José Evaristo Uriburu

José Félix Evaristo Uriburu (Salta, November 19, 1831-Buenos Aires, October 23, 1914) was an Argentine lawyer and politician, president of the Argentine nation, between January 23 of 1895 and October 12, 1898.

Origin

Uriburu in his youth.

His father was Colonel Evaristo de Uriburu, Governor of Salta, and his mother was the patriot Josefa Álvarez de Arenales, daughter of General Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales and Serafina González de Hoyos.

According to the genealogist Narciso Binayán Carmona, he was a descendant of the Spanish conquistador, explorer, and colonizer Domingo Martínez de Irala (1509-1556); His ancestors had a remote Guaraní mestizo origin, which he shared with many heroes from the time of Independence and with great Paraguayan and Argentine personalities.

He began his studies at the University of Chuquisaca, earning his doctorate in jurisprudence at the University of Buenos Aires in 1854.

After holding some positions in the State of Buenos Aires, he returned to his native province, where he was part of the Constituent Convention; he was also a provincial deputy. In 1855 he founded the newspaper El Comercio .

From 1856, for four years, he was secretary of the Argentine embassy in Bolivia. He returned to his country in 1860; between 1861 and 1862 he was a government minister for federal governor José María Todd. He was a national deputy from 1862 to 1868, and for a year he was president of the Chamber of Deputies. He served as Minister of Justice and Public Instruction for a brief period in 1867, appointed by the acting Vice President of the Presidency, Marcos Paz. In 1871 he was appointed attorney for the National Treasury. In 1872 he was appointed federal judge in his native province.

In 1874 he was again appointed ambassador to Bolivia, and two years later he represented his country at the American Congress of Jurists in Peru. In 1882 he participated in a mediation on the consequences of the War of the Pacific, acting as an arbitrator between Bolivia and Chile.

In 1891 he was ambassador to Chile, and he offered asylum in the embassy to the ousted president José Manuel Balmaceda, who a few days later committed suicide on the spot.

In 1892, after a complicated negotiation between Julio Argentino Roca and Bartolomé Mitre, he was named vice-presidential candidate, accompanying Luis Sáenz Peña. He took office in October 1892. Sáenz Peña's inability to resolve the complicated politics of his time—which included the 1893 revolution—led him to resign, so Uriburu had to assume the presidency on January 23, 1895..

Presidency

Uriburu in 1898.

Lacking a political group to back him, the new president depended entirely on Roca, then provisional president of the Senate. However, he had experience and a defined political sense, which allowed him to carry out a stable government that was respected by the majority. One of his first measures was an amnesty for the participants in the two radical revolutions, which earned him the thanks of many of those involved.

During his tenure, which began without the economic hardships of his predecessors, the downward trend in agricultural prices was reversed, which in 1897 reached the highest level up to that time. Driven by a strong fiscal surplus, the government began a stage of public investment. Several works that had been stopped five years ago were finished during his management: such were the cases of the National Museum of Fine Arts in its first headquarters in a sector of the Pacífico Galleries; the first building of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires, which would be demolished in the 1930s; the Industrial School of the Nation, later called "Otto Krause"; the beginning of the works for the construction of the new Palace of the National Congress, in Buenos Aires, which would be inaugurated in 1906.

With the danger of radical revolutions removed –especially after the deaths of Del Valle and Alem– and all the campaigns against the indigenous people finished, the president decided to adapt the Army and the Navy to the needs of the only possible international conflict scenarios. The five years of the crisis had caused a notable delay in updating the weapons of both armed forces, so Uriburu decided to start a massive rearmament, with the purchase of modern weapons and several ships. He also ordered the creation of the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base, near Bahía Blanca.

In October 1895, a law was passed that regulated the compulsory nature of service in the National Guard for all young people who turned 20, as a step prior to compulsory military service in Argentina. The conscripts carried out a coordinated maneuver in the Sierra de Curu Malal.

In 1897, the need to amend the National Constitution was sanctioned by law, which was amended by a national convention the following year. For the same, the population base for the election of Deputies was changed, which had been set at one for every 20,000 inhabitants; It was set for that year at one for every 33,000 inhabitants, and from then on it would be set by Congress, in order not to increase the number of deputies to excessively high numbers. The number of ministries, whose attributions would be established by law, was also increased from five to eight.

A special reel used by President Uriburu at the Bicentennial Museum.

The conflicts with Chile and Brazil

The delays observed in the demarcation of the limits on the Andes Mountains and the news about the rearmament of the Argentine armed forces alarmed the most warmongering sectors of public opinion in Chile. The Minister of Foreign Relations of that country himself, and his ambassador in Buenos Aires participated in the warmongering intentions; the latter came to advise attacking Argentina as soon as possible, anticipating the arrival of new ships. But, after several weeks of warmongering escalation in the press of both countries, when the imminence of a war was already felt, Chilean President Errázuriz and his Argentine counterpart spoke out energetically in favor of peace.

On the other hand, Uriburu ordered the Demarcation Commission of the limits of both countries not to stop at any time: every time a discrepancy arose, it would be raised to the experts and the Commission would continue on its way, marking the places where it did not had; If the experts were unable to reconcile their discrepancies – the expert on the Argentine side was Francisco P. Moreno – an arbitral award on that point would be requested from the King of England. The demarcation of limits finally took great speed.

Another conflict that was resolved during the Uriburu presidency –entirely to the detriment of Argentina– was the one that existed with Brazil over the eastern limit of the National Territory of Misiones. In 1895, US President Cleveland granted the entire disputed territory to Brazil.

Cabinet of Ministers

Ministries of the Government of José Evaristo Uriburu
Portfolio	Owner	Period
Ministry of the Interior	Benjamin Zorrilla Norberto Quirno Costa	23 January 1895 – 20 July 1895 21 July 1895 – 12 October 1898
Ministry of External Relations and Worship	Amancio Alcorta	23 January 1895 – 12 October 1898
Ministry of War and Marina	Eudoro Balsa Guillermo Villanueva Nicolás Levalle	23 January 1895 – 29 August 1895 August 29, 1895 – May 19, 1897 19 May 1897 - 12 October 1898
Ministry of Finance	Juan José Romero Wenceslao Escalante	23 January 1895 – 21 October 1897 21 October 1897 – 12 October 1898
Ministry of Justice and Public Instruction	Antonio Bermejo Luis Beláustegui	23 January 1895 – 23 July 1897 23 July 1897 – 12 October 1898

Later career

He was elected national senator for the City of Buenos Aires, holding that position between 1901 and 1910. In 1903 he returned to the presidency as an interim for a few days. In 1904 he was a candidate for the presidency for the Republican Party, being defeated by Manuel Quintana.

He retired from all public performance in 1910, dying in Buenos Aires in October 1914.

Married couples and children

He married twice:
The first time with his cousin Juana Virginia de Uriburu in 1857 (1836, Cinti, Bolivia – 1871, Buenos Aires, Argentina), they had 5 children:

The second with Leonor Hermenegilda del Carmen de Tezanos Pinto 1878 (1850, Lima, Peru – 1916, Buenos Aires, Argentina), daughter of Jorge de Tezanos Pinto, and Josefa Victoria Leonor de Segovia. They had 2 children:

• The content of this article incorporates material from a Entry of the Universal Free Encyclopedia, published in Spanish under the Creative Commons Share-Igual 3.0 license.

Ancestors