José Félix Esquivel y Aldao (11 October 1785 - 19 January 1845) was an Argentine Dominican friar and soldier who became a general and then the undisputed Federalist caudillo of Mendoza Province.

José Félix Esquivel y Aldao was born in Mendoza, Argentina on October 11, 1785, the son of an army captain from what is now Santa Fe Province.

He roused the indigenous people to withhold resources from the royalists, to support the patriot army and to undertake minor operations, with hundreds of small battles.

In July 1825, a revolution led by Catholic priests deposed the San Juan governor Salvador María del Carril, who was carrying out a religious reform modeled on that of Bernardino Rivadavia.

In 1829 civil war broke out, beginning in Buenos Aires and Córdoba provinces, where the Unitarian general José María Paz overthrew the Federalist Juan Bautista Bustos.

The caudillo of La Rioja, Juan Facundo Quiroga, sought help to restore Bustos, and the Governor of Mendoza sent an army under the "friar" Aldao.

They were defeated in the Battle of La Tablada, in which the Mendoza leader was wounded, while in San Luis he heard the news that the Unitarians led by Juan Agustín Moyano had overthrown the governor and arrested his brothers.

Among them died Francisco Narciso de Laprida, who had been president of the Congress of Tucumán on the day that Argentina declared its independence in 1816.

After the capture of Paz, Lamadrid took him in his retreat to Tucumán, and then deported him to Tarija in Bolivia, shortly before his defeat at the Battle of La Ciudadela.

[1] This column gained a partial victory over the Ranquel chief Yanquetruz in fierce fighting on 31 March and 1 April 1833 at Arroyo del Rosario, in today's La Pampa Province.

In 1839 a new civil war began, but it did not affect Mendoza until Juan Lavalle invaded from La Rioja after his defeat in the Battle of Quebracho Herrado.

In response to a short lived revolution, he had himself elected Governor of the Province of Mendoza in early 1841 and invaded La Rioja with 2,700 men.

[6] Lavalle evaded him, but Colonel José María Flores, Aldao's second in command, defeated Mariano Acha in northern La Rioja.

A few weeks later, Lamadrid took Mendoza, but an army led by Ángel Pacheco, in which Aldao participated only as head of a party of cavalry, defeated him in the Battle of Rodeo del Medio.