Hernández, José Manuel (c. 1853–1919)

José Manuel Hernández (b. ca. 1853; d. 1919), Venezuelan caudillo and politician. A native of Caracas and a perennial revolutionary, Hernández was injured in battle in 1870. After extensive travel in the West Indies and throughout Venezuela, and engaging in various business ventures, "El Mocho" (the maimed) became the president of Bolívar State, where he opposed attempts at centralization by the authorities in Caracas, and also served in Congress. One of three candidates in the 1887 presidential election, Hernández gained enormous popularity by waging Venezuela's first modern political campaign through appealing directly to the masses and campaigning throughout the country under the banner of the Liberal Nationalist Party. Losing in a grossly fraudulent election, the idealistic populist then led an unsuccessful rebellion against the new government of the official candidate, Ignacio Andrade. Hernández was imprisoned and later exiled, but returned to Venezuela in 1908 to accept a high post in the regime of Juan Vicente Gómez.

See alsoCaudillismo, Caudillo; Venezuela: Venezuela Since 1830.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Judith Ewell, Venezuela: A Century of Change (1984).

Robert L. Gilmore, Caudillism and Militarism in Venezuela, 1810–1910 (1964).

Ramón J. Velásquez, La caída del liberalismo amarillo (1972).

Additional Bibliography

Carvallo, Gastón. Próceres, caudillos y rebeldes: Crisis del sistema de dominación en Venezuela, 1830–1908. Caracas: Grijalbo, 1994.

                                Winfield J. Burggraaff