My Vásquez Family from Colombia's Caribbean Coast (updated 11/23/2024)

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This page is dedicated to my cousin Jellissa Alvarado, whose expansive investigation of genetic and archival genealogy greatly increased my understanding of my Vásquez and Cohen family history.   

This sepia picture from the late 1920s is a rare glimpse at the unity the old Vásquez Cohen family had in Barranquilla, Colombia. The picture shows the front porch of Calle 45 #46-197, or Murillo Street between Olaya Herrera and Aduana Avenues. This house, lost when Calle Murillo was widened, was the home of the family matriarch, Mercedes Vásquez Cohen (1885-1963), a pharmacist who ran her business, "Farmacia Mercedes," in the side of the building. In the central patio, Mercedes tended a lush garden of fruit-bearing trees and animals. Her library was filled with Cervantes, Hugo, Dante, and Marx in their original languages. The house was where she raised three generations of her family.

Mercedes was born in Cartagena, Colombia and raised in the small town of Villanueva, about 20 miles inland. Her father, José Ángel Vásquez, who was supposedly the richest man in town, married Mercedes Cohen, a Colombian woman of Jewish descent. Their children were raised Catholic and well-educated - two early artifacts from the Villanueva years are a book of orthography and a book of philosophy, both signed by the siblings. The pride in education accounts for the large number of doctors in the family.

Then came the Guerra de los mil días (Thousand Days' War), the cruel civil war during which the family may have fallen on harder times. Mercedes fell in love with a young Liberal soldier named José Mejía Ospina (c.1876-1969) and they went to Panamá, which was soon to become an independent country.

José Mejía Ospina was born in Manizales, Caldas (formerly Antioquia), Colombia. He was the 7th-great-grandson of Juan Mejía de Tobar (born 1585 in Villacastín, Segovia, Spain; died 1644 in Valle de Aburrá, Antioquia, Colombia) and was possibly related to Colombia's three Presidents Ospina, and a descendant of the 16th-century Mexia family of Villacastín, relatives of the Counts of Molina de Herrera. José came from a Conservative region, but he was a Mason and horse and mule trader for the Liberal army. He was especially skilled with paso fino horses. In the battle of Peralonso (1899) or Palonegro (1900), José jumped into a river and swam away to avoid getting shot at, and there were bullets ricocheting around him in the water.

When Panamá became independent in 1903, José and Mercedes had to flee to Cartagena in a little canoe. When waves covered the canoe, they had to bail out the boat with their hats to keep from sinking. Somehow, they made it back to Cartagena, where Mercedes became the first woman to graduate from the School of Pharmacy of the University of Cartagena. Then they settled in Barranquilla, where Mercedes became the city's first female pharmacist, dutifully mixing her medicines with a mortar and pestle.

Envelopes from Farmacia Mercedes, Mercedes Vásquez de Mejía's business

José and Mercedes finally married on May 15, 1908, and their happy marriage lasted for 55 years. Mercedes was unable to have children so she adopted her sister's son Alejandro (see below). Unfortunately, Mercedes also outlived most of her siblings, so she became a surrogate mother for their children and grandchildren, and a godmother to many as well (my father included).

José Mejía Ospina and Mercedes Vásquez Cohen celebrate their golden wedding anniversary with their family on May 15, 1958

THE VÁSQUEZ FAMILY BEFORE 1899

The year after the death of Simón Bolívar, a dying woman in Villanueva made out her will. That I could access this will on my laptop nearly two centuries later, in February 2024, is thanks to the efforts of SlaveSocieties.org, a digital archive run by Vanderbilt University preserving the histories of enslaved Africans and their descendants in Latin America. Over 250,000 enslaved Africans entered Colombia between the 1500s to 1800s, mostly through Cartagena. SlaveSocieties.org has digitized an impressive amount of Colombian records, including notarial records too fragile to microfilm, such as the 1831 will of my 4th-great-grandmother, Josefa Bravo de Vásquez. Fitting with the website's focus, one of the few details my ancestor left behind to posterity was that she was a slaveowner. Through years of research, I've found that all branches of my grandmother's costeño family tree engaged in the horrid practices of enslaving people. 

The top of the first page of Josefa Bravo's will. (SlaveSocieties.org)

Born in the late 1700s in Villanueva, Josefa Bravo listed her deceased parents as Manuel Bravo and Antonia Sánchez, her late husband as Juan Nepomuceno Vásquez, and her two surviving children as Manuel de la O. Vásquez, my 3rd-great-grandfather, and Paulina Vásquez. She left Paulina three young slaves (criados) — María Valentina Amador and the siblings Vicenta Cabarcas and Nicolás Cabarcas — and yet another 100 pesos to purchase a slave. 

The will is an ugly document, preserving Josefa's plans for her daughter to continue a legacy of creating wealth from owning human beings. She also wrote that her son Manuel de la O. had "earned with his work" his inheritance, and later he appeared many times in Cartagena's notarial records as a buyer and seller of enslaved people. Manuel's documented crimes against humanity committed in the name of business include: 

• 1832: Manuel sold a man named Isidoro.
  
  
• 1835: Manuel bought a woman named Ortencia for 250 pesos, sold a woman named Matea Sánchez for 150 pesos, and bought an 11-year-old boy named Roque Jacinto. 
  
  
• 1844: Manuel sold a criada named Nicolasa Pérez. 
  
  
• 1847: Manuel served as a representative in the sale of a woman named María Dominga Matos for 150 pesos. 

An 1846 record provides a window into Manuel de la O. Vásquez's livelihood. Manuel took out a loan of 2,500 pesos to pay back within a year. He put up two farms (dos posesiones) in Villanueva, "one of [sugar] cane, with all its supplies and animals, and one of coffee," as well as "six freed slaves and forty cattle." It's shocking that Manuel considered "six freed slaves" as his property. He likely meant the labor of these freed slaves, treating them like peons, sharecroppers, or serfs. After Colombian abolition of slavery in 1851, Manuel probably continued in his role as a planter and exploited his farm workers. 

The family story of José Ángel Vásquez being the "richest man" in Villanueva is due to generational wealth resulting from exploiting slaves. 

1835 signature of Manuel de la O. Vásquez

From documents ridden with slavery, I turn to shadowy family lore, which claims the original surname was Wilson. An Englishwoman's son, who had the last name Wilson, was adopted by a family named Vásquez. Who this man was, where this was, when this was, and the veracity of the story are all unknown. 

My great-uncle Calixto Noguera Lara said the Vásquez family originally came from Santa Rosa and San Estanislao de Kostka (Arenal del Norte) in Bolívar Department. In these towns slightly inland from the slave trade port of Cartagena de Indias, one can imagine my European ancestors intermarrying and pairing with the local Turbaco and Calamarí Indians and Black descendants of enslaved Africans. The Vásquez family once put on airs that they were "pure Spanish," but the evidence of our distant interracial ancestors lives on in our DNA and many of our physical features. 

Seal of Cartagena de Indias after independence (1814), with an Indian holding broken chains

Santa Rosa, a town a few miles northeast of Cartagena, was called Alipaya by the local Turbaco (Yurbaco) Indians. The site became an encomienda, a Spanish plantation that exploited the local Indians, in 1549, and then in 1735 the Spanish formally "founded" the town and renamed it after St. Rosa of Lima. Census records from 1777 show there were roughly 700 residents in Santa Rosa, including several possible relatives like the 34-year-old widow Bárbara de Vásquez. Several other Vásquez families are listed in the 1777 census living in Pasacaballos, a village a few miles south of Cartagena. 

A few miles further east of Santa Rosa was the Indian settlement of Timiriguaco, named after the local mountain, which became an encomienda named San Juan de Timiriguaco. Colonial authorities formally "founded" a town at the site in 1775, and eventually it was renamed Villanueva. The town "founder," Antonio de la Torre y Miranda, led an expedition from 1774-1778 that re-established 43 towns in Caribbean Colombia and forcibly resettled 43,000 people. It was the most successful of several attempts to disband and replace the region's informal settlements (rochelas, palenques, etc.), where mostly free people of color lived beyond the control of the church and state. This period of forced resettlement, followed by post-independence Colombia's division of the common lands of Indian villages, allowed ranchers to grab large amounts of "unclaimed" land.

San Estanislao, located a few miles southeast of Villanueva and a few miles north of Mahates, is called "Arenal" (sandy) by its residents. A Jesuit mission was established there in 1650, on the northeastern side of the Canal del Dique, a colonial-era waterway that connected Cartagena with the mouth of the Magdalena River.

