José Joaquín Pérez

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José Joaquín Pérez Mascayano (born May 6, 1801 in Santiago de Chile , † July 1, 1889 ibid) was President of Chile from 1861 to 1871 .

José Joaquín Pérez Mascayano

Life

Pérez was born to rich parents into a colonial family that belonged to the aristocratic upper class of Chile. After school he studied at the Universidad de San Felipe law .

In 1826 he was elected as a member of Parliament for San Felipe and accompanied a Chilean embassy to the USA and Mexico , where they achieved the recognition of the independent republic. Pérez stayed in Washington, DC for almost two years. The impressions of the established republican political system of the USA shaped him deeply.

In 1829 the government transferred him to the embassy in Paris , where he also achieved the recognition of the Republic of Chile under international law. In early 1834 he returned to Chile and was repeatedly elected to the House of Representatives, of which he became Vice President in 1839.

Under the presidency of José Joaquín Prieto Vial , Pérez shared the widespread perception that the Santa Cruz Confederation between Peru and Bolivia posed a strategic threat to Chile. In 1839 Pérez was sent to Argentina to create a diplomatic counterweight through an alliance with this neighbor. He did not return until the end of 1840. In April 1841, at the age of almost forty, José Joaquín Pérez married Tránsito Flores y Cavareda; the marriage resulted in a total of eleven children.

He continued to work as a member of parliament, took over the office of President of Parliament in 1842 and was already thinking of withdrawing from political life and taking over the management of the extensive family estates when President Manuel Bulnes Prieto appointed him Minister of Finance in September 1844 because the regular one Incumbent Manuel Rengifo was seriously ill and soon died. Pérez kept the office until 1846 and then took up his mandate again. The fall of Minister Manuel Camilo Vial in 1849 caused President Bulnes to call for José Joaquín Pérez again, this time for the office of Interior and Foreign Ministers .

During the military conflicts that resulted in Manuel Montt Torres becoming president in 1851 and the violent fighting during the Montt presidency, Pérez kept his distance from the government. He was a Senator and State Councilor during this time.

After the end of Manuel Montt's presidency, his reluctance made him the ideal compromise candidate who should reconcile the warring camps. In 1861 influential circles made him a candidate “by all and for all”. José Joaquín Pérez was unanimously elected president by the 216 electors and took over the office on September 18, 1861, according to tradition.

From the beginning he tried to separate his reign from the Montt years and the first official act was an amnesty for political prisoners. Soon after, he restored freedom of assembly and the press.

In 1865 Chile joined its neighbor Peru in the war against Spain , especially on the sea side, when the Chilean fleet of the Spanish navy fought sea battles off Valparaíso and Papudo, boarding a Spanish corvette. Due to the war, the shipping service between the coastal cities was expanded, as was the country's telegraph network.

Conflicts over guano mining in the province of Antofagasta led to a border treaty with Bolivia in 1866 , which defined the national border at the 24th parallel, but at the same time regulated the joint extraction of mineral resources between the 23rd and 25th parallel. In this way, Bolivia retained Antofagasta, its only seaport, and Chile was able to benefit from the yields of mineral resources.

In 1863 the railway line from Santiago to Valparaíso was put into operation. As a result of a dramatic church fire that killed over 2,000 people in Santiago, the Cuerpo de Bomberos Voluntarios de Santiago , the capital's volunteer fire brigade , the regional fire brigades throughout the country , was founded under the patronage of President Pérez on December 20, 1863 followed. To this day, the bomberos enjoy great importance in Chile and are firmly anchored in social life.

During Pérez's first term in office, the National Party turned away from him and came into open opposition. This new situation resulted in a liberal-conservative coalition that supported both Pérez and his successor Federico Errázuriz Zañartu until 1873. In 1866 Pérez was re-elected for another five years, this time with 191 against 26 votes.

Pérez was the last president to be directly re-elected by the constitution , and in 1869 the electoral law was changed. Private religious freedom was also introduced: for the first time, non-Catholics were also allowed to celebrate services - but only in closed private rooms - and to set up private educational institutions. In 1868 the state post started its service in the country and overseas.

In 1871, at the age of seventy, Pérez handed over the office to his elected successor, Federico Errázuriz Zañartu . After his tenure, he himself retained the mandates of Senator and Council of State until 1882. He remained mentally robust into old age and finally died at the age of 88.

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