Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Obando, José María

OBANDO, José María (o-ban'-do), Colombian general, b. in Garcia in 1797; d. on the battle-field of Cruz Verde, 29 June, 1861. At the age of two years he was abducted and carried to Popayan, where he was adopted by a gentleman named Obando, and his origin is still unknown. At first he served in the royalist army as a guerilla and obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, but in 1822 he united with the Revolutionary party and served under Bolivar in the province of Pasto. After the establishment of independence he was several times minister of state in the department of war and marine, and in 1832 he was appointed minister to Ecuador to negotiate a treaty of peace. He engaged in several revolutionary movements and was persecuted, but afterward cleared himself of all the charges against him. In 1849 he was a member of the Granadian congress and secretary of the chamber of deputies. In 1850 he was appointed governor of the province of Cartagena, and in 1852 he became president of the republic. In June, 1854, there was a revolutionary movement and the constitutional government was replaced by a dictatorship. Gen. Obando was accused of complicity in this revolution and again unjustly persecuted, but in 1860 he was commissioned to suppress a revolution in Cauca, and died in defending the Federal system against the Centralists.