Miguel GarcÃa Granados
General Miguel García Granados Zavala ( born September 29, 1809 in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Spain, † September 8, 1878 in Guatemala City ) was a Guatemalan president.
Life and Family
Miguel García Granados was the eighth of eleven children of his parents. His father came from a long-established and wealthy family of colonial Guatemala. In 1792 his parents had moved from Guatemala to Spain. 1811 but returned because of the Napoleonic occupation of Spain to Guatemala. He attended outstanding schools in the United States and Guatemala and completed his schooling from finally in London. Like many of his ancestors struck García Granados then an officer's career.
García Granados was married to Cristina Saboría, with whom he had several children. In the years 1877/78, the Cuban poet José Martí was a frequent guest in García Granados's house and fell in love with his daughter Maria ( 1861-1878 ), which he in his poem La Niña de Guatemala ( The girl from Guatemala), a literary memorial to.
García Granados ' older sister María Josefa, gained notoriety as a writer and publicist, a grandson of him that Colonel Miguel García Granados Solís as aviation pioneer.
The liberal revolution
Miguel García Granados became politically active in the liberal camp. He was an outspoken opponent of the conservative rulers Rafael Carrera and Vicente Cerna. After he had held various political offices already in his younger years, he was in the late 1860s MP for the Liberal Party in the Guatemalan Parliament.
Against the increasingly dictatorial rule accepting Cernas he supported in 1867 and 1869 the armed insurrection of the Field Marshal Serapio Cruz. After the suppression of the rebellion and the execution Cruz ' he fled to Mexico, where he assured the support of Benito Juárez in the armed struggle against the conservative regime Cernas. Then he organized together with General Rufino Barrios a troupe with which he marched from Chiapas to Guatemala. After numerous defeats of the government troops President Cerna fled. On June 30, 1871, the liberal revolution troops Guatemala City and García Granados reached was appointed president.
The Presidency
The appointment of Miguel García Granados was due to the so-called "Declaration of Patzicía " June 3, 1871. In this statement, the liberal revolutionaries of the government Cerna had formally legitimacy revoked and determined that García Granados for a transitional period of two years, the Office the President should take over.
Among the most important reforms that led García Granados during his reign in the way were the introduction of the general freedom of the press, the circumcision of the power of the Catholic Church by expulsion of the Jesuits and two Bishops and prohibition on levying of tithes, the organization of officer training through the establishment of Escuela Politécnica officer Academy, the establishment of a Ministry of infrastructure Funding ( Ministerio de Fomento ) and the uniform determination of age for men and women at 21 years. It also led with regulations of 17 August and 18 November 1871 to the now common flag and the national emblem.