The book "Efemérides y anales del Estado de Bolívar" (1889) by Manuel Ezequiel Corrales says that Villanueva had 1,430 residents who were "very industrious and dedicated to work, the reason why this town is not poor." Santa Rosa was said to be "only notable for its abundance of excellent watermelons," and its 752 residents were mostly "indolent and lazy," which reads as racially coded. San Estanislao was a larger town of 2,156 inhabitants, with good land for pastures and raising cotton.

Cockfight in Aracataca (1960), photo by Leo Matiz

It seems Manuel de la O. Vásquez stayed in Villanueva, and served as the mayor when the town suffered a devastating fire on February 28, 1859. The book "Efemérides y anales del Estado de Bolívar" preserves Manuel's report detailing the 417 pesos raised by cartageneros for Villanueva's recovery. 

Manuel de la O. Vásquez and a number of his sons had multiple families, like many other men in 19th-century Caribbean Colombia. The digitized parish registers of Villanueva and civil marriage records of Cartagena are incomplete, but surviving records show Manuel had at least 13 children by at least 6 different women, including my great-great-great-grandmother, María Natividad Gelis. 

The last name Gelis or Geliz is pretty rare in Colombia but very common in France. The surname makes an intriguing appearance in Cartagena history, when Marcelina Gelis, a 50-year-old negra libre (free Black woman), testified before church officials building a case for the beatification of St. Pedro Claver (1580-1654), a Cartagena priest who famously ministered to enslaved African people. Marcelina testified that she met an enslaved African man who was brought back from the dead by Claver. The revived African man lived long enough to be baptized by Claver and drink a couple raw eggs from Marcelina, before dying again. Other witnesses of these events included Marcelina's slaves, 22-year-old Manuel Gelis and 30-year-old Isabel Gelis.

The Geliz surname appears again in the 1777 colonial census of Mahates and the surrounding area, where 38-year-old Manuel Geliz lived in the ancestral town of Timiriguaco with his 44-year-old wife María Atencia and their children, 13-year-old Ignacio, 12-year-old José, 8-year-old Carlos, 24-year-old María, 16-year-old María (I assume the three Marías had different middle names!), and 8-year-old Juana. Perhaps this family is directly related to María Natividad Gelis. 

The 1777 colonial census's notes for Timiriguaco and Manuel Geliz's family.

Manuel de la O. Vásquez and María Natividad Gelis had at least four children, and their earliest known grandchild was born in 1855. María Natividad Gelis appears as a godmother in baptismal records through 1860. 

1879 signature of Manuel de la O. Vásquez

The Vásquez Gelis children included:

1. Paulina Vásquez Gelis (born 1830s)

2. Tomasa Vásquez Gelis (born 1830s)

3. José Ángel Vásquez Gelis, whose families continue below.

4. Francisco Solano Vásquez Gelis (born in Villanueva; died June 16, 1905 in Cartagena), probably the delegate of the same name elected in 1873 to represent the Province of Cartagena in the federal state of Bolívar's legislature. 

Manuel de la O. Vásquez and Petrona Ruiz had at least three children:

1. Juan Vásquez Ruiz (born c.1825; died 1900 in Barranquilla)

2. Hermogenes Vásquez Ruiz (died c.1902-1906)

3. Manuel de la O. Vásquez Ruiz (born c.1850; died 1884 in Panama City, Panama)

Manuel de la O. Vásquez had a son with Josefa García:

1. Manuel de la Ascención Vásquez (born in Cartagena; died 1895 in Panama City)

Manuel de la O. Vásquez had a daughter with Ignacia Rubio: 

1. Buenaventura Vásquez Rubio (born c.1829; died February 15, 1931 in Arjona, Bolívar, Colombia), who lived to the incredible age of 102 and married a man named Escalante.  

Manuel de la O. Vásquez had a son with Blasina Herrera: 

1. Manuel José Vásquez Herrera

Later in life, Manuel de la O. Vásquez had another son with Josefa María Ayola: 

1. Elías Celestino Vásquez Ayola (born March 6, 1873; baptized January 28, 1874 in Villanueva) 

Two other daughters of Manuel de la O. Vásquez have unknown mothers: 

1. Juana Agustina Vásquez

2. Eufemia de los Dolores Vásquez 

Finally, Manuel de la O. Vásquez had a civil marriage in 1879 to Teresa Terán, who was born in El Carmen de Bolívar. It's unknown if they had children.

José Ángel Vásquez signs and dates an 1879 civil marriage record.

My great-great-grandfather José Ángel Vásquez Gelis had at least 12 children by 3 different women. First he and Andrea Marrugo had at least one son:

1. Gabriel Vásquez Marrugo (born September 15, 1868; baptized April 18, 1869 in Villanueva), who was raised by his mother but recognized by his father and allowed to use his father's surname.

José Ángel then had a relationship with Dominga Cervantes, with four daughters:

1. María Aurelia Vásquez Cervantes (born March 18, 1872; baptized August 11, 1872 in Villanueva)

2. Juana de Dios Vásquez Cervantes (born May 24, 1874; baptized June 3, 1874 in Villanueva)

3. María Natividad Vásquez Cervantes (born April 20, 1875; baptized June 27, 1875 in Villanueva)

4. María Herminia Vásquez Cervantes (born May 17, 1877; baptized September 12, 1877 in Villanueva)

In the late 1870s, José Ángel Vásquez married Mercedes Cohen, and they had seven children:

1. Ramón Vásquez Cohen (born August 30, 1879; baptized March 29, 1880 in the Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad in Cartagena)

2. Ana Manuela Vásquez Cohen (born September 4, 1881; baptized February 5, 1882 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena), who probably died in childhood.

3. José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen, my great-grandfather (born January 12, 1883 in Villanueva; baptized November 12, 1883 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena)

4. Mercedes Vásquez Cohen (born January 7, 1885; baptized November 8, 1885 in the Catedral de Santa Catalina de Alejandría in Cartagena)

5. Rosa del Carmen Vásquez Cohen (born August 30, 1888; baptized August 30, 1888 in the Catedral de Santa Catalina de Alejandría in Cartagena)

6. Israel Vásquez Cohen (born c.1891 in Villanueva)

7. María Teresa Vásquez Cohen (born May 28, 1895; baptized July 27, 1896 in the Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad in Cartagena)

Mercedes Cohen (born c.1855), the wife of José Ángel Vásquez, has a wonderfully rich family history stretching back to her grandfather Juan Cohen (c.1786-1869), a British Jewish man who became a privateer working out of Cartagena, Colombia in the 1820s, and later was a slave owner and Colombian merchant for British firms. Her other grandfather was probably the judge Francisco de Paula Herrera Leiva y Paniza (born 1795), a descendant of Cartagena high society who was officially her mother's adopted father. 

DNA tests show that Mercedes's mother was likely part of the Herrera Leiva family of Cartagena, Colombia, which in turn descended from Juan Toribio de la Torre y López, an accomplished Cartagena military officer who in 1690 bought from the Spanish crown the title of "Conde de Santa Cruz de la Torre." This "count" claimed his own noble origins among the 15th-century conquerors of the Canary Islands  — a long family legacy of violence! 

MEDICINE: A VÁSQUEZ FAMILY TRADITION

It seems that one of the sons of Manuel de la O. Vásquez, Manuel de la Ascención Vásquez (died 1895), settled in what was then the Colombian state of Panamá, maybe after the completion of the Panama Railroad in 1855. Panama became a global crossing point to both the gold mines of California and shipping between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, long before the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914.

Manuel de la Ascención Vásquez, much like his father and brothers, had multiple families with multiple women, but two of his sons, Manuel Joaquín Vásquez (born c.1847 in Villanueva) and Dr. Sofanor Vásquez (born c.1889 in Cartagena; died 1967 in Barranquilla), are notable for starting a tradition of medical professionals in the Vásquez family. 

Manuel Joaquín Vásquez opened in 1876 the Farmacia Vásquez at 177A Calle del Colegio in Cartagena, on the same street as the Universidad de Cartagena. He followed in the footsteps of (and maybe even apprenticed with) the Spanish-born pharmacist Manuel Román y Picón (1804-1874), who in 1835 founded the first pharmacy in Cartagena, La botica Román, and eventually became the father-in-law of President Rafael Núñez. The Farmacia Vásquez was the fourth pharmacy to open in Cartagena, serving the city's population as it grew from 7,600 people in 1870, to almost 14,000 people by 1882, and then 30,000 people by 1912. Gabriel García Márquez portrayed this bustling Cartagena in his novel Love in the Time of Cholera, and one can imagine the novel's stuffy doctor, Juvenal Urbino de la Calle, writing the prescriptions that Manuel Joaquín would then decipher, crushing the medicinal ingredients with pestle and mortar. 

