Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/29

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GUANOALCA
GUBERT
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uty to the National convention of Valencia. In 1859 he was elected vice-president of the republic, and in the next year Gual occupied the executive chair, acting with energy raising troops against the insurgents of the east. He resigned his office in 1861, and retired to private life in Guayaquil, where he remained until his death.


GUANOALCA (goo-an-o-ahl'-ka), Araucanian cacique, b. in the valley of Puren in 1530 ; d. in Mariguenu in 1591. In his early youth he offered his services to the Araucanian toqui, or general-in- chief, Caupolican, and participated against the Spaniards in all the battles of the war for inde- pendence, which lasted from 1541 till 1600. At the head of his tribe, he was at the capture of Fort Tucapel in November, 1553, and the subsequent defeat and death of Valdivia in the same place in 1554. He continued to lead his tribe in the na- tional strife for liberty, and used to penetrate into the midst of the Spanish hosts, to avoid the effect of the fire-arms, and engage a hand-to-hand fight, so that his whole body was soon covered by wounds and scars. In 1587, at the head of 1,000 Indians, he captured the fort of Puren, which was, how- ever, recovered two days afterward by the Span- iards, on the arrival of re-enforcements. In 1588, at the death of the toqui Cadiguala, Guanoalca was elected by the united tribes as commander-in-chief, and at their head invested again the fortress of Puren, which after a time was abandoned by its defenders for want of provisions, and destroyed by the Indians. He also gained in that year two important victories at Trinidad and Espiritu Santo, and made an unsuccessful attack on the fortress of Mariguefiu. In the two following years he con- tinued the warfare with varying fortunes, captur- ing some forts and destroying several settlements, and when, in 1591, he invested Mariguenu again with a strong force, he was, notwithstanding his age and numerous wounds, the first in the assault, but was killed by the stroke of a battle-axe.


GUARDIA, Tomas, president of Costa Rica. b. in Bagaces, province of Guanacaste, 17 Dec, 1832 ; d. in San Jose, Costa Rica, 6 July, 1882. He en- tered the army in 1850, fought against William Walker's filibusters in 1855, and was promoted captain. He afterward became colonel, and in 1866 military commander of the province of Ala- i'uela, but being persecuted on account of his po- itical opinion by the administration of Jesus Jimenez, he resigned in 1869, and soon put him- self at the head of other malcontents. On 27 April, 1870, he took the government palace by surprise, and made the president prisoner. Dr. Bruno Carranza was appointed provisional presi- dent, with Guardia as commander-in-chief of the military. Carranza resigned on 8 Aug., and Guar- dia was chosen provisional president, but, as the national assembly continued hostile, he abdicated and retired to Alajuela. On 7 Oct. the garrison of that city pronounced in his favor, and he was proclaimed dictator, and subsequently chosen presi- dent. In 1874 and 1878 he was re-elected, and was in fact the irresponsible ruler of the republic, but notwithstanding this, and his strenuous oppo- sition to Central American union, his government did much for the country, fostering public schools, and protected agriculture. He began the building of an interoceanic railway, against the advice of en- gineers, and at the time of his death the republic was about $20,000,000 in debt, with the road still unfinished. He also built telegraph-lines over the republic and left over 400 miles established. He was defeated in the elections of 1882, but died a few weeks before the end of his term.


GUARDIOLA, Santos (war-de'-o-lah), president of Honduras, b. in Tegucigalpa in 1812 ; d. there in 1862. He entered the army at an early age, and his daring and cruelty in the civil wars of Central America earned for him the name of the " Tiger of Honduras." In an effort to overthrow the govern- ment of his native state in 1850, he was defeated and banished. In 1856 he joined the Nicaraguan forces as general of division, was defeated first by Walker, then by Munoz, and returned to Honduras, where, by a revolutionary movement, aided by Guatemala, he was elevated to the presidency. He crushed all revolutionary movements with an iron hand, and the republic enjoyed comparative peace under his rule ; but he made some liberal laws, and thereby became obnoxious to his former supporters, the clergy. They openly preached dissension from the pulpit, and in 1862 Guardiola was overthrown by a new insurrection and assassinated.


GUARIONEX (war-re-o-nex), Haytian cacique, d. in June, 1502. He was one of the five native kings who ruled over the island at the time of the discovery by the Spanish. He permitted Colum- bus in 1494 to build the fortress named " Concep- tion," in the midst of his territory, and submitted without resistance to the Spanish domination and the payment of a tribute. In 1496 he embraced the Christian faith, but relapsed into his old re- ligion. He afterward rose in arms against the Spaniards, and entered the league formed against them by the other caciques, and was seized and im- prisoned, but after some time set at liberty. In 1498 he entered into a conspiracy with Francisco Roldan, the chief judge, against the adelantado Bartolome Columbus. The conspiracy was discov- ered, and Guarionex fled with his family and a small band of retainers to the mountain fastnesses of Ciguay, whence he made several descents into the plains, laying waste the villages of the natives who continued faithful to the Spaniards. The adelantado marched against him with a large force, and compelled him to retire to the wildest and most inaccessible parts of the mountains, where he was finally surprised, and brought in chains to Fort Concepcion in 1500. He was kept a prisoner, and finally sent to Spain by the new governor, Nicolas de Ovando, together with the ex-com- missioner, Bobadilla, and Roldan, and they all- perished in the hurricane that had been predicted by Christopher Columbus, in June, 1502.


GUBERT, Louise, singer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa. ; d. in Baltimore, Md., in 1882. Her paternal grandfather was a French officer, who had served under the first Napoleon, and her father was a Cuban. At the age of fifteen she sang the " Inflammatus" from Rossini's " Stabat Mater," at a concert in Philadelphia, and soon afterward took part in numerous concerts for charitable purposes. While she was still pursuing her education, the Sisters of the Visitation from Georgetown. D. C., established a branch of their order in Philadelphia, where Miss Gubert became one of their pupils, and determined to embrace a religious life. A few years after her father's death she accompanied Bishop Whelan to Wheeling. Va.. and in a short time entered the community of Visitation nuns established there, where the spiritual name of Sister Mary Agnes was conferred on her. Through her skill and energy the school acquired a wide reputation. Before the academy was removed to its present locality, at Mount de Chantal, she was visited by all the distinguished musicians who passed through Wheeling. Among her best songs were "The Erl-King," by Schubert, and the principal arias from "Der Freischiitz." The last time that she sang