- Dardo Rocha
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Dardo Rocha
Dardo Rocha (September 1, 1838 - September 6, 1921) was an Argentine naval officer, lawyer and politician best known as the founder of the city of La Plata and of the University of La Plata.
Life and times
Juan José Dardo Rocha was born to Colonel Juan José Rocha and Juana Arana in Buenos Aires in 1838. Enrolling at the University of Buenos Aires, Rocha interrupted his studies to enlist as a naval cadet in 1859, placing him in the Battle of Pavón, an 1861 encounter resulting in the unification of the Province of Buenos Aires into the Argentine Republic. He graduated with a Law Degree in 1863, but remained in the Argentine Navy during the War of the Triple Alliance and was critically wounded during the 1866 Battle of Curupaity, causing his return to civilian life as a lawyer, whereupon he married Paula Arana.[1][2]
Invited to take part in the 1870 Constitutional Reform Convention of the Province of Buenos Aires, he was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies (the Lower House of Congress) in 1873 and to the Argentine Senate in 1874, where he became a leading member of Julio Roca's National Autonomist Party, to whose platform the federalization of Buenos Aires was central. Rocha became a prominent proponent of this policy in Congress, where he also earned plaudits for his work to regulate commerce along the contraband-laden Bermejo River bordering Paraguay, for the enactment of the nation's first patent laws and for his support of protectionism for the nation's small, but growing industrial sector.[3]
Period illustration of the 1882 placement of La Plata's foundation stone.
The Dardo Rocha Building, a La Plata landmark named in its founder's honor.The prominence he earned in the Senate led to his becoming its Provisional President in 1877, whereby he served as acting President of Argentina during the ailing Nicolás Avellaneda's frequent medical leaves of absence. Newly-elected in 1880, President Julio Roca to support Rocha's candidacy as Governor of Buenos Aires Province, the nation's most important and most politically contentious at the time. Following a failed insurrection against the Roca regime, his message of political integration with the suddenly prosperous Argentina persuaded the province's voters, and he was elected in 1881. Facing ongoing secessionist pressures from his constituency, Governor Rocha proposed the creation of a new provincial capital in replacement of the city of Buenos Aires, which was federalized as the nation's capital in 1880. The proposal, useful to the mollification of the province's Independence-leaning gentry, was quickly approved by Congress. Overseeing a furor of construction, Rocha inaugurated the city of La Plata on November 19, 1882, creating the first planned city in South America and its first with electric lighting.[2][4]
La Plata was planned by architect Pedro Benoit in a regular pattern of diagonals and precisely-placed squares. His success in La Plata led the governor to seek his party's nomination for the Presidency in 1886. Rocha was a well-known, well-connected and persuasive candidate who had secured his place among Argentina's paramount Generation of 1880, but lost the nomination to Miguel Juárez Celman, the Governor of the Province of Córdoba and President Roca's son-in-law.[2]
The President's offices at the University of La Plata.Out of office, Rocha returned to journalistic pursuits, directing the political desk at La Plata's El Nacional until 1889. Keeping a low political profile following the insitutional crisis of 1890, Rocha devoted his time to the growing city he had founded, for which he established the University of La Plata in 1897, staying on as its President until the school's nationalization in 1905. His additional responsibilities as Director of the Constitutional Law syllabus at the school did not precluse Rocha from accepting a commission as Argentine observer to the 1904 Bolivia-Chile Border Demarcation Treaty.[3]
Dardo Rocha died in Buenos Aires in 1921 at age 83. His unassuming La Plata home is today maintained as the Dardo Rocha Museum & Archives.[5]
References and external links
- ^ Argentines of Today. New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1920.
- ^ a b c Todo Argentina: Dardo Rocha (Spanish)
- ^ a b Historical Dictionary of Argentina. London: Scarecrow Press, 1978.
- ^ Municipalidád de La Plata (Spanish)
- ^ Museo Dardo Rocha (Spanish)
Categories:- Argentine journalists
- Argentine academics
- People from Buenos Aires
- Argentine people of Spanish descent
- 1838 births
- 1921 deaths
- National Autonomist Party politicians
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