Cristóbal Mendoza
President of Venezuela (1772-1829)
José Cristóbal Hurtado de Mendoza y Montilla (23 June 1772 – 8 February 1829), commonly known as Cristóbal Mendoza, was a Venezuelan lawyer, politician, writer, and academic. Cristóbal is best known for serving as the first official President of Venezuela from 1811 to 1812. After earning a master's degree in philosophy in Caracas and his doctor utriusque juris (Doctor of Canon and Civil Law) in the Dominican Republic, early in his professional career he served in various law firms in Trujillo, Mérida, and Caracas. He moved to Barinas in 1796 to practice law, and in 1807 was elected Mayor of Barinas. In 1810, Mendoza joined the insurgent movement started by wealthy Caracan citizens against the Spanish crown, and in 1811 was elected to represent the province of Barinas in the newly founded Constituent Congress of Venezuela. Days later he was appointed the first president of the First Republic of Venezuela, a role he shared as part of a triumvirate. Until his term ended in March 1812, Mendoza began the war for independence against the parts of Venezuela that still supported the Spanish monarchy, authored the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, and also took part in constructing the first Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela.
In 1813 Mendoza fled a royalist invasion and moved to Grenada, and soon after he joined Simon Bolivar's effort to liberate South America from Spanish rule. Bolivar appointed Mendoza the governor of Mérida in May 1813, and Mendoza was appointed governor of Caracas several months later. Fleeing Venezuela again in 1814 when José Tomás Boves conquered Caracas, Mendoza moved to Trinidad, where from 1819 and 1820 he was an active political writer for the Correo del Orinoco.
“Cristóbal Mendoza” enters the record as president of Venezuela (1772-1829). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cristóbal, Mendoza and President can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2497553. VIAF identifies the subject as 23522606. The Library of Congress control number is n83187335. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1772, 1829, 1811 and 1812.
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