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
Military history of South America Paraguayan War (also known as the War of the Triple Alliance), one of the most violent wars to be fought in South America, commenced in 1864 between Paraguay and the allied countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Paraguay had evolved since independence under the rule of the López family; government was harsh, and the López family ruled the country as it would a large property estate. Paraguay's President Francisco Solano López was deeply patriotic, but also ambitious, perhaps arrogant, and possibly insane. In the years before the war, he had invested heavily in building up a military and a standing