Medicine bottles from La botica Román, Cartagena (Source)

The writer Daniel Lemaitre Tono (1884-1961) recalled these antique pharmacies in his book "La ñapa" (1956), vividly describing the pharmacists' odd counter displays: "Y si bien el señor Comas y don Manuel Joaquín Vásquez se demoraban en la trasbotica media hora larga machacando aquellas viejas recetas en latín, en cambio, para distracción de la clientela, había siempre sobre el mostrador varios frascos bocones en donde podían verse fetos cabezudos sumeridos en alcohol, escolopendras gigantes, culebras enrolladas, y especialmente había siempre uno de gran atracción, aquel donde las sanguijuelas hacían fascinantes evoluciones de contracción y alargamiento."

"Manuel J. Vasquez" appears in an 1899 issue of the U.S. publication "The Modern Miller" as one of the "principal merchants of Cartagena," and Manuel served as a city councilman in 1905. 

Dr. Sofanor Vásquez Salguedo (c.1889-1967) was a correspondent with his cousin Pedro Sonderéguer, and Google turns up fascinating fragments of his professional medical career: 

Sofanor was credited with saving the life of a Barranquilla baby with a milk allergy in 1925, by recommending the child be fed donkey's milk. The family acquired two donkeys that had to be milked by hand, and the child grew up to be Jaime Antonio Verano Prieto, an accomplished musician and writer. 

Sofanor helped found Barranquilla's Sociedad Médico-­Quirúrgica del Atlántico in 1928. In response to the Spanish Civil War, Sofanor led in 1938 Barranquilla's Junta de Ayuda a los niños huérfanos Españoles, which raised money for Spanish orphans. In 1955, Sofanor received a patent for an artificial leg. Two years before his death, Sofanor was awarded the prestigious Cruz de Esculapio by the Federación Médica Colombiana, in honor of his medical accomplishments.

Dr. Sofanor Vásquez gives a testimonial for "Bleno-Blenol" pills, in a 1926 ad campaign in Bogotá's  "El Tiempo." The photo is a composite from two ads found in Google Newspaper Archives. 

Given the prominence of the Cartagena pharmacist Manuel Joaquín Vásquez and Dr. Sofanor Vásquez of Barranquilla, their Vásquez cousins may have gotten inspiration from them to pursue their own medical careers. Five children of José Ángel Vásquez Gelis studied medicine: Gabriel Vásquez Marrugo and Mercedes Vásquez Cohen became pharmacists, and Ramón, José Arcadio, and Israel Vásquez Cohen became doctors. Almost 150 years after Manuel Joaquín Vásquez opened his pharmacy, descendants of the Vásquez family still practice medicine in Colombia, the United States, Canada, and beyond.  

SIX LIBERAL SOLDIERS

The costeño Vásquez family, being educated and involved in Liberal politics, quickly entered Colombia’s traumatic civil war, the Guerra de los mil días (1899-1902). Civil wars between Liberals and Conservatives were nothing new, as Colombia had endured one about every decade since the division of Gran Colombia in 1830, but the Guerra de los mil días surpassed them all in scale and devastation. At least 80,000 people died out of Colombia's total population of 4 million, a coup toppled a president, and the U.S. backed the secession of Panamá and occupied its lucrative future Canal Zone. The war did not resolve partisan strife, but helped a dictator take power in Bogotá and let the Conservatives maintain their death grip on government for another 30 years.

At least six Vásquez relatives fought in the Liberal forces: 

One son of Manuel de la O. Vásquez, Elías Celestino Vásquez Ayola (born 1873), who also fought in the civil wars of 1885 and 1895. 

One son of Francisco Solano Vásquez Gelis, Marcial Vásquez Díaz (born 1879), who also fought in the civil war of 1895. 

Two sons of José Ángel Vásquez Gelis, Gabriel Vásquez Marrugo (1868-1956) and Ramón Vásquez Cohen (born 1879), and a son-in-law, José Mejía Ospina (c.1876-1969). 

One son of Manuel Joaquín Vásquez, Rafael Vásquez Beltrán (born 1881). 

Five of these men wrote brief summaries of their wartime experience in their applications for veterans' pensions from the Colombian government in the late 1930s. Bogotá bureaucrats pored over these cases for over a decade before they finally approved the pensions. Gabriel García Márquez immortalized these old veterans' years of uncertain waiting in his novella "No One Writes to the Colonel." 

Photo of Elías C. Vásquez Ayola (1939), from his veteran's pension application.

Elías Vásquez Ayola endured the most years of war, having joined the Liberal rebellion in Colón, Panamá during February 1885, a month shy of his 12th birthday. These Liberals gathered under the leadership of a cartagenero lawyer, Pedro Prestán (1852-1885). It's unclear how Elías ended up in Colón, but records show his mother stayed behind in Villanueva and had two more relationships and several more children. It’s possible Elías may have been sent away to live with relatives. 

Generations of racist historians portrayed the "mulato" lawyer-turned-fighter Pedro Prestán as bloodthirsty, but a recent investigation of the historical record shows Prestán was a Liberal idealist, a family man, and an inexperienced warrior. A blockade halted Prestán’s order of weapons from the United States, and on March 31, 1885 government troops surrounded Prestán’s few hundred troops on Monkey Hill, outside Colón. 

Elías, who remembered the name of the skermish as "Monquijil," says he received a grave head wound, and then was made a captain by Pedro Prestán. I can imagine Prestán feeling moved and perhaps guilty at the sight of a seriously wounded 12-year-old among his ranks. As Pedro Prestán's troops scattered from Monkey Hill, a fire also spread and consumed the entire city of Colón in a day. Racists claimed for over a century that Prestán ordered the fire, but historians have found no proof of that. 

As he recovered from his head wound, Elías laid low in the south and interior of Panamá, saving his life. Pedro Prestán made a more direct path back to Cartagena, was quickly apprehended, endured a mock trial run by authorities who did not speak Spanish, and was sentenced to hang on August 18, 1885. Liberal rebellions in other areas of Colombia, like the failed siege of Cartagena on May 7, 1885, quickly fizzled out and the partisan struggle went dormant for a decade.  

Pedro Prestán

The Conservative President Rafael Núñez died in 1894, and the following year Liberals once again rebelled. Elías, who had returned to Cartagena, joined the fight and participated in a battle at San Antero. Elías’s 16–year-old half-nephew, Marcial Vásquez Díaz, dropped out of the Escuela de Filosofía y Letras in Cartagena to fight. The Liberals were once again crushed and partisan fighting remained dormant until October 1899.

At the start of the Guerra de los mil días, Elías was working as a mechanic in Cartagena. Conservatives (who he called “godos,” a derogatory nickname) made him refurbish old rifles for their armies. Elías snuck as many rifles as he could to Isla de Manga, south of the city, to form a Liberal army. He claimed this group of Liberal soldiers “took the plaza of Cartagena,” but I am not sure when this precisely happened.

Meanwhile, 20-year-old Marcial abandoned his law studies at the University of Cartagena in October to once again fight with the Liberals. On November 15, 1899, Marcial was among the 400 Liberal soldiers at the battle of Piojó [now Atlántico Department] who defeated 300 Conservative soldiers, leaving 60 dead. (The estimates of battle participants and dead quoted here came from the lawyer Lisímaco Paláu in 1900 and are quoted in this essay.)

Nearly 40 years later, Marcial wrote of his time as a soldier, “I sacrificed goods, tranquility, blood, and what is more appreciable for the future of a man, my career or profession of law, because I left the classrooms of the University of Cartagena... to run after the adventures of a disproportionate struggle in elements, but encouraged by a sublime ideal of justice that allowed one to overcome oneself with courage and dignity, when in front of the machine-gunning enemy.”

Marcial’s cousin, 31-year-old Gabriel Vásquez Marrugo, was probably already a pharmacist when in November 1899 he joined the Batallón de Juan José Nieto, an army named after a famous 19th-century costeño Liberal caudillo. In February 1900, Gabriel took part in the battle of Luruaco [now Atlántico Department].

Another cousin, 18-year-old Rafael Vásquez Beltrán, dropped out of his medical studies in Bogotá to join the Liberal Ejército del Oriente, which true to its name fought in the eastern regions of Colombia including the llanos (plains) of Casanare. Rafael took part in the battle of Quetame [Cundinamarca Department], where 200 Liberals fought 300 Conservatives, leaving 10 total dead.

