31 Facts About Cipriano Castro

Jose Cipriano Castro Ruiz was a Venezuelan politician and officer of the military who served as president from 1899 to 1908.

Cipriano Castro was the first man from the Venezuelan Andes to rule the country, and was the first of four military strongmen from the Andean state of Tachira to rule the country over the next 46 years.

Cipriano Castro was the only son of Jose Carmen Castro and Pelagia Ruiz.

Cipriano Castro was born on 12 October 1858 in Capacho Viejo, Tachira.

Cipriano Castro's family had significant mercantile and family relations with Colombia, in particular with Cucuta and Puerto Santander.

Cipriano Castro left those studies to return to San Cristobal, where he began work as employee of a company called Van Dissel, Thies and Ci'a.

Cipriano Castro worked as a cowboy in the Andean region.

Cipriano Castro had 21 siblings, the majority of whom were half-siblings on his father's side from relationships after his mother's death.

Cipriano Castro was very close to his family and sent most of his little brothers to study in Caracas.

In 1876 Cipriano Castro opposed the candidacy of general Francisco Alvarado for the presidency of the Tachira state.

Cipriano Castro defeated government forces in Capacho Viejo and in Rubio.

Cipriano Castro entered politics and became the governor of his province of Tachira but was exiled to Colombia when the government in Caracas was overthrown in 1892.

Cipriano Castro lived in Colombia for seven years, amassing a fortune in illegal cattle trading and recruiting a private army.

Once in charge, Cipriano Castro inaugurated a period of plunder and political disorder having assumed the vacant presidency, after modifying the constitution.

Cipriano Castro was characterized as "a crazy brute" by United States secretary of state Elihu Root and as "probably the worst of Venezuela's many dictators" by historian Edwin Lieuwen.

In November 1902, the troops at command of Cipriano Castro himself broke the Siege of La Victoria, weakened the vast network of revolutionaries armies and its extraordinary power.

Cipriano Castro assumed that the Monroe Doctrine would see the United States prevent European military intervention, but at the time the government of president Theodore Roosevelt saw the Doctrine as concerning European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se.

The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quickly disabled, but Cipriano Castro refused to give in, and instead agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected.

In 1906, Cipriano Castro punished the international firms involved in the Revolution to the point that diplomatic relations were broken with the United States and then with France due to debt differences.

The DeForest Wireless Telegraph company negotiated with Cipriano Castro and sent a representative on 18 April 1908 to install stations in five different towns across Venezuela.

In 1908, accusing the opposition to his regime, General Cipriano Castro massively expelled Corsican producers and traders established in and around Carupano.

Cipriano Castro subjected Dutch ships to registration and applied tariff measures to them.

Cipriano Castro finally settled with his wife in Puerto Rico, under close surveillance by spies sent by Juan Vicente Gomez, who assumed the Venezuelan presidency.

Cipriano Castro was married to Zoila Rosa Martinez in October 1886 when she was only 16 years of age.

Cipriano Castro served as First Lady of Venezuela from 1899 to 1908.

Cipriano Castro's daughter, Rosa Cipriano Castro Martinez, was born on 31 January 1906.

Cipriano Castro adopted the stage name Lucille Mendez, and became the first Venezuelan actress in Hollywood silent movies.

Cipriano Castro keeps to brother scrupulously informed of the events on the border, taking care to recruit and send troops to the center of Venezuela that help fight the forces of the Liberating Revolution.

Cipriano Castro fled to Colombia after the coup d'etat of 19 December 1908 and remains in exile until his death in 1924.

Cipriano Castro was woken in the middle of the night, and he leaped off from a window of the Yellow House, the then official residence of the President of Venezuela, and suffered a broken ankle.

Cipriano Castro was portrayed by Roberto Moll in the 2017 film La planta insolente.