Cristóbal Mendoza of the Republic of Venezuela. In 1813 Mendoza fled a royalist invasion and moved to Grenada, and soon after he joined Simon Bolivar's effort to liberate South America from Spanish rule. Bolivar appointed Mendoza the governor of Mérida in May 1813, and Mendoza was appointed governor of Caracas several months later. Fleeing Venezuela again in 1814 when José Tomás Boves conquered Caracas, Mendoza moved to Trinidad, where from 1819 and 1820 he was an active political writer for the "Correo del Orinoco". In 1826, Francisco de Paula Santander appointed Mendoza as Mayor of the Department of Venezuela in the empire
Administrative divisions of South America Administrative divisions of South America The table below indicates the types and, where known, numbers of administrative divisions used by countries having territories in South America and their major dependent territories. It is ordered alphabetically by country name in English. France's territory in South America is French Guiana. The Netherlands' territories in South America are Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. The United Kingdom's territories in South America are the Falklands Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. Administrative divisions with ISO 3166-1 are cited for statistics matters even when they do not have a special status (for example, the