Rafael’s intelligence caught the attention of General Avelino Rosas (1856-1901), who made the medical school dropout his aide-de-camp. Rosas was a fearsome warrior who brought a battalion of Colombians to Cuba in 1895 to aid José Martí’s doomed rebellion against Spain. Now Rosas faced defeat yet again, at the battle of Matamundo [Huila Department] on March 15, 1900. At this battle, whose name literally means "world-killer" and which Rafael simply referred to as “the disaster,” 1,800 Liberals fought and lost to 2,000 Conservatives, with 400 total dead.

General Avelino Rosas

General Rosas left Matamundo with a severe head wound, and almost all his soldiers promptly deserted. Rafael said only a group of 14 officers, including himself, pledged to travel with Rosas to the Valle del Cauca in southwest Colombia. Within a few days, most of Rosas’s remaining troops were captured and imprisoned. 

Rafael claimed he was taken prisoner, but a letter in his pension application suggests otherwise. A friend of Rafael’s father, the writer Samuel Velásquez (1865-1942), said he received a letter from Rafael at his home in Manizales, Caldas Department. The teen soldier had fallen ill in the isolated páramo near the Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Tolima, and General Rosas forbade Rafael from traveling any further.

Samuel Velásquez somehow found Rafael, and hid the young man in his house, probably to escape political persecution. Velásquez remembered of this time, “Through a thousand cares I managed to remake [Rafael] from all the ailments acquired in the campaign on behalf of the Liberal cause.” This doubtlessly saved Rafael’s life, as his commander General Rosas was cornered by government troops in Nariño Department and murdered in September 1901.

There is sadly no pension application for José Mejía Ospina, whose story is at the start of this post. Maybe his story of jumping from a bridge into a river to escape getting shot happened during the battle of Peralonso (December 15-16, 1899), as the battle took place by a bridge, the Puente de la Laja, which spanned the Peralonso River in Norte de Santander Department. 

If José fought in the battle of Palonegro (May 11-25, 1900) in Santander Department, then he witnessed one of the worst Liberal defeats. By the fourth day of the battle of Palonegro, Liberal soldiers had ran out of ammunition and had to fight with machetes, according to historian Margarita J. Diaz Caceres. Dysentery and cholera ravaged the armies and nearby towns at the same time. The Conservative victory came at the cost of between 1,500 to 4,000 total deaths and 5,000 wounded. Diaz Caceres writes: "it can be assured that an entire generation of working men died in this battle... crippling the economy of the region even after the survivors returned to their lands."

Momument to the fallen of Palonegro, made from their own skulls, 1902. (Source)

Meanwhile, Marcial, Gabriel, and 21-year-old Ramón Vásquez Cohen joined in a consolidated costeño Liberal army that traveled to Lórica [now Córdoba Department] in June 1900. Elías, who for months had been sending clothes, weapons, and other supplies to the Liberal forces, left Cartagena in July 1900 to join the ranks once again, and finally caught up with the army of General Joaquín Mercado Robles in August 1900.

This Liberal resurgence in Caribbean Colombia crested at the battle of Tolú Viejo [now Sucre Department] on July 29-30, 1900. Marcial, Gabriel, and Ramón were among the 600 Liberals who defeated 400 Conservatives, leaving 70 total dead. Immediately after Tolú Viejo, Marcial, who was an aide of General Mercado Robles, was promoted from the rank of Capitán to Sargento Mayor.

Battles raged through the summer and autumn. Gabriel, Ramón, and Elías fought in Mahates on August 16, 1900, helping defeat the Conservative army of General Lácides Segovia. Gabriel was promoted to Sargento Mayor after the battle of Mahates, joined the army of General Rafael Uribe Uribe in September 1900, and then reached the rank of Teniente Coronel.

Following a major defeat at the river town of Magangué [Bolívar Department] in October 1900, the Liberal army split in two. It's likely that José Mejía Ospina accompanied the troops of General Benjamín Herrera that went to the Pacific coast and then Panamá, where José stayed until the country declared its independence in 1903. The other Vásquez relatives stayed in the army of General Rafael Uribe Uribe, who stayed in the Caribbean region.  

The relentless months of fighting took their toll on the ill-supplied and undernourished Liberal soldiers. Gabriel was taken prisoner in October 1900 and stayed imprisoned in Barranquilla until the end of the war. Ramón was imprisoned for seven months. Elías became too ill, returned to his hometown of Villanueva to recuperate, and was taken prisoner around early 1902 due to his Liberal beliefs. 

Ramón gave the most details about his imprisonment. First he was brought to Cartagena’s Cárcel de San Diego, and then to the Bóvedas, the "vaults" of the 18th-century arsenal built into the famed city walls. From there he was transferred offshore to the Castillo de Bocachica, on the island of the same name, where he saw fellow prisoners die from the poor conditions.

After seven months in captivity, Ramón and his most trusted companions escaped the Castillo de Bocachica, somehow reached the island of Barú, south of Cartagena, and then rejoined the Liberal army.

The Castillo de Bocachica (source)

The fading Liberal cause finally collapsed after the Treaty of Neerlandia (October 24, 1902) and the Treaty of Wisconsin (November 21, 1902). Ramón obtained from the Conservatives a "salvoconducto," a letter guaranteeing his safe passage back to Villanueva, which he included in his pension application. Elías, who stayed imprisoned in Villanueva after the peace treaty signings, escaped and fled to Costa Rica, which at the time had a progressive Liberal president. He did not return to Colombia until he heard that his old general, Joaquín Mercado Robles, received a pardon. Two more Vásquez cousins, José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen and Pedro Sonderéguer, also went to Costa Rica around this time, possibly to escape political persecution. 

A thousand days of war did not resolve Colombia's political struggle, and the former Liberal fighters tried to reintegrate into a society ruled by past enemies. These veterans probably carried many physical and emotional scars from months of hand-to-hand combat, outdoor living without proper supplies or hygiene, and the constant presence of death. The writer Samuel Velásquez said in 1939 that his friend Rafael Vásquez had “a thousand difficulties because he had not fully recuperated his health, broken since those days.”

Marcial, who remained in the Liberal army until the end of the war, could not return to law school. He wrote nearly 40 years later, “The poverty I remained in and the fear of humiliation after misfortune closed the way for me to return to the University; from then until now, my life has been a constant struggle with adversity, and even my companions in misfortune have insisted on wanting to break down my arrogance, always indomitable.” Marcial tried his best to maintain his “indomitable” sense of pride, and in 1937 became the first president of the newly formed “Sociedad de Combatientes Liberales de 1899.”

The Colombian government's "pensions" first offered in the late 1930s represented military back pay, supposedly determined by the veterans' rank and time served. The final payouts did not seem as regimented:
- Ramón, who reached the rank of mayor, received 6,640 pesos in October 1948. 
- Marcial, who reached the rank of sargento mayor, received 2,640 pesos in November 1948. 
- Gabriel, who reached the rank of teniente coronel, received 3,000 pesos in September 1950.
- Elías, who reached the rank of capitán, received 2,280 pesos in October 1950.  
- Rafael, who reached the rank of capitán, received 2,280 pesos in December 1951. 
At the time of these payments, the exchange rate was roughly 2.50 Colombian pesos to 1 U.S. dollar, the latter of which had about 10 times the purchasing power it does today.

When the old veterans finally received these payments, Colombia had slid into the bloody era of La Violencia. The partisan civil war morphed in the 1960s into ongoing struggles against guerrilla groups: the FARC, which finally ended its conflict in 2016, and the ELN, which is still fighting. The flare-ups and stalemates that marked the "Guerra de los mil días" continued to plague Colombia well into the 21st century.

THE VÁSQUEZ FAMILY TREE'S BRANCHES

My grandmother and her Vásquez relatives on the farm of her uncle, Israel Vásquez Cohen, in Piojó, Atlántico, 1939.

Family tree of the children of Manuel de la O. Vásquez and José Ángel Vásquez. Click for larger view.

I. The ancestors of Manuel de la O. Vásquez

Manuel Bravo, who may be the 38-year-old resident of Mahates with the same name in the 1777 colonial census, married Antonia Sánchez. 

