Ezequiel Zamora

Ezequiel Zamora Correa (Cúa, Captaincy General of Venezuela, Spanish Empire, February 1, 1817-San Carlos, Venezuela, January 10, 1860) was a Venezuelan politician, military man and leader who He served as one of the main leaders of the liberal army during the Federal War. Initially dedicating himself to a grocery store, Zamora participated in the Venezuelan peasant insurrection of 1846 against the conservative government. During the March Revolution he is forced into exile.

In Curacao he met with federalist exiles and after the start of the Federal War in 1859 he disembarked in La Vela de Coro. Zamora defeats the conservative government in the Battle of Santa Inés, a crucial confrontation during the war. He died in 1860, when he was shot in the head during the preliminary actions for the capture of the Plaza de San Carlos.

Biography

Family members

Ezequiel Zamora was a descendant of Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands. He was the son of José Alejandro Zamora Pereira, who fought and died in the Venezuelan War of Independence, and Paula Correa, both "white people from the shore" and modest owners. His siblings were Antonio, Carlota, Genoveva, Raquel and Gabriel. Zamora's great-grandfather was Francisco León Zamora, a Canary Islander dedicated to selling livestock on the plains. His grandfather, Juan Zamora de León, also from the Canary Islands, settled in Villa de Cura in 1761 with Margarita Pereira, from whose union Zamora's father, Alejandro Zamora Pereira, was born.

Ezequiel Zamora, married on July 4, 1856, in the San Bartolomé de Macuto Parish, La Guaira, Venezuela, with Estefanía Falcón Zabarce (Wife of Benito Díaz), daughter of José Falcón and Josefa Zabalta, they witnessed the marriage of General Juan Crisóstomo Falcón and Luisa Oriach de Monagas, wife of the President of the Republic José Tadeo Monagas. (According to marriage certificate, (recorded in the Year Book 1856, Folio 23)

Political career

Zamora's mother moves with her children from Cúa to Villa de Cura, where Ezequiel dedicates himself to commerce and starts a grocery store, and also becomes an active member of the Liberal party. He decides to participate in the 1846 elections with Antonio Leocadio Guzmán, but unable to be a voter. He rose up with the peasants in arms in the valleys of Aragua, on September 7, in the Venezuelan peasant insurrection of 1846, which spread throughout the country. Zamora is attributed with the speech: Land and free men! in the revolt in Guambra.

The uprising earned Zamora the name "General of the Sovereign People." Zamora was captured on March 26, 1847 and presented to the trial judge in Villa de Cura. On July 27, the court sentences him to death, but he escapes from prison before the punishment can be carried out.

Later, in 1848, Zamora was freed by the amnesty of the elected president José Tadeo Monagas, who broke with paecismo and incorporated him into his ranks with the rank of first commander of the militias to confront the uprising of José Antonio Páez and Carlos Soublette in the central plains, in response to the Assault on the Venezuelan Congress of 1848. In 1849, the regional leaders supported Monagas and defeated Páez in the Battle of the Araguatos, ending the civil war. In 1851, President José Gregorio Monagas appointed Zamora as commander of arms of the province of Coro.^{[citation required]}

By 1853 Ezequiel Zamora was a slave owner in Ciudad Bolívar. On November 24, eight months after the decree of abolition of slavery of March 24, he asked the Abolition Board in Ciudad Bolívar to pay him the values that corresponded to him as owner of the slaves.

In 1858, Julián Castro Contreras, who held the position of commander in chief of the army, rose up against the Monagas government and overthrew it in the March Revolution. Zamora and many leaders of the liberal party, along with the Monagas, are expelled from the country. Julián Castro cedes power to the conservative party led by José Antonio Páez, who returns to the country.

