Antonio Ricaurte
Colombian revolutionary (1786-1814)
Antonio Clemente José María Bernabé Ricaurte Lozano (June 10, 1786 – March 25, 1814) was a patriot of the Independence of Colombia and Venezuela and captain of Bolívar's army. He is remembered as the martyr of the Battle of San Mateo, where, in a heroic action, he blasted an enemy stronghold by immolating himself.
Early life
Antonio Ricaurte was born into a family with a military tradition. He was the son of Esteban Ricaurte and María Clemencia Lozano, who was the daughter of Jorge Lozano de Peralta, Marquis of San Jorge, renowned collaborator of the Revolt of the Comuneros of 1781 against the rule of the Spanish Crown.
He studied at the San Bartolomé School in Bogotá between 1799 and 1804, and later married Juana Martínez Camacho, niece of patriot Joaquín Camacho, who mentored him into the colonial bureaucracy and through whose influence Ricaurte was appointed chamber scribe and secretary of the Accounts Tribunal of the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada.
Early military career
He participated in the revolutionary acts of July 20, 1810, in Bogotá, as a rebel against the colonial regime; for his bold performance, his comrades gave him the nickname El Chispero ("the spark lighter"). The commanders of the revolution entrusted him with the mission of keeping watch over the Viceroy Antonio Amat y Borbón at the Accounts Tribunal. When the patriot militias were organized, Ricaurte was incorporated to the infantry battalion of the National Guard, with the rank of lieutenant.
During the first years of the United Provinces of New Granada, when a division between centralists and federalists occurred, Ricaurte supported Antonio Nariño and the centralists and fought on their side in the first civil war of New Granada. He fought the battle of Alto de la Virgen in Ventaquemada, where his troops were defeated on December 2, 1812.
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