José Segundo Decoud
José Segundo Decoud Domecq | |
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Senator of Paraguay | |
In office 28 September 1888 – 3 March 1909 | |
Minister of Justice, Religion and Public Education of Paraguay | |
In office 15 April 1898 – 4 June 1898 | |
Preceded by | José Mateo Collar |
Succeeded by | Benjamín Aceval |
In office 11 July 1871 – 11 November 1871 | |
Preceded by | José Mateo Collar |
Succeeded by | Domingo A. Ortiz |
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay | |
In office 9 June 1895 – 19 June 1900 | |
Preceded by | Héctor Velázquez |
Succeeded by | Fabio Queirolo |
In office 2 March 1891 – 14 April 1891 | |
Preceded by | Venancio López Carrillo |
Succeeded by | Benjamín Aceval |
In office 29 December 1887 – 28 September 1888 | |
Preceded by | Agustín Cañete |
Succeeded by | Juan Crisóstomo Centurión |
In office 9 July 1879 – 25 November 1886 | |
Preceded by | Benjamín Aceval |
Succeeded by | Benjamín Aceval |
In office 17 May 1871 – 11 July 1871 | |
Preceded by | Carlos Loizaga |
Succeeded by | Bernardino Caballero |
Minister of Finance of Paraguay | |
In office 25 November 1890 – 17 July 1891 | |
Preceded by | José Tomás Sosa |
Succeeded by | Otoniel Peña |
President of the Paraguayan Supreme Court of Justice | |
In office 14 December 1876 – 11 July 1878 | |
Preceded by | Carlos Loizaga |
Succeeded by | José González Granado |
Personal details | |
Born | Asuncion, Paraguay | 14 May 1848
Died | 3 March 1909 Asuncion, Paraguay | (aged 63)
Resting place | La Recoleta Cemetery, Asunción |
Spouse | María Benigna Peña Guanes |
Parents |
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José Segundo Decoud Domecq (May 14, 1848 – March 3, 1909) was a Paraguayan politician, journalist, diplomat and military officer, often considered one of the foremost intellectuals of his generation[1], and who also was one of the first liberals of the country. He was one of the founders of the long-standing Colorado Party, having been its first vice-president and having written its founding instrument [2].
Biography
Early life
Segundo Decoud was born to Juan Francisco Decoud and Maria Luisa Concepción Domecq in Asunción, in the 14th of May 1848 during Carlos Antonio López’s rule. The Decouds were historically strong opponents to the López regime, and in the early 1850s the execution of his uncles Teodoro and Gregorio due to treason forced his family into exile.
Together with his brother Juan José, he studied at the Colegio del Uruguay in Entre Ríos[3], and afterwards entered into law school at the University of Buenos Aires[4]. Once the Paraguayan War broke out he, however, abandoned his studies and enlisted into the Paraguayan Legion, formed out of oppositionists to the López’ in Buenos Aires in 1865, though he left the unit before the war ended[5]. By the end of the war, his father was one of the unit’s commanders[6].
Political life
Months before the war was over, and with the chief Brazilian diplomat Silva Paranhos’s approval, soon the new Paraguayan politics began to form. on the 26 June 1869, the Club del Pueblo was formed with Segundo as a secretary, a liberal political organization mostly composed by ex-legionnaires and other dissenters to the López regime .[7] Being already an important personage in postwar Asunción due to his name and ideas, he was named one of the members of the constitutional assembly that created the 1870 Constitution[8], and in 1871 was made minister of Foreign Affairs for the Rivarola government[9]. Afterwards, as Paraguayan politics took a violent turn[10], Decoud withdrew temporarily from them, to focus on his career as a journalist, and to return only in 1878 as minister for the Candido Bareiro government. The 1880s were the years in which he was the most active, and had the greatest impact upon Paraguayan politics.