Federal War

In the Antilles and New Granada many exiles and other exiles reorganized under the leadership of Juan Crisóstomo Falcón. Zamora landed in Coro in February 1859 as head of western operations and on February 20, 1859, with the Cry of the Federation, the Federal War began, with the provinces of Coro, Barinas and Apure taking up arms. Zamora organized a provisional government of Venezuela on February 26, 1859 and led the federal army. On March 23, 1859 he triumphed in the Battle of El Palito, from which he planned his movements towards the western plains, took San Felipe on March 28, and reorganized the province as a federal entity with the name of state. Yaracuy.

On June 14, 1859 he took the Plaza de Barinas, where he received the title of Brave Citizen. While the forces of the conservative government retreated to San Carlos, Zamora invaded Guanare and Barquisimeto, although he quickly took refuge in Portuguesa after taking considerable loot. On December 10, 1859, the Battle of Santa Inés began, in which he defeated the army. conservative; victory in the process of the Federal War. After Santa Inés, Zamora heads towards the center of the country with 3,000 infantry soldiers and 300 cavalry through Barinas and Portuguesa, but before approaching Caracas he decides to attack San Carlos, whose main square was defended by commander Benito Figueredo with 700 men.

Death

During the preliminary actions for the taking of the plaza on January 10, 1860, Ezequiel Zamora received a bullet in the head, causing his death at 42 years of age. According to the chronicles, Zamora was preparing to supervise the construction of a trench. According to an eyewitness, when he stopped to inspect the work, he was:

"Given the forehead precisely to the enemy who was in the towers of the Conception, about two or three blocks away by elevation."

At that moment:

“Improviously, he was wounded, falling his body in this place, from where his edecans picked him up, and passing through the open hole led him to the house of the Acuña family...”

According to the witness, Zamora was an obvious target as he was known, uncovered and the only one in uniform. In his testimony he states that the bullet entered the lower part of the right eye with an exit hole at the base of the skull. He was buried at dawn the next day in the backyard of the house. Some believe that due to rivalries within the liberal party itself, those responsible for the murder were Juan Crisóstomo Falcón or Antonio Guzmán Blanco, who saw Zamora as a rival for the seizure of power in Caracas.

To avoid demobilization in the advance on the Goths, the death was hidden, but the information spread. After the death of Zamora, Juan Crisóstomo Falcón began the advance towards the city of Valencia with the intention of taking it. However, the rebel troops were very weakened after the siege of San Carlos at the same time that the conservatives began to receive reinforcements, so Falcón had to avoid combat with government troops on several occasions and divert to Apure. Finally, in February 1860, a confrontation known as the Battle of Coplé occurred, resulting in a conservative victory. The Federal War culminated with the Treaty of Coche between the conservatives and the federals in 1863.

Antonio Guzmán Blanco left it in his memory during his retirement in Paris that the remains of Ezequiel Zamora would be transferred to the National Pantheon of Venezuela. There are 2 more versions of his burial: the historian Manuel Landaeta Rosales indicates that the Zamora's body was buried in Los Teques after President Guillermo Tell Villegas exhumed his remains in San Carlos to bury them, transporting them in a delegation to Caracas. The trace is lost in La Victoria, which is why he presumes that the remains are not those that are in the Pantheon and are in the Cathedral of San Felipe de Neri in Los Teques. Another version suggests that during the Blue Revolution, where José Tadeo Monagas returned to power and his replacement José Ruperto Monagas took the city of San Carlos, two of his generals, Desiderio Escobar and Ramón García, Zamora's companions in taking the city Years before, they decided to locate and exhume the remains with the intention of taking them to Caracas and paying him posthumous honors.

Sentimental life

Ezequiel Zamora had a courtship with Viviana González and they had a son, Nicolás Zamora González. Some time later he married on July 4, 1856 with Estefanía Falcón Zavarce, sister of the soldier and politician Crisóstomo Falcón. They resided in Coro, Falcón, along with their adopted children.

Legacy

In Caracas, the Plaza del Calvario was renamed after Ezequiel Zamora. In 2009, the film Zamora, Tierra y Hombres Libres directed by Román Chalbaud, produced by the Villa del Cine and starring by Alexander Solórzano, as Ezequiel Zamora.