Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá, was born in Cumaná (Venezuela) , on February 3, 1795. Son of don Vicente de Sucre y Urbaneja and doña María Manuela de Alcalá. His father was a supporter of the independence of his homeland and of America, as were his nine children, a position that cost them dearly, since several died tragically at the hands of the royalists. Antonio lost his mother when he was 9 years old, immediately taking care of his uncle José Manuel de Sucre. At the age of 15 he took up arms as a cadet in the hussar company of Fernando VII, in which his father was captain. On July 12, 1810, the Supreme Board of Cumaná promoted him to sub-lieutenant of regulated militias . A month later, the Supreme Board of Caracas appointed him Second Lieutenant of the Royal Corps of Engineers of Cumaná. In April 1811 he went on to command a similar corporation on Isla Margarita and, the following year, he was appointed lieutenant commander of the artillery in Barcelona. After the capitulation of Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda (1812) and the entry of the victorious royalists into Caracas, led by Domingo de Monteverde, Sucre fled to Cumaná , staying in that place despite having a passport to travel to the island of Trinidad.
When the troops of General Santiago Marino arrived in the outskirts of Cumaná in 1813, Sucre and his brothers joined his forces .
In 1814 he appears as the first assistant to General Marino in Cartagena, and after the evacuation of this place he went to Trinidad. In 1816 he saved from a shipwreck and a few months later he was already commander of the Colombian battalion. He then went on to serve directly under the orders of the Liberator Bolívar. He commanded the Orinoco battalion from September 4, 1817, and that same year Bolívar granted him the rank of colonel, appointing him governor of Guayana la Vieja and commander of the Lower Orinoco . He later became chief of staff of the Army of the East until 1819. In 1820 he was commissioned to buy arms and ammunition in the Antilles and the same year he became chief of staff of the Liberator and Acting Minister of War.
Antonio José de Sucre and the freedwoman of Ecuador
At the beginning of 1821, Bolívar commissioned the command of the army of southern Colombia in Bogotá. With these forces he went to El Trapiche, Popayán, Cali and Buenaventura; in Cascajal he embarked for Guayas, arriving in March of that year. As soon as he arrived in Guayaquil, the patriotic junta placed the Guayaquil soldiers under his command. He was wounded in the combat of Guachi on September 12, 1821, but triumphed in Riobamba in April of the following year. On May 24 he achieved the freedom of Ecuador with the victory of Pichincha . On June 18 Bolívar promoted him to division general. At the end of the year he submitted Pasto to the liberating forces and returned to Guayaquil.
Sucre gave permanent signs of great humanism, helping not only the helpless and needy, but whenever he could, he prevented the torture and death of the vanquished. His generosity was further extended by promoting the increase in the number of schools in various towns in Ecuador. In Quito he founded El Monitor, the first republican newspaper in the country of Guayas. In 1823 Bolívar named him head of the auxiliary Colombian troops of Peru and commissioner before that government.
Sucre and his aid to Peru
On May 30, the Peruvian Executive appointed him as head of the national army and, from Pativilca, on February 13 of the following year, Bolívar entrusted him with the leadership of the united army, made up of Peruvians, Argentines, Colombians and Chileans. Sucre organized the troops that were victorious against the royalists in Junín on August 6, 1824; and on December 9 he won in Ayacucho in what is considered the decisive battle of American independence . For such a brilliant career, Bolívar named him Grand Marshal on December 26, a title confirmed by the Peruvian Congress as Grand Marshal of Ayacucho. On February 14, 1825, the Colombian Congress promoted him to general in chief of its national army. He was later appointed military chief of Bolivia, then known as Upper Peru. , and the convened Assembly entrusted him with the supreme command; shortly after, on May 26, 1826, the Bolivian Congress elected him President of the Republic . His impeccable conduct exposed him to the intrigues of some malicious foreigners, and he was injured in the Chuquisaca riot. In April 1828 he returned to Colombia and on October 28 he was appointed chief of the army of that country, triumphing in Tarqui against the Peruvian army on February 27, 1829. The following year the people of Cumaná elected him representative before the Admirable Congress, in the one who was appointed its president; here he was commissioned to prevent the dissolution of Gran Colombia and he did not succeed. He returned to Bogotá, continued to Quito, and on June 4, 1830 he was assassinated in Berruecos . He was married to Mariana Carcelén, Marquesa de Solanda y Villarrocha, whom he met in Latacunga; with her he had a daughter named Teresa, who died in Quito shortly after her death.
In 1995, when the bicentennial of his birth was celebrated, there were resounding celebrations at the continental level, both in his native land and in all the neighboring countries that owe him his freedom.