Severiano de Heredia

Severiano de Heredia
Paris municipal council
In office
April 1873  1881
Deputy of the National Assembly
In office
21 August 1881  11 November 1889
Personal details
Born (1836-11-08)November 8, 1836
Havana, Cuba
Died February 9, 1901(1901-02-09) (aged 64)
Paris, France
Resting place Batignolles Cemetery, Paris, France
Political party Republican Union (1881-1885)
Radical Left (1885-1889)

Severiano de Heredia (8 November 1836 – 9 February 1901)[1] was a Cuban-born biracial[2] politician, a freemason,[3] a left-wing republican,[4] naturalized as French in 1870,[5] who was president of the municipal council of Paris[6] from 1 August 1879 to 12 February 1880. He served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1881 to 1889 and was minister of public works for the cabinet of Maurice Rouvier in 1887, where he planned and oversaw the construction of some of the finest French highways. He also made his reputation by campaigning for the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Brazil.[7] He is believed to be a cousin of the famous French poet, José-Maria de Heredia.

Biography

Severiano de Heredia was born in Havana, Cuba, to Henri de Heredia and Beatrice Cardenas.[8] At the age of 10 he was sent by his godfather, Heredia y Campuzano, to France for his education, attending the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.[8][9] He applied for French citizenship which was granted under the Ministerial Decree of 28 September 1870.[5]

He married at Paris, 3 November 1868, Henriette Hanaire, by whom he had issue one son in 1869, Henri-Ignace, and one daughter in 1873, Marcelle. His son tragically died by accident at Wimereux in his twelfth year and was buried at Cimetière des Batignolles on 4 September 1882. His daughter studied at the Paris Medical School, became a notable neurophysiologist[10] and formed a team with her husband, the neurophysiologist Louis Lapicque.[11]

In 1871, while he was assuming the role of a conciliator,[12] he published a political essay entitled Paix et plébiscite (Peace and referendum) in which he pleaded for a democratic end to the Franco-Prussian war.[13]

He entered politics as a radical Republican and was elected in April 1873 to be a member of the City Council of Paris,[14] for the Ternes and Plaine-de-Monceaux neighborhoods (17th arrondissement).[15] In 1879, he was elected president of the municipal council of Paris, and in August 1881 member to the Chamber of Deputies, where he stayed until he was defeated at the election of 1889 by a Boulangist opponent.[16] On 30 May 1887, he was appointed Minister of Public Works in the government of Maurice Bouvier, until 11 December 1887. On retiring from politics he devoted himself to the history of literature.[17]

Severiano de Heredia was also an active freemason. Initiated in 1866 in the “Étoile polaire” (North Star) lodge of Paris, he became Worshifull Master of his lodge, and then Deputy of Grand Orient of France in 1875, and President of the Masonic Orphanage.[3] Within this framework, Severiano de Heredia took part to the first French Congress for Women's Rights in 1878, as a French representative of the intended Committee of Initiative, at the Masonic Grand Orient.[18]

He died at his home in Paris on 9 February 1901.[1]

