General Leon Galindo Camacho Foundation
Illuminating a historical view of Latin American independence through the life of Josef Leon Galindo Camacho (1795-1865)
Our Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded by descendants of General Josef Leon Galindo Camacho, who served as a military officer under the direct command of Simon Bolivar and Antonio Jose de Sucre in the Latin American war of independence from Spain. He served the new nation of Bolivia as Prefect of the Department of Potosi and as Chief of Staff of the armed forces. We count with an active board of directors supported by a professional research and archivist staff. Our offices are located in Austin, Texas and Cochabamba, Bolivia. We are funded by private donations and grants from organizations interested in our work.
Our Ancestor Josef Leon Galindo Camacho was born in present day Colombia and was the highest ranking officer of Simon Bolivar’s army to settle in Bolivia after its independence. He contributed to the liberation of six countries under Bolivar and was a confidant of Antonio Jose de Sucre, Bolivia’s first constitutional president. As Prefect of the Department of Potosi, he restored order to the war-devastated city and oversaw the minting of the new republic’s first coinage. As Chief of Staff of the armed forces, he led the resistance to the 1828 Peruvian invasion of Bolivia. He settled his family in Cochabamba where he became a successful agriculturalist and was a dominant figure in the civic life of the city. The arc of his life yoked the idealist and chaotic war of independence to the birth of a new nation, and to its eventual consolidation as a viable constitutional republic.
Our Premise is that a conception of human history driven by individual protagonists at the crest of great waves of anonymous mass movements is inadequate. Of equal or greater importance are the thousands of supporting individuals of vision and talent who collectively dedicate their lives to supporting the great movements from which great leaders by necessity arise.
Josef Leon Galindo Camacho was one such supporting individual who helped enable the achievements of the great heroes of Latin American independence, including the forging of the new nation of Bolivia. Understanding his life and his motivations, and those of others like him, enables a more nuanced understanding of specific historical outcomes and helps us to appreciate our supporting roles in the great movements of our own times.
Our Research is supervised by our professional staff, in collaboration with descendants, educators, professional historians, historical societies, research institutions, cultural foundations, and major universities. In addition to resources provided by our collaborators, our source materials include unexplored Bolivian government archives and an extensive collection of unpublished private documents and artifacts preserved by seven generations of Galindo’s descendants. We digitize our research documents and make them available to academic researchers and the general public.
Our Publications support our goal of producing innovative educational materials to enhance public education in Bolivia and Latin America, to advance the understanding of the Latin American war of independence in the context of its time, and to reveal undiscovered or forgotten aspects of Bolivian history, particularly in the departments of Potosi and Cochabamba. In all aspects of our work, we seek to illuminate the legacy of virtuous citizenship modeled by General Leon Galindo Camacho throughout his life as a soldier, governor, citizen, husband, and father.
