Obligated Pastor

Pastor Obligado (Buenos Aires, August 9, 1818-Córdoba, March 12, 1870) was an Argentine lawyer, politician and military man, member of the Unitarian Party, the Liberal Party and then the Autonomist Party, which governed the State of Buenos Aires at the time of its secession from the Argentine Confederation, after the fall of Juan Manuel de Rosas.

Biography

Early years

Son of Manuel Obligado and Juana Tejedor or Texedor, he was baptized Justo Pastor del Corazón de Jesús Obligado on August 10, 1818, in the Nuestra Señora de la Merced parish in Buenos Aires.

He studied Law at the University of Buenos Aires, where he graduated in 1845. He was a supporter of Juan Manuel de Rosas during his government in the province of Buenos Aires, but thanks to the influences of his rich family he was appointed judge the next day of the battle of Caseros (February 3, 1852), in which Rosas was defeated by Justo José de Urquiza.

A member of the so-called young generation (the second since the protagonists of the May Revolution), he joined the Unitary Party, fiercely opposed to the federal regime that Urquiza had imposed for the country in the Agreement of Saint Nicholas. The Unitary Party was divided into two sectors: autonomists or gang members and nationalists or chupandinos. The autonomist wing, led by Valentín Alsina, sought the definitive separation of Buenos Aires from the rest of the Argentine provinces. The nationalist wing led by Bartolomé Mitre sought to reunify Buenos Aires with the confederation, but imposing a new political order that would allow Buenos Aires to retain its hegemony. Obligado joined the autonomist sector, although he was later part of the group that agreed with Mitre.

Through the Revolution of September 11, 1852, the Unitarian Party overthrew the federal government that governed Buenos Aires under Urquiza himself. One of the first measures of the provisional government led by General Manuel Guillermo Pinto was to order the separation of the province from the confederation, giving rise to the State of Buenos Aires.

Governor of Buenos Aires

After the failure of Valentín Alsina as provisional governor, Obligado made a pact with the nationalist faction of Miter and thanks to their support, he managed to be elected governor of the State in 1853.

The constitution voted in Buenos Aires retained for the province the exercise of external and internal sovereignty, in clear defiance of the National Constitution of 1853; Obligado was a clear continuator of that policy, forcing those who advocated a federal system (such as Vicente Fidel López or Marcos Paz) into exile. Relations with the government of Paraná were tense enough for weapons to be taken in 1854; The Buenos Aires army defeated the Entre Ríos forces of General Jerónimo Costa in the battle of El Tala, but Urquiza managed to obtain an agreement from Obligado by which both parties committed to mutual aid in the event of foreign aggression.

During his government, Obligado took advantage of the funds provided by customs to improve Buenos Aires infrastructure; He founded numerous primary schools, laid the foundations for the National School of Buenos Aires, urbanized the countryside, converting old forts into towns and began work on running water and lighting gas for Buenos Aires.^{[citation required]}

On October 14, 1855, the French gunsmith Adolphe Bertonnet made the first practical demonstration of Breguet electric telegraphy using a line stretched between the Hotel de Provence and the premises of the Italian daguerreotypist Luigi Bartoli on the Victoria Square. Governor Pastor Obligado and his ministers Valentín Alsina, Norberto de la Riestra and Bartolomé Miter attended, who despite the success of the demonstration and the enthusiastic defense of Sarmiento from El Nacional were not convinced to install the equipment.

On August 30, 1857, he presided over the inauguration of the first railway line, which ran from the current Plaza Lavalle to the town (today the neighborhood) of Flores.

Later years

In 1859 he was elected to the provincial legislature. When the situation of tension between the then State of Buenos Aires and the rest of the provinces led to the Battle of Cepeda, he fought under the orders of Alsina; The Buenos Aires defeat and the signing of the Pact of San José de Flores represented a severe setback for his separatist interests. However, he was minister of Governor Bartolomé Mitre, and when he rose up against the national government of Santiago Derqui he took up arms again in the battle of Pavón. He would later be Minister of War and Navy during Mitre's presidency, and national deputy from 1862 until his death in Córdoba in 1870.

Family relationships

The poet Pastor S. Obligado was the son of Pastor Obligado.