Valentín Canalizo

President of Mexico

14 January 1794 Monterrey, New Kingdom of León, Viceroyalty of New Spain

20 February 1850(1850-02-20) (56) Mexico, Mexico

4 October 1843 – 4 June 1844

José Valentín Raimundo Canalizo Bocadillo (14 January 1794 – 20 February 1850), known as Valentín Canalizo, was a Mexican President, state governor, city mayor, army general, defense minister and conservative politician. As of now, he is the only Mexican President to be from the city of Monterrey. He was a supporter of a centralist (as opposed to a federalist) national government, and a confidante of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, who then was the President of Mexico. Canalizo was President of Mexico two times, for a total of about one year in 1843 and 1844, during the complex Mexican historical times after the one decade-long Mexican War of Independence and before the Mexican–American War. Valentín Canalizo had previously been the Mayor of Mexico City, after being Governor of the state of Puebla, and years before, Mayor of the city of Cuernavaca. He was military governor of both the states of Oaxaca and State of Mexico in the early 1830s. At age 53, three years before his death, he served as Minister of War (Defense Minister) with President Valentín Gómez Farías. He led the North and East Army Divisions to fight in the Mexican–American War, defending Northern and Eastern Mexican territory. In his late teens as his first job in the army, he fought in the Mexican War of Independence.