Távara y Andrade, Santiago (1790–1874)

Santiago Távara y Andrade (b. 1790; d. 28 January 1874), a major liberal intellectual and politician in the mid-nineteenth century. Távara, a native of Piura, received a degree from the Royal Medical College of San Fernando in 1819. He contributed two widely read works to the formation of a liberal outlook in Peru. Historia de los partidos políticos was a series of articles explaining the Peruvian political situation in 1851 that appeared in the Lima newspaper El Comercio. The articles were collected and edited in 1951 by Jorge Basadre. Távara also wrote against slavery. His writings formed part of the campaign conducted by a small antislavery movement in Peru. A staunch supporter of Ramón Castilla, Távara penned the only coherent argument for the abolition of black slavery in Peru, Abolición de la esclavitud en el Perú (1855), which attacked those who argued that abolition would mean a great increase in crime. He won a seat in the National Convention, serving in 1855–1857, and in the national Chamber of Deputies, which he held from the mid-1860s until his defeat in the hotly contested election of 1868. Távara long had fought electoral corruption, but in this instance both he and his opponent were accused of fraud. After his defeat Távara retired from politics. He died in Piura.

See alsoCastilla, Ramón; Slave Trade, Abolition of: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Henry F. Dobyns and Paul L. Doughty, Peru: A Cultural History (1976).

Peter Blanchard, Slavery and Abolition in Early Republican Peru (1992).

Additional Bibliography

Cayo Córdoba, Percy. Ramón Castilla. Lima: Editorial Brasa, 1994.

                                              Vincent Peloso