
Jose Hilario Lopez (18 February 1798-27 November 1869) was President of New Granada from 1 April 1849 to 1 April 1853, succeeding Tomas Cipriano de Mosquera and preceding Jose Maria Obando.
Biography[]
Jose Hilario Lopez was born in Popayan, Cauca, Viceroyalty of New Granada in 1798, and he joined the revolutionary army at the age of 14. He was captured at the Battle of Cuchilla del Tambo and was pressed into the Spanish Army, and he was pardoned on 24 July 1819 and freed. In 1820, Simon Bolivar appointed Lopez lieutenant of the Boyaca Battalion, and he fought in the Venezuelan War of Independence before being promoted to lieutenant-colonel in 1823. In 1828, he joined Jose Maria Obando's rebellion against Simon Bolivar before serving in the Gran Colombia-Peru War. In 1830, he and Obando rebelled against Rafael Urdaneta, and they ultimately reached a ceasefire in April 1831. The next year, Lopez was appointed military chief of Bogota, and he was made Governor of Cartagena de Indias in 1834. He was elected President in 1849 with the support of the artisans and their democratic society clubs, and he abolished slavery, created an agrarian law, supported the separation of church and state, freedom of the press, and federalization of the state. He crushed a conservative coup in the Cauca region, and he abolished the Indian reservations, enabling the elites to employ the Indians in their plantations. In 1854, he helped suppress the Artisans Revolution, and he fought for the liberals in the 1859 civil war. IN 1865, he failed in his presidential bid. He then retired to his farms and died in 1869.