Manuel and Antonia's daughter, Josefa Bravo (born late 1700s in Villanueva; died c.1831 in Villanueva), married Juan Nepomuceno Vásquez, and they had two surviving children: 

1. Manuel de la O. Vásquez, whose descendants are listed below. 

2. Paulina Vásquez, who married. 

II. The children of Manuel de la O. Vásquez

Manuel de la O. Vásquez and María Natividad Gelis (or Geliz) were residents of Villanueva, Bolívar, Colombia who were eyewitnesses to Gran Colombia's war of independence from Spain. They had at least four children:

1. Paulina Vásquez Gelis (born 1830s)

2. Tomasa Vásquez Gelis (born 1830s; died 1903 in Cartagena)

3. José Ángel Vásquez Gelis

4. Francisco Solano Vásquez Gelis (born in Villanueva; died 1905 in Cartagena)

Manuel and Petrona Ruiz had at least three sons:

1. Juan Vásquez Ruiz (born c.1825; died 1900 in Barranquilla)

2. Hermogenes Vásquez Ruiz (died c.1902-1906)

3. Manuel de la O. Vásquez Ruiz (born c.1850; died 1884 in Panama City, Panama)

Manuel had a son with Josefa García:

1. Manuel de la Ascención Vásquez García (born in Cartagena; died 1895 in Panama City, Panama)

Manuel had a daughter with Ignacia Rubio: 

1. Buenaventura Vásquez Rubio (born c.1829; died 1931 in Arjona)

Manuel had a son with Blasina Herrera: 

1. Manuel José Vásquez Herrera

Manuel had two daughters by unknown mothers: 

1. Juana Agustina Vásquez

2. Eufemia de los Dolores Vásquez 

Manuel had a son with Josefa María Ayola:

1. Elías Celestino Vásquez Ayola (born 1873; baptized 1874 in Villanueva) 


III. Fernández Vásquez & Villanueva Vásquez

A. Paulina Vásquez Gelis married Juan E. Fernández Calderón, son of Manuel de J. Fernández and Jacinta Calderón. Their children included:

A1. Jacinta Octavia Fernández Vásquez (born 1854; baptized 1857 in Villanueva)

A2. Próspero Fernández Vásquez (born 1859; baptized 1860 in Villanueva)

A3. María de la Concepción Fernández Vásquez (born 1873; baptized 1874 in Villanueva)


B. Tomasa Vásquez Gelis (died 1903 in Cartagena) married Pedro Tomás Villanueva Polo (born 1835 in Cartagena), a descendant of elite cartageneros. Pedro's uncle, José Villanueva y Arévalo (1781-c.1864), was educated in Spain and became a Spanish colonial official, serving in Madrid, the Philippines, and Cuba and receiving the Royal Order of Carlos III from Queen Isabel II in 1859. Pedro's great-grandfather, the famed military engineer Antonio Arévalo y Porras (1715-1800), designed and completed the imposing stone fortifications of Cartagena, including the massive Castillo de San Felipe (Spanish archives page on Antonio de Arévalo). The children of Pedro T. Villanueva and Tomasa Vásquez included:

B1. Pedro José Villanueva Vásquez (born 1855; baptized 1857 in Villanueva)

B2. María Cayetana Villanueva Vásquez (born and baptized 1857 in Villanueva; died 1950 in Cartagena), who probably had a civil marriage with José Cohen Herrera in 1879 in Villanueva. She then had a son with Conrad Sonderegger, as detailed below.

B3. Eduarda Villanueva Vásquez (born 1859; baptized 1860 in Villanueva), who married Andrés Díaz in 1882 in Villanueva.

B4. Mateo Villanueva Vásquez, who married Eufemia Correa Rodríguez in 1903 in Pie de la Popa, Cartagena.

B5. Dionicia Villanueva Vásquez (born and baptized 1872 in Villanueva)

B6. Manuel de la Cruz Villanueva Vásquez (born 1874; baptized 1875 in Villanueva), who married Plácida Mendoza Gutiérrez (born c.1881) in 1906 in Villanueva.

B7. María Villanueva Vásquez (born 1877; baptized 1878 in Villanueva)

B8. Carmela Villanueva de Jiménez (born c.1878; died 1928 in Cartagena), who was married and lived in the Rodríguez Torices barrio of Cartagena.

B9. Joselina Villanueva Vásquez (born and baptized 1882 in Villanueva)


IV. The children of José Ángel Vásquez Gelis 

José Ángel Vásquez first had a relationship with Andrea Marrugo, with at least one son:

1. Gabriel Vásquez Marrugo (born 1868 in Villanueva)

José Ángel Vásquez then had a relationship with Dominga Cervantes, with four daughters:

1. María Aurelia Vásquez Cervantes (born 1872 in Villanueva)

2. Juana de Dios Vásquez Cervantes (born 1874 in Villanueva)

3. María Natividad Vásquez Cervantes (born 1875 in Villanueva)

4. María Herminia Vásquez Cervantes (born 1877 in Villanueva)

José Ángel Vásquez then married Mercedes Cohen Herrera, and they had seven children:

1. Ramón Vásquez Cohen (born 1879 in Villanueva; baptized 1880 in Cartagena)

2. Ana Manuela Vásquez Cohen (born 1881 in Cartagena)

3. José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen (born 1883 in Villanueva; died 1924 in San Bernardo del Viento, Córdoba, Colombia)

4. Mercedes Vásquez Cohen (born 1885 in Cartagena; died 1963 in Barranquilla)

5. Rosa del Carmen Vásquez Cohen (born 1888 in Cartagena)

6. Israel Vásquez Cohen (born c.1891 in Villanueva; died 1947 in Barranquilla)

7. María Teresa Vásquez Cohen (born 1895 in Cartagena; died 1941 in Barranquilla)


V. The children of Francisco Solano Vásquez Gelis

Francisco Solano Vásquez Gelis and Juana Gallo had at least two children: 

1. Ana Octavia Vásquez Gallo (baptized 1856 in Villanueva), who married Teofilo Martínez in 1879 in Villanueva. 

2. María Angélica Vásquez Gallo (baptized 1860 in Villanueva)

Francisco and María de los Santos Peña had at least two children:  

1. Alejandro Vásquez Peña (born c.1858), who may have been a doctor and married Inés Castillo in 1896 in Turbaco. 

2. Julia Vásquez Peña, who married Manuel Escalona Gómez in 1907 in Villanueva. Their first of eight children was born in 1885. 

Francisco then married Francisca J. Díaz, who was born in Villanueva, and they had at least five children: 

1. María Isabel Vásquez Díaz (born c.1865 in Villanueva; died 1933 in Cartagena), who married Maximiliano Campillo Ardinez in 1884 in Cartagena. 

2. Próspero Vásquez Díaz (born 1872 in Villanueva)

3. José Aníbal Vásquez Díaz (baptized 1877 in Villanueva), who married Sixta Cuesta Calvo in 1912 in Cartagena. 

4. Marcial Vásquez Díaz (born 1879 in Villanueva; baptized 1881 in Villanueva)

5. Avelino Vásquez Díaz, who married María Isabel Puello Quintana in 1928 in Turbaco. 


VI. Vásquez Ruiz 

A. Juan Vásquez Ruiz (c.1825-1900) and Sandiego Guerra had a family: 

A1. Serafín Antonio Vásquez Guerra (born 1875 in Villanueva)

A2. María Josefa Vásquez Guerra (born 1877 in Villanueva), who married Julio Visbal in 1900 in Barranquilla. 

A3. Floria Vásquez Guerra (born c.1881), who married Bernardo Amador in 1898 in Barranquilla. 

A4. Ana Teresa de los Dolores Vásquez Guerra (baptized 1884 in Villanueva; died 1927 in Barranquilla), who married Luis Salas Fernández in 1901 in Barranquilla. 

A5. Manuel Vásquez Guerra (born c.1888), who married Ana Manuela Valencia in 1909 in Barranquilla. 

A6. María Isabel Vásquez Guerra (born 1895 in Barranquilla), who married Edmundo De Castro in 1916 in Barranquilla. 

A7. Juan Vásquez Guerra (born 1896), who married Alejandrina Rodríguez in 1920 in Barranquilla. 


B. Hermogenes Vásquez Ruiz (died c.1902-1906) first married Cristina Ruiz Camacho (born 1855 in Villanueva) and they had at least two children: 

B1. María Sixta Vásquez Ruiz (born 1878 in Villanueva)

B2. Petrona Francisca Vásquez Ruiz (born 1879 in Villanueva), who married Antonio Saenz Ayola in 1902 in Villanueva. 