Works

Notes and references

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 Luquiens, Corinne, ed. (15 April 2014). "Severiano DE HÉRÉDIA". Base de données historique des anciens députés - Assemblée nationale (in French). Paris, France: Secrétariat générale de l'Assemblée nationale. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  2. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (November 1915). Burghardt Du Bois, William Edward, ed. The Crisis (PDF). 11. New York, USA: Crisis Publishing Company. p. 22. Retrieved 31 July 2015. Jose Maria Heredia, the king of sonnets crowned by the French Academy, was a white man but Severiano de Heredia, who held high post under the French government, was of Negroid descent and this is amply verified not only by LaRousse, encyclopaedia but by his family, some of whom still survive him.
  3. 1 2 Kupferman, Laurent; Pierrat, Emmanuel (4 October 2012). Ce que la France doit aux francs-maçons… et ce qu'elle ne leur doit pas [What France does and does not owe to Freemasons…]. Actualités Enquêtes (in French). Paris, F: Éditions First & First Interactive. ISBN 978-2-7540-3221-6.
  4. Raitt, Alan William (1981). The Life of Villiers De I'Isle-Adam. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-1981-5771-7. Retrieved 31 July 2015. He had two opponents, the sitting councillor Severiano de Heredia, a Cuban-born left-wing republican who later became a minister, and a fringe 'collectivist' called Couturat.
  5. 1 2 Adolphe Crémieux, Minister of Justice (June 1871). Bulletin des lois de la République française [Bulletin of acts of the French Republic] (in French). Paris, F: Imprimerie nationale. p. 35. Retrieved 18 October 2015. N° 48. – DÉCRET (signé par le membre et délégué du Gouvernement de la défense nationale, garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice) qui admet à jouir des droits de citoyen français le sieur de Heredia (Severiano), né le 8 novembre 1836, à la Havane (île espagnole de Cuba), sans profession, demeurant à Paris. (Tours, 28 Septembre 1870.)
  6. Piñeyro, Enrique (1907). "José María Heredia" (PDF). Bulletin Hispanique (in Spanish). Bordeaux, France: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux: 187. doi:10.3406/hispa.1907.1527. ISSN 0007-4640. Retrieved 31 July 2015 via Persée. … niño que fué adoptado como hijo por su viuda, dama de origen francés, y llamado Severiano de Heredia; que recibió su educación en Francia y llegó á ser primero Concejal de París, luego miembro de la Cámara de Diputados y por último Ministro de Obras Públicas de la República francesa.
  7. Dadd, Nelo (1 June 2010). Disperse. Bloomington (Indiana), USA: Xlibris Corporation. p. 210. ISBN 978-1-4535-0589-2. Retrieved 17 April 2013. Severiano de Heredia. A Cuban Negro was minister of public works for France in the Rouvier cabinet in 1888. Heredia planned and built some of France's finest highways. He also worked for the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Brazil.
  8. 1 2 Agapé, Sélène (7 August 2015). "Paris 1879: Severiano de Heredia, le mulâtre dans les hautes sphères de la République" [Paris 1879, Severiano de Heredia: the mulatto at the highest level of the Republic]. The Huffington Post (in French). Paris, F. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
  9. Noiriel, Gérard (13 January 2016). Chocolat, la véritable histoire de l'homme sans nom [The true story of Chocolat, the man without name] (in French). Paris, F: Bayard Presse. ISBN 978-2-227-48617-1. Retrieved 8 February 2016. À Paris, Severiano de Heredia, fils d'un aristocrate de La Havane, devint un membre actif du parti radical, après des études au lycée Louis-le-Grand, ce qui lui permit d'être élu conseiller municipal, puis député..
  10. Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey; Harvey, Joy Dorothy (2000). "Lapicque, Marcelle (de Heredia) (1873–ca.1962)". The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z. New York (New York), USA: Taylor & Francis. pp. 745–746. ISBN 978-0-4159-2040-7. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  11. Lykknes, Annette; Opitz, Donald L.; Van Tiggelen, Brigitte, eds. (2012). For Better or For Worse? Collaborative Couples in the Sciences. Science Networks Historical Studies. 44. Basel, D: Birkhäuser. pp. 66–67. doi:10.1007/978-3-0348-0286-4. ISBN 978-3-0348-0750-0. Retrieved 19 October 2015..
  12. du Puy de Clinchamps, Philippe; de Villeneuve, Gérard (1979). L'Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux [The Intermediary of the Researchers and Curious] (in French). N° 334 to 345. Paris, F: Au Siège de la Rédaction. p. 371. Retrieved 18 October 2015. …naturalisé français en 1870, il fut conciliateur en 1871, conseiller municipal de Paris (1873-1885), député de la Seine…
  13. de Heredia, Severiano (1871). Paix et plébiscite [Peace and referendum]. Tours, F: Imprimerie Mame. p. 24. Retrieved 18 October 2015. Il est temps d'en finir avec les guerres périodiques et les boucheries humaines.
  14. Estrade, Paul (1994). Instituto Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, eds. Pasando revista a los periódicos cubanos publicados en Paris en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX [Critical analysis and synopsis of Cuban newspapers published in Paris in the second half of the 19th century]. Revista de Indias (in Spanish). 54. Instituto de Historia, Departamento de Historia de América. Madrid, ES: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. pp. 191–209. ISSN 0034-8341. Retrieved 17 October 2015. …y elección como concejal del Ayuntamiento de París de un cubano nacimiento, Severiano de Heredia (n° 86 de 20 abril de 1873).
  15. Chamouard, Patrick; Weill, Georges J.; Girard-Busson, Blandine (1985). Députés et sénateurs de la région parisienne de 1848 à 1984 [Deputies and senators of the Paris region from 1848 to 1984] (in French). Nanterre, F: Archives départementales des Hauts-de-Seine. p. 139. ISBN 2-86092-003-X. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
  16. McCloy, Shelby Thomas (5 February 2015) [first published 1966]. The Negro in the French West Indies. University Press of Kentucky. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-8131-6396-3. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  17. Kanyarwunga, Jean (16 December 2013). "France: Severiano de Heredia, First Black Mayor of Paris and current racial prejudice in the West". History of Africa Otherwise. Geneva, CH: Blogger. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
  18. Bidelman, Patrick Kay (26 May 1982). Pariahs Stand Up!: The Founding of the Liberal Feminist Movement in France, 1858-1889(Contributions in Women's Studies). Music Reference Collection. Book 31. Westport (Connecticut), USA: Greenwood Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-313-23006-6. Retrieved 11 October 2015. The nineteen French members included two senators (Victor Schoelcher and Eugene Pelletan), five deputies (Louis Codet, Tiersot, Charles Boudeville, Emile Deschanel, and Charles Laisant), three municipal councilors from Paris (Antide Martin, Georges Martin, and Severiano de Herédia)…
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