Domingo Caycedo - The Presidency

The Presidency

On April 1, 1830, when President Bolívar had to take a leave of absence from Bogotá to the Hacienda of Fucha, seeking to recover from an illness, Caycedo assumed the Office of Interim President. This would be the first of several occasions to act as President in this capacity.

Later that same year, when Simón Bolívar, the Founding Father, irrevocably resigned to the presidency, Congress elected don Joaquín de Mosquera as president and Caycedo as vice-president. Because Mosquera was very ill and frail, Caycedo assumed the executive power as acting president on August 2, 1830.

Caycedo was deposed, by the first coup d’état in the country, by the Venezuelan General Rafael Urdaneta on September 5, 1830. Months later, supported by the regrouped constitutional army, Caycedo proclaimed he was the legitimate president on April 11, 1831. He contacted General Urdaneta and invited him to a summit to discuss the future of the nation’s government. Urdaneta accepted, and on April 28, 1831, they met at Junats de Apulo, near the town of Tocaima. They both reach an agreement and sign the Accord of Apulo, by which General Urdaneta recognized Caycedo as acting president. Thus, Caycedo, once again, took office on May 3, 1831.

Caycedo, as acting president, convened Congress. On November 15, 1831, Congress elected General Francisco de Paula Santander as president and General José María Obando as vice-president.

A few years later Caycedo was elected to Congress, appointed Secretary of the Treasury and once again, six more times, Caycedo would act as interim president every time that president José Ignacio de Márquez needed to be absent from office for short periods of time.

Finally, between 1841 and 1845, during the presidency of Pedro Alcántara Herrán, Caycedo once again, acted as interim president twice during temporary absences by the president. As such, General Caycedo became the Colombian to have acted as president the most times, eleven in total.