Jose de La Mar
Jose de La Mar commanded the Peruvian division at Ayacucho and was deposed four years later for losing a war to the country he was born in. He was born in Cuenca, in what is now Ecuador, and spent twenty years in the Spanish army in Europe, fighting the French at Zaragoza and being taken prisoner there. He was sent to Peru as a royalist commander and held Callao under siege for a year before surrendering it. He then changed sides, and at Ayacucho in 1824 he led the Peruvian troops on the left of the patriot line in the battle that ended Spanish rule in South America. Congress elected him president in 1827, in the reaction against Bolivar's constitution and the Colombian troops still garrisoned in the country. He was a reluctant candidate and an honest one, which in Peru in the 1820s meant he had no faction. The war with Gran Colombia came out of the border and out of that reaction. Peru occupied Guayaquil and Bolivia, and the Colombian army under Sucre met the Peruvians at Portete de Tarqui in February 1829 and beat them. The armistice signed after it gave back everything. His own general overthrew him four months later. Agustin Gamarra arrested him at Piura, put him on a ship, and took the presidency. La Mar died in Costa Rica the following year, and his remains were brought back to Lima only in 1847. He is the only Peruvian president born in what became Ecuador, which his enemies used against him at the time and which the two countries have argued about since.
- Lived: 1778 CE – 1830 CE
- Nationality: Peruvian
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