Hermogenes then married Clementina Rico and they had at least four children: 

B3. Venancio Vásquez Rico (born 1881 in Villanueva)
B4. María M. Vásquez Rico (born 1884 in Villanueva)
B5. Ana María Vásquez Rico (born 1885; baptized 1886 in Cartagena; died 1912 in Cartagena), who married Gilberto Llamas Ayola in 1906 in Cartagena. 
B6. María Melida Vásquez Rico (born 1891 in Villanueva)

Hermogenes also likely had two children with Filomena Cabarcas: 

B7. Hermogenes Vásquez Cabarcas (born 1873 in Villanueva; died 1956 in Villanueva)
B8. Rosa Ramona Vásquez Cabarcas (born 1875 in Villanueva) 

C. Manuel de la O. Vásquez Ruiz (born c.1850; died 1884 in Panama City, Panama), who lived in Panama at the time the French were attempting to build a canal, married in 1883 Asunción de León (born c.1845), and their children included: 

C1. Cristina Vásquez de León (born c.1875 in Chepo, Panama; died 1914 in Arraiján, Panama), who married Enrique Ayala (c.1881) in 1910 in Panama City, Panama.

C2. (possibly) Manuel de la O. Vásquez (died 1900 in Panama City, Panama)

Manuel de la O. Vásquez Ruiz is possibly the father of Elías Vásquez Ayola (born 1873 in Villanueva), who lived in Colón, Panama by 1885, but his elderly father Manuel is more likely the father.

VII. Vásquez García

Manuel de la Ascención Vásquez García (born in Cartagena; died 1895 in Panama City) had a son with Rosalía Núñez: 

A1. Manuel Joaquín Vásquez Núñez (born c.1847 in Villanueva), a pharmacist in Cartagena, who married three times.

First, Manuel Joaquín married Dolores González Garban in 1872 in Cartagena, and they had a daughter:

A1a. Rosalbina Vásquez González (born 1877)

Second, Manuel Joaquín married Josefa Beltrán Paniza in 1877 in Cartagena. Josefa's maternal grandfather was Juan de la Cruz Paniza y Navarro de Azevedo, son of the Spanish immigrant Antonio Paniza y Pagliari. Manuel and Josefa had at least four children:

A1b. Mercedes Vásquez Beltrán (born 1878)
A1c. Manuel Joaquín Anselmo Vásquez Beltrán (born 1880)

A1d. Rafael Vásquez Beltrán (born 1881)
A1e. Victoria Regina Vásquez Beltrán (born 1884)

Third, Manuel Joaquín married Francisca Arnedo in 1907 in Turbaco, Colombia. It is unknown whether they had children.

Manuel de la Ascención had a daughter with Andrea Ayola:

B2. Natalia Vásquez Ayola (born c.1851; died 1916 in Panama City, Panama)

Manuel de la Ascención had at least two daughters with María del Espíritu Santo Cabrera:

C3. Herminia Vásquez Cabrera, who first married Manuel María Rodríguez (died 1888), and their children included: 

C3a. José Aníbal Rodríguez Vásquez (born 1875), who married Eusebia Leonor Ayala in 1908 in Panama City.

C3b. Herminia Rodríguez Vásquez (born 1877 in Panama City; died 1878 in Panama City)

Herminia then married Miguel Burgos Escoci in 1889 in Panama City.

C4. María Eduvigis Vásquez Cabrera, who married Hipólito de la Oliva in 1882 in Panama City and whose children included: 

C4a. Eracleo de la Oliva Vásquez (born 1882 in Panama City; died 1887 in Panama City)

C4b. Sofanor Maclovio de la Oliva Vásquez (born 1884 in Panama City)

Manuel de la Ascención had a daughter with Ana Urriola Alverola:

D5. Joaquina Vásquez Urriola (born 1865 in Chepo, Panama), who married Roberto Lasso de la Vega in 1906 in Panama City.

Manuel de la Ascención also probably had a son with a much younger woman, Angélica Salguedo (born c.1864; died 1929 in Barranquilla): 

E6. (probably) Dr. Sofanor Vásquez Salguedo (born c.1889 in Cartagena; died 1967 in Barranquilla), a physician in Barranquilla. It seems he had many children by many women as far back as possibly 1908, but just one wife, Celina Charriz Vargas, who he married in 1922 in Remolino, Magdalena, Colombia. It's unclear if Sofanor and Celina had children.

Sofanor and María Luisa Silva had at least two children:

E6a. Guillermina Vásquez Silva, who married Joaquín Gómez Cárdenas.

E6b. Rafael Vásquez Silva, who married Úrsula Carrillo.

Sofanor and Josefa Chiquillo Hernández had at least one son: 

E6c. Manuel Narciso Vásquez Chiquillo (born 1919, baptized 1920 in Cerro de San Antonio), who was a pharmacist in Barranquilla and married Eladia Hortensia Romani in 1965 in Barranquilla. His godparents were José Mejía Ospina and Mercedes Vásquez Cohen.

Sofanor had a son with Celina Charris: 

E6d. Sofanor Vásquez Charris (born 1923 or 1924 in Barranquilla)

Sofanor had a daughter with Leonor Lafaurie Cotes: 

E6e. Clorinda del Socorro Vásquez (born 1925 in Barranquilla), who married Félix Delgado Caballero in 1964 in Caracas, Venezuela.

Sofanor had another daughter, according to his obituary:

E6f. Mercedes Vásquez

VIII. Vásquez Rubio, Vásquez Herrera, Llamas Vásquez

A. Buenaventura Vásquez Rubio (c.1829-1931), who lived to age 102 and died in Arjona, married a man named Escalante. If her husband was Mateo Benigno Escalante, then they had at least a son, Epaminondas Escalante (1860-1929).

B. Manuel José Vásquez Herrera and Gabriela Taborda had at least five children: 

B1. Sebastián Vásquez Taborda (born 1856 in Villanueva), who had a family with Juana Bolívar.
B2. Teresa Vásquez Taborda (born 1857 in Villanueva)
B3. Clemetina Vásquez Taborda (born 1859 in Villanueva)
B4. Dionisia Vásquez Taborda (born c.1870), who married Miguel Sánchez Morales in 1891 in Cartagena.
B5. María de las Mercedes Vásquez Taborda (born 1872 in Villanueva; died 1916 in Cartagena), who died unmarried.

C. Juana Agustina Vásquez had a son:

C1. José Encarnación Vásquez (born 1858 in Villanueva)

D. Eufemia de los Dolores Vásquez married José Agustín Llamas Escorcia in 1867 in Villanueva, and their children included: 

D1. Eufemia Llamas Vásquez (born 1874 in Villanueva)
D2. Elisa Llamas Vásquez (born 1876 in Villanueva)
D3. María Sergia Llamas Vásquez (born 1877 in Villanueva)
D4. María Isidra Llamas Vásquez (born 1879 in Villanueva)

IX. Vásquez Ayola

Elías Celestino Vásquez Ayola (born 1873; baptized 1874 in Villanueva) married Ana María  Campillo Berrios in 1898 in Cartagena and they had at least seven children: 

1. Gabina Josefa Vásquez Campillo (born 1900 in Cartagena)

2.  Federico José Vásquez Campillo (born 1901; baptized 1902 in Cartagena), who married Victoria Llanes in 1947 in Cartagena. 

3.  Elías Elberto Vásquez Campillo (born November 14, 1902; baptized May 31, 1903 in Cartagena; died May 31, 1903 in Cartagena)

4.  Elías Vásquez Campillo (born 1906; baptized 1914 in Cartagena), who married Carolina Tuerta in 1947 in Cartagena. 

5.  Ana Cristina Vásquez Campillo (born 1910 in Cartagena; died 1910 in Cartagena)

6.  Herminia Vásquez Campillo (born 1911; baptized 1912 in Cartagena), who married Jorge Royen in 1938 in Cartagena. 

7. Victoria María Vásquez Campillo (born 1916; baptized 1917 in Cartagena) 

Elías then had a relationship with Sebastiana Garcés and had at least three more children: 

1. Alfredo Vásquez Garcés (born 1924 in Turbaco)

2. Elida Berta Vásquez Garcés (born 1925 in Cartagena)

3. Sixto Vásquez Garcés (born 1928 in Cartagena)


X. Sonderéguer Villanueva 

Cayetana Villanueva Vásquez (born August 7, 1857; baptized December 29, 1857 in Villanueva; died February 10, 1950 in Cartagena) had a relationship with Conrad Sonderegger (born 1858 in Heiden, Switzerland; died 1938 in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland), one of the managing engineers of the French attempt to build the Panama Canal in the 1880s. The project, led by Suez Canal designer Ferdinand de Lesseps, suffered from financial mismanagement, political corruption, numerous deaths from tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever, and ignorance of Panama’s geography.

While French efforts to build the Panama Canal went bankrupt and halted by 1889, Sonderegger acquired a sizable fortune and married a wealthy Ecuadorian woman named María Agrippina Zuluaga. Back home in Switzerland, “Panama” Sonderegger wrote a book about the canal and built two villas, including what is now the Hotel Schloss Ragaz. It seems that Sonderegger never returned to Colombia.

