Background

José Manuel Hernández was born in Caracas in 1853.

Career

When only 17 years of age, he participated in a revolt in 1870 against the government of Antonio Guzmán Blanco. Hernández was severely wounded, being left with a shriveled hand, which accounted in later years for his nickname El Mocho Hernández (Crippled Hernández).

In 1892 Hernández participated in the “Legalist Revolution” which restored General Joaquin Crespo to power. Elected to Congress in the following year, he soon became a major leader of the opposition to Crespo.

At the end of Crespo's term in 1897, Hernández was the principal opposition candidate for president.

In 1903-1904 there was a short reconciliation between Castro and Hernández, Hernández serving for a few months as minister to Washington. However, Hernández was soon in exile.

When in 1908 Juan Vicente Gómez seized power, Hernández was allowed to return. Though greeted with great popular enthusiasm in Caracas, he played no further significant role in national politics.

Achievements

• He organized the Liberal Nationalist Party.
  
  Being a candidate for a presidency he organized local groups of the Liberal Nationalist Party, in a way then unknown in Venezuela, in virtually every part of the country, and he conducted a wide-ranging popular campaign, evincing enthusiastic support among many common people. His platform called for extension of the suffrage, proportional representation and a secret ballot, improvements in education, honesty of public officials, and independence of the courts.
  
  When the government “counted him out,” El Mocho Hernández attempted to overthrow the regime. In a battle against him, ex-President Joaquin Crespo was killed, but subsequently Hernández’ forces were decisively defeated. Although Hernández at first supported the “Liberal Restoring Revolution” led by Cipriano Castro in 1899 and was offered a cabinet post by Castro, he almost immediately turned against it. When he rose in revolt, he was quickly defeated and jailed.