Tomás José Ramón del Carmen de Herrera y Pérez Dávila (21 December 1804 – 5 December 1854) was a Neogranadine statesman and general who in 1840 became Head of State of the Free State of the Isthmus, a short lived independent state which is located in what is now Panama. Tomás de Herrera also became President of the Republic of the New Granada in 1854 during the rebellion against the incumbent president José María Melo. Herrera was born on December 21, 1804. He entered military service in 1822 and became a lieutenant. He participated in the battles of Junín and Ayacucho against the royalists in Peru. In 1828 he was charged with conspiracy, and jailed in Bogota. Herrera escaped, was recaptured and sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to banishment. Upon completion of sentence, he returned to Panama in 1830 and participated in the fight against Colonel Juan Eligio Alzuru. When Alzuru was shot, Herrera was appointed Colonel Commandant General of the Isthmus of Panama. He fought in the Cauca revolution in 1840 but the isthmus population did not want to join that conflict. A popular meeting in Panama on Nov. 18, 1840 voted for the separation of Panama from Colombia, under the name of the State of the Isthmus with Colonel Herrera as president. He then organized the economy and obtained that Costa Rica and the United States would recognize the new country. The State of the isthmus lasted only 13 months. An agreement to which Herrera opposed reconvened the union between Panama and Colombia, which lasted until 1903.