Domingo Santa María González

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Domingo Santa María

Domingo Santa María González (born August 4, 1825 in Santiago de Chile , † July 18, 1889 ibid) was President of Chile from 1881 to 1886 .

Life

After attending school and while studying law at the Universidad de Chile , Santa María first pursued a career as a teacher of geography, arithmetic and history.

He married Emilia Marquez de la Plata Guzmán in 1846, with whom he had five children.

His political career began in the same year when he first appeared in public as a representative of the Sociedad del Orden (German: Society for Order). He was appointed to the Ministry of Education, rose to its head in 1847 at the age of only 23 and was sent by the government as governor of the Colchagua Province in 1848 . He had to resign from this post in 1850 after allegations were made that Santa María had manipulated the results of parliamentary elections.

At the end of President Manuel Bulnes Prieto's term of office , Domingo Santa María entered as an opponent of Manuel Montt Torres' candidacy . Santa María joined radical reform organizations, but did not take an active part in the civil war fighting in late 1851. Nevertheless, he chose exile in Lima , Peru .

Two years later, in 1853, he returned to Chile, where he initially worked in retirement as a lawyer . The Universidad de Chile accepted him into its philosophy faculty in 1856, where he devoted his free time to writing biographical and literary-historical essays.

But the political arena lured him back into the public eye. In the conflict between the national liberal supporters of President Montt and the peculiar liberal-clerical-conservative coalition of his opponents, Santa María opted for the latter. As a replacement for the constituency of La Serena , he came to the House of Representatives and forged plans for revolution against the government there. But when the radicals who supported Montt triumphed in the cities of the north, he had to give up his plans for a coup and was banished deep in the south of the country, on the Strait of Magellan . In contrast to the polar climate, Santa María preferred Europe and went into exile again; an amnesty under President José Joaquín Pérez Mascayano allowed him to return to his homeland in 1862.

Again he initially held back politically and was appointed to a post at the Supreme Court of Chile. In 1863, President Pérez appointed him to the cabinet and made him responsible for the Treasury. In the war with Spain that broke out in May 1864 when the Spanish occupied the Peruvian Chincha Islands , Santa María served as the Chilean government's envoy to Peru, where he had excellent connections from his first exile.

In 1865 he was appointed chairman of the Santiago Court of Appeal and in 1866 of the Council of State. From 1867 to 1873 he represented the constituency around Curicó in the House of Representatives, and in 1879 the citizens of Concepción elected him senator. In the same year, President Aníbal Pinto Garmendia appointed him Foreign Minister. In this office he experienced the beginning of the saltpeter war of Chile against Peru and Bolivia and successively took over the offices of war and naval ministers as well as the second most powerful office in the state, that of interior minister.

In doing so, he worked specifically for the presidency, made contacts and did everything possible to succeed President Pinto. The Radical Party and parts of the National made him their candidate, while the Conservatives wanted to nominate General Manuel Baquedano González , who withdrew his candidacy at short notice. Santa María won - unopposed - with a majority of 255 of 305 votes in August and took over the office of Chilean President on September 18, 1881.

He took over the government at a time when the war was still raging. However, since the tide had already leaned in favor of Chile, Santa María was primarily responsible for securing the Chilean victory on the international stage, diplomatically. He prevented an intervention by the United States or Argentina against Chile and secured in the Treaty of Ancón of October 29, 1883 the territorial gains of his country, which ranged from Antofagasta to Arica .

The Chilean electorate honored the victory: the ruling parties were able to triumph in the parliamentary elections of March 1882 - they won all the seats, while the conservative opposition remained without a mandate! Santa María seized the opportunity and implemented far-reaching reforms to separate state and church, which his predecessor Pinto had initiated but was unable to implement against the fierce resistance of the clerical conservatives. This affected the reform of the registration system, for example regarding the state (non-church) registration of newborns, civil marriage and non-religious burials. Under the presidency of Santa María, Chile also experienced the first major wave of Protestants immigrating from England , Germany and Switzerland , for example .

The passion with which Santa María and his followers went to work often went too far. Election fraud was the rule, and in parliament (in which opposition members had also sat again since 1885) the opponents led heated, often violent clashes.

The previously ailing education system and the infrastructure of Chile were expanded during the tenure of Domingo Santa María: the railways and postal services were expanded and numerous public institutions were established. The new immigrants expanded the settlement area to the south, new cities such as Temuco were founded. The army , victorious in the north , was now deployed in the south and bloody put down the last resistance of the Indian population in Araucania .

In 1886 Santa María gave up his office to the elected successor José Manuel Balmaceda . He died three years later in Santiago of complications from a heart attack.

See also: History of Chile