Berreta, Tomás (1875–1947)

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Berreta, Tomás (1875–1947)

Tomás Berreta (b. 22 November 1875; d. 1 August 1947), president of Uruguay (1947). Berreta was from the department of Canelones, where he was a farmhand, cattle driver, policeman, chief of police (1911–1916), and quartermaster general (1917). He was elected to Parliament in 1923 and served as minister of public works (1943–1946) during the presidency of Juan José de Amézaga before being elected president. He died five months into his term.

A man of humble background and a descendant of Italian immigrants, Berreta exemplified through his career the changing nature of Uruguayan society in his day. At age seventeen he met José Batlle y Ordóñez while delivering a report to the newspaper El Día. Their friendship helped launch Berreta's political career from a department that was still rural and in which the ideas of Batllismo were just beginning to blossom.

See alsoBatlle y Ordóñez, José; Batllismo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Daniel Vidart, Tomás Berreta: Apología de la acción (1946).

Juan Carlos Pedemonte, Los presidentes del Uruguay (1984).

Martin Weinstein, Uruguay: Democracy at the Crossroads (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Cigliuti, Carlos Walter. Vida de Don Tomás Berreta: Las opciones de la democracia. Montevideo, Uruguay: Imprenta Rosgal, 1975.

                                JosÉ de Torres Wilson

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Berreta, Tomás (1875–1947)

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