Antonio Nariño

Antonio Amador José de Nariño y Álvarez del Casal ( April 9, 1765 – December 13, 1823), was a Colombian ideological precursor of the independence movement in New Granada (present day Colombia) as well as one of its early political and military leaders. In 1793 he published the first French to Spanish translation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in Spain's american colonies.

Born to an artistocratic family in 1765 in Santafe de Bogota, From his youth, Nariño was involved in political activities that he knew how to combine with financial and commercial activities that led him to accumulate a fortune. His foray into politics would see him become mayor of the second vote elected by the council of Santafe in 1789, as well as interim treasurer of tithes of the archbishopric, appointed in July of the same year.

His fortune allowed him to import his own printing press, which allowed him to create the Patriotic Press (Imprenta Patriotica) where he began to publish and distribute clandestinely various texts amongst his literary circle of which many prominent creoles of Santafe were apart of. In 1793 after having a acquired a french copy of the ''History of the Revolution of 1789,'' Narino translated the portion of the text that contained the Declarations of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen from french to spanish and distributed it among his circle. This event would see his arrest along with other members of his literary society by Spanish authorities.

Between the time of his arrest in his house in Santa Fe, in August 1794 and his release in Cartagena in June 1810, for a period of almost sixteen years, Nariño was imprisoned except for the interval he spent hidden in Europe and America between the moment of his escape to Cádiz (March 17, 1796) and his voluntary surrender in Santa Fe (July 19, 1797).

After his release in Cartagena in June of 1810, Nariño returned to Santa Fe in time to collaborate in the organization of the first Neogranadine congress of which he was appointed secretary at the beginning of sessions in December 1810. However as time passed the unity between the delegates opf the various provinces of New Granada would crumble as the argument between Federalism and Centralism arose, Nariño was a staunch centralist and vehemently attacked and criticized his federalist opponents through the press that he owned. This tension would see the federlaists split from the centralist congress in Santafe and form a federalist one in Tunja. The two sides engaged in a brief civil war in 1812, where Narino took command of the Centralist military forces and succsessfully defeated them when they attempted to capture Santafe in early 1813.

Nariño was not originally a military officer by nature, but would take his first steps in that direction in 1813 when he was president of Cundinamarca and he offered to command the united forces of the State that he governed with those of the United Provinces of New Granada, contributed from Tunja by his political rival Camilo Torres Tenorio, in order to march south to recover Popayán and prevent Spanish royalist troops from advancing into the interior of the Republic in an invasion effort ordered by the presidency of Quito.

The initial success of the campaign, which Nariño led victoriously to the gates of the city of Pasto, ended in failure when Nariño was forced to surrender to the military chief of Pasto in May 1814. The following six years were spent again in prison in Spain.

Nariño eventually returned to America in 1820 traveling through the Caribbean and Venezuela. By then his homeland had been liberated from Spanish control and had joined in union with Venezuela to form the Republic of Colombia (Gran Colombia). On February 20, 1821, in recognition of his impact and leadership President Simón Bolívar made him interim vicepresident of the new the new republic. Bolívar also asked Nariño to proceed to install in Villa del Rosario the constitutional congress that would ultimately create the 1821 Constitution and where he ran as a candidate to continue being vice-president of Colombia, however he would ultimately lose the race to General Francisco de Paula Santander.

Defeated politically he was given nominal roles within the government and continued publishing his newspaper "''Los Toros de Fucha''" (The Bulls from Fucha). Towards the last years of his life he became tired and ill with tuberculosis, he decided to quit his public roles and move to Villa de Leyva. Nariño died there on December 13, 1823. He is considered as one the founding fathers of modern Republic of Colombia and a hero of the war of indepenedence. Many monuments, towns and provinces carry his name in his honor. Provided by Wikipedia