Manuel Justo Pardo y Lavalle (1834 – 1878), President of the Republic between 1872 and 1876 . Son of the writer Felipe Pardo y Aliaga and Petrolina de Lavalle y Cabero, he was born in the house located on the corner of San José and Santa Apolonia streets on August 9, 1834, and tragically died on November 16, 1878. Barely a year old, he traveled to Chile with his father, who was appointed plenipotentiary minister of the Salaverry government (1835); they returned to Peru (1839) to be later sent to Chile, as Don Felipe was appointed representative of the government of Castile (1846). For this reason, Manuel began his studies at the Valparaíso Commercial School and later at the Santiago Institute. Already in Peru he continued them at the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe school (1848) and at the San Carlos convictory (1849). He travels with his father to Spain and enrolls in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Barcelona (1850); then, due to the Spanish political disorder, he arrives in Paris where he witnessed the elevation of Napoleon III. He attended the College de France (1852) and took a course in Political Economy with Michel Chevalier, a teacher who permanently influenced him. In the old world he assimilated the ideas that favored the strengthening of the State and its articulating role in the economy .
Intellectual activity of Manuel Pardo y Lavalle
Already back in Peru (1853) he declined the appointment of second officer of the Statistics section in the Ministry of Government and preferred to dedicate himself to agriculture; In this way he collaborated with his cousin José Antonio de Lavalle in the administration of the hacienda “Villa” . Health problems forced him to move to Jauja (1857-1858) to recover. Towards the 1860s he began an intense intellectual activity standing out among the editors of the Lima Magazine, with more than academic, technical and practical articles, with a view to political participation .
Manuel Pardo and Lavalle's beginnings in politics
He ventured into the trade as a guano consignee and as an importer, he was manager of the Guano Consignment Company for Great Britain, director of the Bank of Peru, president of the life insurance company "La Paternal" and director of the Compañía Sur -American Maritime and Fire Insurance. He traveled to London with José Sevilla to arrange a credit to defend the country against the aggression of the Spanish squadron (1864) .
Upon his return, he had to return to the Mantaro Valley to attend to his health and, from there, he supported the revolution of Colonel Mariano Ignacio Prado against the Pezet regime and the signing of the Vivanco-Pareja treaty (1865). During the Prado dictatorship (1866) he was part of the so-called "cabinet of talents" from the Treasury portfolio, promoting an aggressive reform of the tax system in favor of increasing public revenue . He was president of the Public Charity of Lima (1867-1868) and from that position he fought the effects of the yellow fever epidemic that cost the lives of 25% of the population in Lima and Callao. He worked for the construction of the Dos de Mayo hospital, promoted the foundation of the Savings Bank and was concerned with school education in the capital. Elected mayor of Lima by the “Junta de los Cien” (1869-1870) , he managed credits for the creation of schools of arts and crafts, free primary education, creation of schools, sanitation and decoration of the city and promoted the first Great National Industrial Exhibition.
works by Manuel Pardo y Lavalle as President of Peru
He founded the Civil Party (June 24, 1871) which agreed to run his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic for the period 1872-1876 .
Victorious in the elections, the most radical group in the army, headed by the Gutiérrez brothers, wanted to prevent the arrival of civilismo to power. The bloody rebellion, developed in Lima, ended with the assassination of President José Balta and the execution of the rebels by the Lima populace. Already in power, and with a serious economic crisis that did not allow to execute an effective reform plan. Pardo could not comply with the payment of the external debt and Peru lost its economic prestige in Europe . The truth is that the country was bankrupt due to the excessive spending and indebtedness of previous governments, especially the Balta administration. Before this panorama, he tried to improve the revenues of the State by reorganizing the customs and increasing their tariffs; he insisted on saltpeter production nationalizing the business . He took care of education with interest:he promulgated a new general regulation of public instruction, he implanted compulsory and free primary education, he created in the University of San Marcos the Faculty of Political and Administrative Sciences (today Economic Sciences), the School of Civil Engineers and of Mines, the Higher School of Agriculture, the Normal School of San Pedro (for women who would like to dedicate themselves to teaching) and the School of Fine Arts. The crisis, however, continued to worsen:there was price inflation, public works were paralyzed and the unemployed increased every day. As if this were not enough, an inexplicable “secret treaty” of defensive alliance was signed with Bolivia (1873) which, years later, was used by Chile as a pretext to declare war on Peru .
Death and works of Manuel Pardo y Lavalle
At the end of his mandate, Manuel Pardo y Lavalle traveled to Chile, but he returned when he was elected senator for Junín and president of his Chamber (1878). Entering the Senate one afternoon, a congressional guard sergeant named Melchor Montoya shot him at close range and killed him. He was the sure candidate for the presidency for the Civil Party in 1880. Tomás Caivano, an Italian historian, commented:“The murder of Manuel Pardo, we can say with complete certainty, especially considering the circumstances and the moment in which took place, it was more than the murder of a man:it was the murder of Peru” . During Pardo's lifetime he published Studies on the province of Jauja (1862), Answer… to the denunciation of William Bogardus (1867) and Belgrano, by General D. Bartolomé Mitre-Critical Study (Santiago de Chile, 1878) and a compilation of writings by his father, Felipe Pardo y Aliaga, Poems and prose writings (Paris, 1869). Much later, scholars of Manuel Pardo have published various political and administrative documents, such as those compiled by Evaristo San Cristóbal (1945) and Jacinto López (1947). He married Mariana Barreda y Osma (1859) and their children were Felipe, Juan, José -future president of Peru between 1904-1908 and 1915-1919-, María, Ana, Manuel, Mariana and Luis.