Early Years
Quiroga was born in San Antonio, La Rioja, the son of a traditional but impoverished Riojan family of cattle breeders. He was sent at a young age to San Juan to be educated. Early in his life, he became a problem child, and escaped from school. During his wandering in the desert between San Juan and La Rioja, he encountered and killed a cougar, earning him the nickname El Tigre de los Llanos ("the Tiger of the Plains", after the Riojan region of his birth).
After the May Revolution proclaimed the self-rule of the country, Quiroga tried to enter the independentist army. He travelled to San Luis to enter the Granaderos a Caballo Regiment, led by General José de San Martín. He was imprisoned and eventually expelled due to his bad temper.
He moved back to La Rioja and became a businessman until 1820. That year the central government of Buenos Aires fell, and the province became autonomous.
Read more about this topic: Facundo Quiroga
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“We do not preach great things but we live them.”
—Marcus Minucius Felix (late 2nd or early 3rd ce, Roman Christian apologist. Octavius, 38. 6, trans. by G.H. Rendell.
“He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.”
—Jonathan Swift (16671745)