Cayetana Villanueva and Conrad Sonderegger had one child:

1. Pedro Sonderéguer Villanueva (born October 27, 1884 in Villanueva, Colombia; died October 7, 1964 in Buenos Aires) was raised by his mother and kept contact throughout his life with various Colombian relatives. At age 17 he went to the United States to study engineering, but soon began a lifetime of travel. By 1904 Pedro was living in Costa Rica with his cousin José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen and had published his first book, the novel “Condor.” Pedro then lived in Peru, Panama, and Chile before settling in Buenos Aires in 1908.

Pedro Sonderéguer began a busy literary career, crafting many novels, short stories, philosophical essays, and over 40 years’ worth of articles and reviews for the porteño publication “La Nación.” Pedro returned to Colombia multiple times from 1928 to 1934 and tried to establish a career as a Liberal politician, but his descendants say that death threats forced him to return to Argentina. One friend from this period, Alberto Lleras Camargo, would later serve twice as president of Colombia.

First Pedro Sonderéguer married Blanca Julia Vidal in 1914 and had three children: 

1a. Conrado Pedro Sonderéguer Vidal

1b. Silvia Sonderéguer Vidal

1c. Elsa Sonderéguer Vidal

After his marriage ended, Pedro began a relationship with Carolina Rodríguez del Pino in 1934 and had two more sons: 

1d. Pedro César Sonderéguer Rodríguez

1e. Erasmo Pedro Sonderéguer Rodríguez

Biographer Fidel Alejandro Leottau Beleño writes that Sonderéguer’s children remembered him as “un espíritu panamericanista, universal y demócrata. Admirador de Bolívar y de San Martín.... [U]n hombre de profundas concepciones éticas, empeñado en su trabajo y preocupado por desenterrar los misterios de la vida. Hombre de pocos amigos que vivió solo y peregrino.”

Pedro Sonderéguer and his mother, Cayetana Villanueva, c.1928

XI. Vásquez Pérez

Gabriel Vásquez Marrugo (born September 15, 1868 in Villanueva; died November 18, 1956 in Cartagena), was a pharmacist who fought in the Liberal army from 1899-1900, during the Guerra de los mil días, was captured by Conservative troops and held prisoner for two years in Sabanalarga and the Cárcel de Obando in Barranquilla, and then was freed after the signing of the Treaty of Neerlandia in 1902. In 1939 Gabriel applied for a veteran's pension from the Colombian government, and his pension of 3,000 pesos was finally approved in 1950.

Gabriel first had a family with Julia Pérez, including:

1. Belarmina de Jesús Vásquez Pérez (baptized 1905 in Villanueva)

2. Sara Ester Vásquez Pérez (born 1910 in Villanueva)

3. María Soledad Vásquez Pérez (born 1913 in Villanueva)

4. Nelson María Vásquez Pérez (born 1914 in Villanueva), who won the lottery in Cartagena and ran a Kraft cheese factory, married Angela Mendoza in 1941, and had a son and a daughter.

5. Gabriel Vásquez Pérez (born 1917 in Villanueva)

Gabriel then had a long-term relationship with a much younger woman, Julia Isabel Pérez Guerrero (born c.1909 in Villanueva), who was not a relative of the older Julia Pérez. Gabriel and Julia Isabel married on February 8, 1955 in Villanueva, when he was 86 years old and she was 46 years old. They had 12 children:

1. José Gabriel Vásquez Pérez (born 1927 in Villanueva; died 1946 in Cartagena)
2. Florinda Vásquez Pérez (born 1928)
3. Angelberto Vásquez Pérez (born 1929), who died young.
4. Judith Esther Vásquez Pérez (born 1930)
5. Roque Jacinto Vásquez Pérez (born 1932)
6. Marlene Vásquez Pérez (born 1933)
7. Francisco José Vásquez Pérez (born 1935)
8. Zeneida Vásquez Pérez (born 1936)
9. Jazmina Yolanda Vásquez Pérez (born 1940)
10. Pedro José Vásquez Pérez (born 1941)
11. Israel Vásquez Pérez (born 1944)
12. Carmen Bernarda Vásquez Pérez (born 1946)


XII. Esquivia Vásquez & Mier Vásquez

A. Aurelia Vásquez Cervantes (born 1872 in Villanueva; died 1958 in Cartagena) first married John G. Nieustraten, a native of Curacao, on June 6, 1892 in the Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción in Colón, Panama. I am not sure whether they had children.

Aurelia Vásquez then married Esteban Esquivia Ariza (born c.1873 in Cartagena; died 1918 in Cartagena) on December 1, 1917 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena. Esteban Esquivia was descended from Juan Esquivia, who immigrated from Santiago de Cuba to Cartagena in the early 1700s. Aurelia and Esteban lived in a house on the Plaza San Diego in Cartagena, and their children included:

A1. Aníbal Esquivia Vásquez (born April 5, 1900 [later claimed 1907] in Cartagena; died August 2, 1986 in Cartagena), a journalist and historian of Cartagena who wrote several books including Lienzos locales (1942) and Poesías de Fernández de Madrid (1945).

A2. Candelaria Esquivia Vásquez (born May 13, 1902; baptized January 31, 1903 in Cartagena)

A3. Selma Esquivia Vásquez (born March 8, 1904; baptized October 2, 1904 in Cartagena)

A4. Zoila Esquivia Vásquez (born June 27, 1906; baptized January 1, 1907 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena), the first wife of the Afro-Colombian poet Jorge Artel (1909-1994), whose verse was compared by critics to that of Nicolás Guillén and Langston Hughes.

A5. Francisco Javier Esquivia Vásquez (born December 3, 1910; baptized April 30, 1918 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena; died 1980 in Barranquilla), who married Brudulbura Morales. 

A6. Alba Rosa Esquivia Vásquez (born 1913, baptized 1918 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena)

A7. Esteban Esquivia Vásquez (born 1917; baptized April 19, 1918 in the Iglesia de Santo Toribio in Cartagena; died 1977 in Cartagena), who married Delora Ariza in 1940 in Cartagena.

Left: Aníbal Esquivia Vásquez, painted by Ramón Vargas Porto. Right: Jorge Artel.

B. María Natividad Vásquez Cervantes (born 1875 in Villanueva) married Julio Eduardo Mier de León (born February 21, 1885 in El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia) on December 26, 1910 in Bocas del Toro, Panama and had two daughters:

B1. María Mier Vásquez (born September 21, 1911 in Bocas del Toro, Panama)

B2. Herminia Rosa Mier Vásquez (born September 26, 1913 in Bocas del Toro, Panama; died June 7, 1982 in Colón, Panama), the great-grandmother of Jellissa Alvarado, whose research has greatly expanded and enriched this Vásquez family genealogy.


XIII. Vásquez Rodríguez & Vásquez Estrada

Dr. Ramón Vásquez Cohen (born August 30, 1879 in Villanueva) served in the Liberal army during the Guerra de los mil días. Ramón signed up in June 1900, reached the rank of sergeant major, was captured and served in prison for seven months, including a stint in the "Castillo de Bocachica," one of Cartagena's fortresses, before he escaped and returned to the battlefield. His battalion surrendered in Mahates in November 1902, a month after the Treaty of Neerlandia. Ramón later lived and died in Lomitas de Arena, Galerazamba (a section of Santa Catalina, Bolívar, Colombia), where he was a well-respected doctor and the mayor of the town. In 1938 Ramón applied for a veteran's pension from the Colombian government, and his pension of 6,640 pesos was finally approved in 1948.

Ramón had long-term relationships with three women whom he never married.

A. Ramón and Marcelina Rodríguez Jiménez (died 1974 in Cartagena) had (order unknown):

A1. Edelmira Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1912), who married Juan Francisco Coronel in 1936 in Cartagena.

A2. Francisco Solano Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1914)

A3. Rafael Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1916)

A4. Exiquio Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1918), who married Elvira Caraballo in 1946 in Cartagena.

A5. Pablo Antonio Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1919)

A6. Neliela Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1921)

A7. Esther Vásquez Rodríguez (born 1924)

A8. Napoleón Vásquez Rodríguez

A9. Rita Elena Vásquez Rodríguez (born c.1925), who married Eugenio Pérez in 1956 in Santa Catalina.

A10. Eugenia Vásquez Rodríguez (born c.1927), who married Carlos Quintana in 1946 in Cartagena.

