Manuel Montt

Manuel Montt Torres

Montts Monument in Santiago

Manuel Francisco Antonio Julián Montt Torres (born September 4, 1809 (according to other sources September 7) in Petorca , General Captaincy of Chile , † September 21, 1880 in Santiago de Chile ) was President of Chile from 1851 to 1861 .

Life

Montt was born to a wealthy family originally from Catalonia . His father was part of the provincial upper class and held various government offices. However, he died when Manuel Montt was twelve years old, and with his death the family suddenly became impoverished. Nonetheless, Manuel Montt managed to study law in Santiago with the help of a scholarship and tutoring . He then initially embarked on an academic career, which led him to head the Instituto Nacional as rector in 1835 .

In 1834 Montt was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time, he made a steep political career, served in various ministries for the presidents José Joaquín Prieto Vial and Manuel Bulnes Prieto , at the same time he worked for parliament and as a lawyer. In March 1841 - at the age of 32 - he was appointed President of the Supreme Court of Chile.

In 1839 he married his cousin Rosario Montt Goyenechea, with whom he had eleven children, including the later Chilean President Pedro Montt Montt .

President Bulnes appointed Montt Minister of Interior and External Relations in 1845 . In this office he mainly prepared the planned colonization of the Chilean south and dealt with the scientific research of the Atacama desert . During this time he got to know Antonio Varas , with whom he worked intensively and successfully on a political level in the years to come.

In 1850, uprisings began to break out in Chilean provincial cities, in which the regional leadership of the provinces used force to defend themselves against the increasing centralism from the capital. The ambitious, efficient technocrat Montt embodied this strong, centralized state like no other. In the elections of 1851 he won the presidential candidate of the government with 132 votes against 29 for his federalist opponent, General José María de la Cruz, who had set up the city of Concepción . The federalists suspected fraud and rose up against the central government with arms. Under the leadership of General Manuel Bulnes Prieto (who had just finished his term as president), government troops forced the insurgents to surrender on December 14, 1851 after hard fighting.

Manuel Montt appointed a young cabinet of confidants, including Antonio Varas as interior minister. The Montt government saw itself as the guardian of order and as the representative of a strong modern nation-state. During his presidency, the municipal code of Chile, the ministerial order, a civil code and laws regulating corporations and banks were created. This organizing and regulating understanding of government was primarily a source of conflict with the Catholic Church , which held a very strong position of power in Chile. The dispute sparked off the question of whether ecclesiastical or civil courts were responsible for labor law litigation between the church and its employees (so-called “sexton question”). Another dispute arose when the government redefined the boundaries of the church districts ( responsible for civil status matters, among other things ) in 1852 .

In economic terms, Manuel Montt's presidency was characterized by an increase in copper production and export. With the proceeds for the state treasury, a number of schools could be built and - a prestigious favorite project of Montt - the observatory of Santiago was set up. The copper boom revitalized the private economy in particular, the domestic and foreign mine owners created enormous fortunes, new corporations dominated the market and built their own ports and infrastructure. In addition, ship and rail traffic was expanded by the state.

The planned colonization of the south was put into practice by Montt during his presidency. So Punta Arenas was repopulated on the Strait of Magellan . The commitment of the president and his advisor is expressed to this day in the naming in the south of Chile: Puerto Montt (Eng .: Montt port ), the gateway for shipping to the south, and the nearby Puerto Varas (but only a small one Harbor for the inland lake) are named after the two politicians.

In 1853 a new law regulates the taxation of land, which replaced the "tithe" ( el diezmo ) that had been customary until then old Spanish colonial legislation , which was committed to the idea of ​​fief , continued in independent Chile.

Manuel Montt was re-elected in 1856 without opposing candidates; the following year there was a conflict over a minister with the Senate, which was dominated by conservative clerical forces; It was only when the president suddenly threatened to resign that the senators could be persuaded to accept a new compromise candidate from Montt.

This dispute also encouraged the federalist-decentralized forces to renew their resistance: In January 1859 an uprising broke out in Copiapó, which the government put down within a year with a state of siege and military violence. Overall, during Manuel Montt's ten-year reign, civil rights were suspended for four years and nine months due to internal unrest.

In 1860, the government responded to the numerous uprisings against the central power with a law that, in the event of a riot, made those involved liable not only for damage to private and public property, but also for public expenditures to restore public order. Another law also deprived soldiers and police officers of the right to vote.

At the end of his presidency in 1861, Manuel Montt was only 52 years old. He then returned to the Supreme Court in Santiago as President. In 1864 he was sent to Peru as a Chilean representative to the Congreso Americano . The island of Chiloé , off the port of Puerto Montt, sent him twice to the Senate from 1876. In this capacity as senator, Manuel Montt died in September 1880.