Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/50

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LOSADA
LOS SANTOS

cas, and, after routing part of the Indian forces, founded at the foot of a high mountain a city which he named Santiago de Leon de Caracas. The Indians soon rallied and attacked Losada, cutting off his supplies; but as the tribes were under command of many different caciques. Losada caused dissension among them, and gained over a chief named Gruaipata, through whom he obtained the necessary supplies. Incensed at the treachery, the other tribes formed a league, and, under com- mand of the cacique Guaicapuro, fell with a numerous army upon Guaipata, who demanded succor from Losada. The latter, after a protracted war, defeated the allies, and was appointed by Ponce de Leon governor of the newly founded colony. He began to reward his followers with rich grants of land and Indian commanderies, but caused dissatisfaction by the distribution ; and those who thought themselves unjustly dealt with allied themselves with the Indians, and there was an insurrection. Losada applied to Ponce de Leon for help ; but, in order to i-estore peace, the latter divested him of his command in 1569, transferring the seat of the general government to Caracas. Losada retired to Tocuyo, where he died of grief after vain endeavors to obtain justice.


LOSADA, or LOZADA, Manuel (lo-thah'-dah), Mexican bandit, b. in Santa Teresa, canton Tepic, about 1825 ; d. in Tepic, 19 July, 1873. He was of mixed white, negro, and Indian race, but was born and bred among the Indians. He passed his youth as a farm-laborer. About 1855 he abducted the daughter of a rich Indian of Mojarres, who had been refused in marriage to him, and fled to the neighboring mountains of Nayarit or Alica. Soon he became a cattle-thief, and in one of his descents to the plains was captured, together with his wife, but both managed shortly to escape. On returning to his mountain haunts he became a highwayman out of a desire for revenge, which was increased by the barbarous flogging of his mother, from whose hut he had just escaped, by the government oflfieer who pursued him. He soon gathered a large band of Indians, and the farmers on the plains were in such fear of him that they did not dare to assist the government troops against him, while he levied from them contributions of arms, horses, and pro- visions. Owing to internal strife, the authorities were too weak to suppress brigandage, so that Lo- sada soon became a terror to the inhabitants of the plains, and exacted tribute from every pack-train between the seaport of San Bias and the town of Tepic, and from all the proprietors of farms. When he captured the officer that had flogged his mother, he killed him and his command with cruel tortures, and followed these with other barbarities, which gave him the name of " the tiger of Alica." During the strife between the Liberal and Con- servative parties, Losada joined the latter, and soon he became the autocrat of the mountains, dividing the population into districts, and exacting from every village a tribute and a certain number of warriors, whom he armed with American guns, and who obeyed him even under the most outrage- ous oppression. At last, Ramon Corona, a miner from Acaponeta, who had been persecuted by Lo- sada for his Liberal ideas, attacked the brigand in 1858, first with a force of partisans and afterward with Liberal troops, but was unsuccessful, and Losada remained undisputed master of the depart- ment of Tepic. The government of Miramon flat- tered and decorated him, and after the fall of that leader in 1860 the returning Liberal government, busy with internal strife, left him undisturbed. After the French invasion the authorities recog- nized his grade of general-in-chief and commander of the Department of Alica, and the bishop of Guadalajara came to bless him. Maximilian sent a commission to deliver to the Indian bandit gen- eral a costly sword and the emperor's picture in a frame adorned with diamonds. The commission, on arrival at the village of San Luis, found " his excellency " clad in coarse cotton garb and raw- hide sandals behind the plough. After the fall of the empire, Juarez failed to punish the bandit for his breach of faith in disregarding the neutrality that he had promised in 1862. Until 1872 Losada reigned supreme in the mountains of Alica. In that year he sent messengers to the Mayas of Yuca- tan, the Taraseos of Michoacan, and the Yaquis of Sonora, asking them to rise at the same time against the Liberal government, as he intended to establish an Indian empire. At the beginning of 1873 he had gathered at San Luis an array of about 20.000 Indians, which he divided into three bodies,, sending one against Zacatecas and another against Sinaloa, and he marched at the head of 10,000 men on 17 Jan. toward the centre of Jalisco, proclaim- ing to his followers that they were to take their pay from the captured towns. His former antago- nist. Gen. Corona, was military commander of Ja- lisco, and marched with scarcely 1,600 men to de- fend the city of Guadalajara from plunder. The two forces met, 28 Jan., 1873, at Mojonera, near Guadalajara, and, after a desperate battle, Losada was totally roiited. and, with a loss of nearly 3,000, fled to the mountains, wounded in the arm. The government troops lost fewer than 400. Gen. Ce- ballos, with a large force, was sent in pursuit of Losada, and after defeating him in several encoun- ters, in which he was gradually abandoned by his followers, Col. Rosales at last captured him. Lo- sada was taken to Tepic, quickly tried by a mili- tary court, and executed near that town.


LOSKIEL. George Henry, Moravian bishop, b. in Angermuende. Courland, Russia, 7 Nov., 1740 ; d. in Bethlehem, Pa., 23 Feb., 1814. He was edu- cated at the Moravian college and theological semi- nary of Germany. In 1802 he was consecrated to the' episcopacy, and appointed presiding bishop of the northern district of the American province of the Moravian church, and he filled the office, with general acceptance, until 1811, when his health failed. In the following year he was elected to the chief executive board of his church at Berthels- dorf. Saxony ; but the condition of his health pre- vented him from leaving this country. Lcskiel was an eloquent preacher and a good writer. Two of his works are especially important : " Etwas f iirs Herz," meditations for every day in the year, which has passed through more than eight editions and still enjoys high repute (Basle, 1806), and the " History of the Moravian Mission among the North American Indians," translated into English by Charles J. Lati'obe (London, 1794).


LOSS, Lewis Honiri, clergyman, b. in Augusta, N. Y., 1 July, 1803 ; d. 10 July, 1865. He was graduated at Hamilton college in 1828, ordained to the ministry of the Presbyterian church in 1829, and held various pastorates in the states of New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Iowa. He erected many churches in the west, and was active in the establishment of Rockford female seminary and Beloit college.


LOS SANTOS, Tomas de, clergyman, b. in Cordova, Argentine Republic, in 1826 ; d. in Buenos Ayres in 1868. He was educated in Buenos Ayres. and in 1840 entered the Dominican order in the convent of Cordova, where he gave such evidences of superior intelligence that he was appointed professor of theology and philosophy at the age