José Gregorio Argomedo

José Gregorio Argomedo

José Gregorio Argomedo Montero (born September 4, 1767 in San Fernando , Chile , † October 5, 1830 in Santiago de Chile ) was a Chilean lawyer and politician. He served as secretary of the first government junta that ruled Chile from September 1810 to July 1811.

He was married and had children.

Youth and education

Argomedo was born in San Fernando, the son of Tomás de Argomedo y Reyes and his wife Isabel Montero Valenzuela.

After visiting the Real Colegio de San Carlos , he studied at the Real Universidad de San Felipe law ; after the bachelor's degree in 1793 he practiced as a lawyer.

Member of the government junta

With Napoleon's invasion of Spain, the imprisonment of King Ferdinand and the formation of the Junta Suprema Central , the urge to set up a junta also arose in Chile. On September 18, 1810, the governor of Chile, Mateo de Toro Zambrano y Ureta , called a meeting to deliberate on the government of the country.

At the assembly that marked the beginning of Chile's independence , a government junta was elected, chaired by Toro Zambrano. The junta appointed two secretaries, one of whom was Argomedo.

After independence

When the Spaniards regained power in Chile after the Battle of Rancagua in the fall of 1814, Argomedo went into exile in Mendoza, Argentina, like many other independence fighters (including Carrera and Bernardo O'Higgins ) . After the final victory of the independence movement in the wake of the Battle of Chacabuco in February 1817, he returned to Chile.

He was elected several times as a member of the Chilean Congress and was a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Director Supremo O'Higgins decided to give Argomedo lands in the vicinity of the capital, Santiago, in gratitude for his services to the common good. Argomedo rejected this gift out of principle, which was unusual for the politicians of his time.

In 1823 President Ramón Freire y Serrano appointed him to the Council of State; In 1824 he became President of the Supreme Court and Rector of the Universidad de San Felipe .

In 1825 he was accused of conspiracy against the government of Ramón Freire. Argomedo had to go into exile in Peru . The following year he returned and was able to prove his innocence. He resumed the presidency of the Supreme Court.

He died in Santiago in 1830 at the age of 63.

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• Ismael Espinosa: El Cabildo Abierto del 18 de septiember de 1810 near Aurora de Chile (Spanish)
• Biography in the library of the Chilean National Congress (Spanish)