Ramon Castilla

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Ramón Castilla y Marquesado

Ramón Castilla y Marquesado (born August 31, 1797 in Tarapacá , then part of the Viceroyalty of Peru , † May 30, 1867 in Tiliviche , Tarapacá province) was a Peruvian military and politician . He was President of Peru four times . He was involved in the struggle for independence from Peru. Slavery was abolished during his tenure as president .

Life

Origin and military career

Ramón Castilla grew up in the Tarapacá region , then part of Peru , in the far south of the country. He was born the second son of Pedro Castilla, who had Spanish - Argentinean roots, and his wife Juana Marquezado de Romero. His mother's ancestors were Aymara .

At the age of 10 he moved to Lima , where he went to school with his older brother. He finished his school education later in Concepción , in Chile ; later he also temporarily helped his brother run his trading business. In 1817 he signed up as a soldier in the Spanish colonial army in Peru, where he fought in the Peruvian War of Independence (1811-1824) initially on the side of the Spaniards against the independence troops that had been dispatched by the Argentine general José de San Martín . Castilla achieved the rank of lieutenant in the Spanish colonial army .

Castilla was captured by the Argentine-Chilean prisoners of war. However, he managed to escape from a prison camp near Buenos Aires . In 1821 he returned to Peru. After his desertion from the Spanish colonial army, he offered his services to José de San Martín, who accepted him, also with the rank of lieutenant, in the emerging Peruvian army. When José de San Martín resigned as protector of Peru, Castilla switched to the side of José de la Riva Aguero , who became president of Peru in 1823. In 1824, Castilla joined the independence army of Simón Bolívar . He fought in the decisive battle of Ayacucho , which ended with the surrender of the Spaniards and paved Peru's path to independence. In 1825 Castilla became governor of his home province of Tarapacá. In 1833 he married Francisca Diez Canseco.

Minister and President

From 1839 to 1840 he was Minister of War under President Agustín Gamarra . As finance minister under Gamarra, he was responsible for the first financially successful export of guano .

After the death of President Gamarra in 1841 and the ensuing anarchist conditions in Peru, Castilla gained political influence and power. After the death of Domingo Nieto (1803-1844), President of Peru from 1843 to 1844, he became President of Peru for the first time on February 17, 1844 as Presidente de la Suprema Junta de Gobierno del Perú (Chairman of the highest ruling junta of Peru). His term of office would have lasted until December 11, 1844. But in October 1844 he put Manuel Menéndez (1793-1847) as president in order to achieve a constitutional transition to democracy in Peru.

In 1845 Castilla won the Peruvian presidential election. In April 1845 he was sworn in as Presidente Constitucional de la República del Perú (Constitutional President of Peru). His second term lasted from April 20, 1845 to April 20, 1851. During his tenure, the export of guano increased rapidly, particularly through contracts with British trading companies. In addition, saltpetre and sodium nitrate were discovered as mineral resources in Peru at this time . Castilla initiated urban development and housing projects , he built schools and improved transportation . During his presidency, the first railway line between Lima and Callao was built , which made it much easier to transport the guano from its production facilities to the port. After six years of reign, José Rufino Echenique (1808–1887) succeeded Castilla as President of Peru. In 1854, at the instigation of Castilla, revolts broke out in Arequipa , then the second largest city in Peru. Numerous liberals had urged Castilla to take action against slavery in Peru.

On December 3, 1854, a law abolishing slavery in Peru was passed in the Andean city ​​of Huancayo . After the law was passed, Castilla challenged Echenique in the Battle of La Palma (Batalla de La Palma) and won on January 5th, 1855 over Echenique. Castilla's third term, and his second as the popularly elected President, lasted from January 5, 1855 to October 24, 1862, initially from January 5, 1855 to October 24, 1858, as Presidente Provisorio del Perú (President ad interim ) , then, from October 1858, again as Presidente Constitucional de la República del Perú . In 1860, under Castilla's presidency, a new Peruvian constitution came into force, which remained in force until 1920 - an unusually long time for Latin American standards.

Castilla's lasting achievements are known in Peru to this day as the “legado castillista” (the “Castillist legacy”). The reforms he implemented include in particular the abolition of slavery and the liberation of the indigenous population of Peru from serfdom , the creation of a new constitution, the abolition of the death penalty , and the introduction of a new postal system . He also abolished the poll tax for natives. Although himself a supporter of the church, he abolished the church tithing and dissolved the church courts of justice . The Roman Catholic Church he sat as with the Constitution of 1860 established church one.

In 1862, Miguel de San Román (1802–1863) was his successor, but he died in April 1863. Castilla then refused to recognize Pedro Diez Canseco (1815-1893), the second Vice-President of Peru and his brother-in-law, as President of Peru and again demanded the presidency for himself. From April 3, 1863 to April 9, 1863 he was Presidente Provisorio del Perú for the fourth and last time President of his country for a week . Diez Canseco followed him as interim president (from April to August 1863); his successor was Juan Antonio Pezet (1809–1879). In 1864 Castilla publicly condemned Pezet's foreign policy ; he was sent to prison and exiled in Gibraltar . After his return to Peru, he was deported to Chile on the instructions of President Mariano Ignacio Prado .

At the beginning of 1867, Castilla, now almost 70 years old, made one more attempt to come to power. Together with a group of followers he landed in Pisagua (Puerto de Tarapacá) and advanced into the desert area around Tiviliche. However, this overexertion ended fatally for Castilla. He died in Tiviliche on May 30, 1867, while attempting to reach southern Peru.

Honors

Numerous settlements (including the villages of Ramón Castilla near Banda de Shilcayo and Mariscal Castilla in the Picota district), squares and streets in Peru are named Ramón Castilla in honor of "Mariscal Castilla" or - more often - "Mariscal Ramón Castilla".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Ramón Castilla Biography. Retrieved April 23, 2016
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Presidentes del Perú: Presidente Ramón Castilla y Marquesado (Spanish), accessed April 30, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Biografia del Mariscal Ramon Castilla (Spanish), accessed April 30, 2016.
  4. ↑ Carmen Mc Evoy: La utopía republicana. Ideales y realidades en la formación de la cultura política peruana (1871-1919) . Fondo Ed. de la Pontificia Univ. Católica del Perú, Lima 1997, ISBN 9972-42-062-0 , therein Chapter 1: El Legado Castillista , pp. 23-53.
  5. ^ Clements Markham : A History of Perú . Sergel & Co., Chicago 1892, pp. 338-341.
personal data
SURNAME Castilla, Ramon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Castilla y Marquesado, Ramón (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Peruvian President
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1797
PLACE OF BIRTH Tarapacá , Viceroyalty of Peru
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1867
Place of death Tiliviche , Tarapacá Province