A11. Mélida Vásquez Rodríguez

A12. Irma Vásquez Rodríguez

A13. Armando Vásquez Rodríguez

B. Ramón and Matilde Estrada Castillo had:

B1. Alicia Vásquez Estrada (born 1917), who married Gabriel Blanquicett in 1932 in Cartagena.

B2. Pablo Antonio Vásquez Estrada (born 1919)

B3. Gabriel Vásquez Estrada

B4. Graciela Vásquez Estrada (born 1923), who married Victor Alcalá Corchos in 1949 in Galerazamba, Bolívar, Colombia.

B5. Rosa Vásquez Estrada (born 1927), who married Gabriel Porras in 1944 in Cartagena.

B6. Juan Pablo Vásquez Estrada

C. Ramón and a woman with the last name del Puerto had another family.

Among Ramón's many children were a pharmacist and a nurse.


XIV. Vásquez Lara

Dr. José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen (born 1883 in Villanueva; died 1924 in San Bernardo del Viento) practiced medicine in poor communities. According to his stepson, José Arcadio traveled during his youth with his cousin, writer Pedro Sonderéguer, and they lived briefly in Costa Rica, probably around 1904. José Arcadio married Ana Lara Martelo (born 1893 in Mahates; died 1980 in Cartagena), who he met in Mahates, around 1914. They lived a short while in the tiny town of Pajonal, Sucre Department before moving to the coastal town of San Bernardo del Viento, Córdoba Department. José Arcadio died of a heart attack during a fiesta on August 20, 1924 (St. Bernard's Day, for the town's saint) or December 24, 1924 ("Nochebuena," as Colombians call Christmas Eve). Their children were:

1. Eugenia Vásquez Lara (born 1916 in Barranquilla or San Bernardo del Viento; died 1998 in Miami, FL), a ladies’ garments worker who married Dr. Rito Antonio Rueda Rueda (1922-1997), a lawyer and judge, and had two sons. One son was a Vietnam War veteran and the other son was a Persian Gulf War veteran and a psychiatrist. Separated, Eugenia immigrated to the United States in 1962, thanks to increased immigration quotas under the Alliance for Progress, and settled in New York City and then Miami. Artistically talented, she made indigenous-style pottery.

2. Arcadio Vásquez Lara (born 1917 in Barranquilla; died 1995 in Hialeah, FL), a mechanic who worked on the Panama Canal around 1940, worked for the Colombian Air Force, and then immigrated to the United States in 1964. During those years he lived with his sister and nephews and worked in watch factories before retiring to Miami. Arcadio played the piano and composed songs.

3. Ovidio Vásquez Lara (born 1917 in Barranquilla; died 1920s) was Arcadio's identical twin.

4. Sixta Tulia Vásquez Lara (born 1918 in Barranquilla; died 2001 in Barranquilla) married in 1945 in Barranquilla the recent immigrant Miguel Savignano Briganti (born 1912 in Padula, Italy; died 1980 in Barranquilla, Colombia; son of Pascualiano Savignano and Maria Briganti), who ran the Onyx jewelry store and was Barranquilla's first gem dealer. They had four daughters and one son.

5. Virgilio Vásquez Lara (born 1921; died 1928 in Cartagena) 

6. Israel Vásquez Lara (baptized 1923 in Barranquilla), who died in childhood. 

7. Mercedes Vásquez Lara (baptized 1924 in Barranquilla), who died in childhood.

There may have been other Vásquez Lara siblings who died young as well.

My great-grandfather, José Arcadio Vásquez Cohen

XV. Mejía Vásquez

Mercedes Vásquez Cohen (born January 7, 1885 in Cartagena; died October 25, 1963 in Barranquilla), a pharmacist, was married in May 15, 1908 to José Mejía Ospina (born c.1876 in Manizales; died September 15, 1969 in Barranquilla), a horse trader and secretary for Don Mario Santo Domingo, the beer mogul.

Their only adopted son, Dr. Alejandro Mejía Vásquez (born 1922 in Barranquilla; died 1982 in Barranquilla), was really their nephew, the biological son of Guillermo Pacheco and María Teresa Vásquez de Pacheco. "Alejo" grew up to be a general practitioner, married Helena "Rochy" Rodas (1935-2019), and they had three daughters and two sons.


XVI. Molina Vásquez

Carmen Vásquez Cohen (born August 30, 1888 in Cartagena; died in Barranquilla) married the merchant Carlos Molina Pacheco (born c.1878 in Ocaña, Norte de Santander; died March 23, 1954 in Barranquilla) on June 12, 1912 in Arjona, Bolívar. Carlos, the son of Pablo Emilio Molina and Julia Pacheco, was the first cousin of Guillermo Pacheco. Pablo E. Molina's direct male ancestors descend from the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a. They lived on Santander Street, between Progreso and 20 de Julio Avenues (Barrio San Roque), Barranquilla, and Carlos outlived Carmen. Their children were:

1. Carlos Julio Molina Vásquez (born 1913 in Barranquilla; died 2000 in Queens, NY) was married in 1943 in Barranquilla to Maruja Pión, and they had two sons and two daughters. The family was the first branch of the Vásquez descendants to immigrate to the United States, in the late 1950s.

2. Hernando Molina Vásquez (born 1915 in Barranquilla; baptized 1916 in Barranquilla; died 2007 in Florida) married Cecilia Suárez Rubio in 1944 and they had three sons. One of them, Armando Molina, is a Hollywood actor who co-founded the comedy troupe "Latins Anonymous." The family immigrated to the United States around 1960.

3. Alicia Molina Vásquez (born 1916 in Barranquilla; baptized 1919 in Barranquilla; died 2006 in Barranquilla) married Hector Juliao Sarabia (1911-1996), who was descended from an old Sephardic Jewish family from Curaçao. They had eight sons and one daughter, including a urologist and an odontologist.

4. Dr. Alejandro Molina Vásquez (born 1920 in Barranquilla; died 2002 in Bogotá) was a gynecologist who in the early 1950s served as an officer in the Colombian Army in the Korean War. Colombia was the only Latin American country to join Harry Truman in that conflict. Alejo married Edith Hernández Birchenall in 1952 and had five daughters and one son, including an internist and a vascular surgeon.

 

Dr. Alejandro Molina Vásquez (center) at a MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) in Korea, 1952 

XVII. Vásquez Martínez

Dr. Israel Vásquez Cohen (born c.1891 in Villanueva; died June 9, 1947 in Barranquilla) was a general practitioner who lived in Barranquilla's modern and wealthy El Prado neighborhood. In 1932, the year he published a paper in Revista de Medicina y Cirugía on "Tratamiento de las metritis gonocócicas por la Diatermia," he served as the treasurer of the Sociedad médico-quirúrgico del Atlántico. He married Helena Isabel Martínez del Castillo (born c.1903 in Sabanalarga; died 1986 in Barranquilla), and they had three daughters and a son:

1. Gladys Vásquez Martínez (born 1924), whose married name was De La Torre.

2. Gabriel Vásquez Martínez

3. Doris Vásquez Martínez

4. Olga Vásquez Martínez


Dr. Israel Vásquez Cohen's signature (1943), on the death certificate of his brother-in-law, Guillermo Pacheco.

XVIII. Pacheco Vásquez

María Teresa Vásquez Cohen (born May 28, 1895; died August 25, 1941 in Barranquilla), married Guillermo Pacheco (born c.1896 in Ocaña, Norte de Santander; died February 1, 1943 in Barranquilla), illegitimate son of Micaelina Pacheco and Diomedes Núñez, and the first cousin of Carlos Molina Pacheco. They also lived on Santander Street, between Progreso and 20 de Julio Avenues (Barrio San Roque), Barranquilla. Their children were:

1. Dr. Alejandro Mejía Vásquez (born 1922; died 1982 in Barranquilla; see above)

2. Olga Pacheco Vásquez (born c.1923), who was married in 1946 in Barranquilla to Arbelio García Leyva (born 1917), who sold air conditioning and was very rich. They had two sons and one daughter and eventually lived in Cartagena.

3. Guillermo “Pipo” Pacheco Vásquez (born c.1928), who lived in Cartagena and never married.

4. Alvaro Augusto Pacheco Vásquez (born 1930 in Barranquilla), who married Gloria Arias in 1966 and had three sons.

5. Dr. Jaime Pacheco Vásquez, an opthamologist who lived in Spain, married Sabina Figueroa Pérez, and had two sons.

6. Dr. Luis Alfonso “Foncho” Pacheco Vásquez (born 1936 in Barranquilla; died 2009), who was an orthopedic surgeon in Bogotá, married Gilma Giraldo in 1964 and had two sons and a daughter.


Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut [at] gmail.com.