One of his most important feats was achieved in 1885, when he went to London as an extraordinary envoy and managed to renegotiate Paraguay’s debt there from little short of 3 million pounds sterling to 850 thousand, though the country had to cede 8700 km2 of lands to the bondholders in exchange.[11] As a diplomat, he also represented Paraguay as ambassador to the Brazilian court and to the Uruguayan government. Besides this, in 1887 he was one of the founders, alongside ex-president Bernardino Caballero and others, of the Colorado Party, to which he contributed many years as its main ideologue .[12] The foundation of the country’s first university, the Universidad Nacional de Asunción, was in good part motivated by him, as well.[13]
Some controversies marked his career. He was one of the foremost advocates for the process of land sales by the government conducted from 1883 onwards[14], which served to concentrate land ownership rapidly and which had a short-lived impact in the country’s finances[15]; he also was accused of having plotted with Argentinian authorities in the 1870s to allow for Paraguay’s annexation to the former country [16].
In the 1890s he would still occupy many cabinet positions and was considered for the presidency, but court intrigues kept him from power[17], as they had more than once done in the decades before.
Journalistic career
José Segundo Decoud began his career in press soon after his return to Paraguay. Together with his brother Héctor Decoud, in 1869 he started to work as editor and writer for the newspaper “La Regeneración”, which lasted until september 1870. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s he would contribute to other newspapers such as “La Reforma” and “La Opinión Pública” .[18] His impactful texts were frequently republished in Argentinian newspapers. He also translated Joseph Alden’s “The Science of Government in Connection with American Institutions” from English to Spanish [19], and wrote books such as “Recuerdos históricos”, “La amistad. Cuestiones Políticas y Económicas”, edited in 1876, and “El patriotismo”, published in 1905 [20]. When he died, in 1909, it is said that he had been preparing for some years to write a book that would discuss Paraguayan history from the colonial era to his time [18].
In 2014, the historian and diplomat Ricardo Scavone Yegros made a compilation of Decoud’s works and published them together with a critical study.
Death
Decoud committed suicide in Asunción, in the 4th of March 1909. His suicide letter to his wife can be read in Francisco Doratioto’s “Una relación compleja, Paraguay y Brasil 1889-1954”.
References
Citations
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, pp. 302–303.
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, pp. 73–77.
- ^ Calzada 1913, p. 10.
- ^ Calzada 1913, p. 17.
- ^ Calzada 1913, p. 12.
- ^ Calzada 1913, p. 14.
- ^ Decoud 1925, p. 123.
- ^ "José Segundo Decoud". anr.org.py (in Spanish). ANR - Partido Colorado. Archived from the original on 16 May 2022. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
- ^ Aquino 1985, p. 48.
- ^ Prado 2022, pp. 41–45.
- ^ Prado 2022, p. 45.
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, p. 73.
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, pp. 299–300.
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, pp. 170.
- ^ Prado 2022, pp. 90–98.
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, p. 101.
- ^ Warren & Warren 2014, pp. 92–93.
- ^ a b Calzada 1913, p. 61.
- ^ Catálogo de la Biblioteca Paraguaya "Solano López". H. Kraus. 1906. ISBN 9780274437306. Retrieved 2022-10-30.
- ^ Calzada 1913, pp. 62–63.
Sources
- Zubizarreta, Carlos (1961). Cien vidas paraguayas. Nizza. ISBN 978-9-995-30281-8.
- Esteves, Gomes F. (1983). Historia contemporánea del Paraguay (1869-1920). NAPA. ISBN 978-9-992-55043-4.
- Centurión, Carlos R. (1947). Historia de las letras paraguayas. Ayacucho.
- Decoud, Hector F. (1925). Una década de vida nacional. H. Kraus. ISBN 978-9-995-30859-9.
- Mosqueira, Silvano (1908). Semblanzas paraguayas. H. Kraus.
- Yegros, Ricardo S. (2014). Ensayos sobre cuestiones políticas y económicas. Tiempo de Historia. ISBN 978-9-996-76096-9.
- Catálogo de la Biblioteca Paraguaya "Solano López". H. Kraus. 1906. ISBN 978-0-274-43730-6.
- Warren, H.G.; Warren, K.F. (2014). Paraguay and the Triple Alliance: The Postwar Decade, 1869-1878. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477306994. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
- Prado, Mário L. F. (2022). O Processo de Recuperação Econômica do Paraguai após a Guerra da Tríplice Aliança (1870 - 1890). Universidade de São Paulo.
- Aquino, Ricardo C. (1985). La Segunda Republica Paraguaya 1869-1906. Arte Nuevo. ISBN 9789996712906.
- Calzada, Rafael (1913). Rasgos Biográficos de José Segundo Decoud.