Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera (1798-1878) was a Colombian statesman. Four times his country's president, he headed Colombia's most productive administration in the 19th century and through the expropriation of Church property put its economy on a capitalistic basis.

Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera was born in Popayán on Sept. 26, 1798, to the leading family of southern Colombia. From 1820, when he became a captain in the patriot army, to 1830, by which year he was a general, Mosquera rose rapidly in military and administrative rank. An enthusiastic partisan of Simón Bolivar's dictatorship (1828-1830), at its fall he went on an extended tour of Europe and the United States (1831-1833).

During 1834-1837 Mosquera was a leader of the congressional opposition to Francisco de Paula Santander's regime. Mosquera became secretary of war under President José lgnacio de Márquez in 1838. Mosquera's success as a...