltenango family, Molina obtained a degree in 1821 from the Tridentine College and a law degree from the University of San Carlos in 1824. After a year of law practice in his hometown, he began his career in public service as syndic for Quetzaltenango and as a provincial judge, participating in 1831 in the unsuccessful experiment with trials by jury espoused by the Liberal government of Dr. Mariano Gálvez. When Los Altos proclaimed its secession from Guatemala in 1838, Molina resigned his post as attorney general of the State of Guatemala and returned to Quetzaltenango to become governor of the new state in 1839. His political and diplomatic efforts on behalf of Los Altos proved fruitless, however, and the sixth state was forcibly restored to Guatemala by the Conservative dictator Rafael Carrera in January 1840. Following a brief period of detention in Guatemala City, he went into exile in Mexico, where he remained until 1847. Back in Guatemala, he resumed his public service career, serving as member of the Supreme Court of Justice from 1847 to 1849. Molina then worked as a teacher of Latin in Quetzaltenango before being reap pointed to the Supreme Court in 1856, where he served until his retirement in 1874.

See alsoCentral America, United Provinces of .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuel Aparicio Mérida, "La familia Molina establecida en Quetzaltenango desde el siglo XVIII," in Revista de la Academia guatemalteca de estudios genealógicos, heráldicos, e históricos, no. 2 (1968): 239-274.

Marcelo Molina, Ligeros apuntamientos acerca de los principáles sucesos de la carrera literaria y vida pública (1971).

                                         Jorge H. GonzÁlez