Federico Degetau
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Federico Degetau y González (December 5, 1862 – January 20, 1914) was a Puerto Rican politician, lawyer, writer, author, and the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to the United States House of Representatives.
Degetau was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and attended the common schools and the Central College of Ponce. He completed an academic course at Barcelona, Spain, and was graduated from the law department of the Central University of Madrid. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Madrid, Spain. He founded the newspaper La Isla de Puerto Rico to communicate the plight of Puerto Rico to the colonial power.
Degetau returned to Puerto Rico, and was one of the four commissioners sent by Puerto Rico under Luis Muñoz Rivera to ask Spain for autonomy in 1895. The petition was denied but a colonial-civil government was imposed by the U.S. Congress three years later. He settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico and continued the practice of law.
Degetau was a member of the municipal council of San Juan in 1897, and mayor of San Juan in 1898. He was deputy to the Spanish Cortes Generales of 1898. After the Spanish-American War, he was appointed by the military governor General Guy Vernor Henry as the Secretary of the Interior in the first cabinet formed under American rule in Puerto Rico, in 1899. He was appointed by General Henry's successor, General George W. Davis, as a member of the Insular Board of Charities.
Degetau became a member of the Insular Republican Party, which was founded in 1899. He was the first vice president of the municipal council of San Juan in 1899 and 1900, and was president of the Board of Education of San Juan in 1900 and 1901. He was elected as a Puerto Rican Republican to the Resident Commissioner post in 1900, and reelected in 1902. He served from March 4, 1901 until March 3, 1905, in the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses. He was a member of the Committee on Insular Affairs, and submitted a bill to grant United States citizenship to Puerto Rico residents, which failed. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1904, and resumed the practice of law.
As an author, he wrote El secreto de la domadora in 1886, Que Quijote!, Cuentos para el camino in 1894, Juventud in 1895, and La Injuria in 1893.
Degetau died in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and was interred in the Cemetery of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Federico Degetau at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress [1]
- Federico Degetau from the Library of Congress.
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