Federico Degetau
Encyclopedia
Federico Degetau y González, born in Ponce
was a Puerto Rican
politician
, lawyer
, writer
, author
, and the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico
to the United States House of Representatives
.
, where he also attended the common schools and the Central College of Ponce. His father was Mathias Degetau, son of a wealthy Hamburg, Germany, family. In Ponce his father Mathias managed the banks of the Overman and Dede House, of which his father, Otto Georg Christian Degetau (Federico's grandfather), was a partner. Federico's mother was Maria Consolacion Gonzalez, daughter of a respected San Juan
family. His parents married in 1851.
He completed an academic course at Barcelona
, Spain, and was graduated from the law department of the Central University of Madrid. He was admitted to the bar
and commenced practice in Madrid
, Spain. He founded the newspaper La Isla de Puerto Rico to communicate the plight of Puerto Rico to the colonial power
.
to petition Spain
for autonomy in 1895. The petition was denied but a colonial-civil government was imposed by the U.S. Congress three years later as a result of the Spanish-American War
. He settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico
and continued to practice law
.
Degetau was a member of the municipal council of San Juan in 1897, and mayor
of San Juan in 1898. He was deputy to the Spanish Cortes Generales
of 1898. After the Spanish-American War
, he was appointed by the military governor
General Guy Vernor Henry as the Secretary of the Interior
in the first cabinet formed under American rule in Puerto Rico, in 1899. He was appointed by General Henry's successor, General George W. Davis, as a member of the Insular Board of Charities.
, which was founded in 1899. He was the first vice president of the municipal council of San Juan in 1899 and 1900, and was president of the Board of Education of San Juan in 1900 and 1901. He was elected as a Puerto Rican Republican to the Resident Commissioner post in 1900, and reelected in 1902. He served from March 4, 1901 until March 3, 1905, in the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses. He was a member of the Committee on Insular Affairs, and submitted a bill
to grant United States citizenship
to Puerto Rico residents, which failed. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1904, and resumed the practice of law.
, a young, but pregnant, single Puerto Rican woman was traveling aboard the S.S. Philadelphia when the new immigration guidelines took effect and she was detained at Ellis Island
as a "alien" and "burden" to the state. She lost her appeals in the Board hearings and took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, on August 30 of that year, Federico Degetau, unaware of the Gonzalez situation, wrote to the U. S. Secretary of State
in protest of the new rules subjecting Puerto Ricans to immigration laws. His protest was forwarded to the U.S. Treasury Department. Degetau then contacted Le Barbier and Parker, who informed him that they planned to appeal Gonzalez's case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Once Isabel lost her administrative appeal, switching tactics and focusing instead on the "public charge" issue, she decided to argue that all Puerto Ricans were citizens of the United States and as such should not be detained, treated as aliens, or denied entry into the United States.
Degetau saw in the Isabel Gonzalez case, the perfect "test case" for challenging the new immigration guidelines because now it would not be about whether immigration inspectors, following guidelines suffused with concepts of race and gender, deemed Isabel Gonzalez and her family desirable, but about settling the status of all the native islanders living in Puerto Rico at the time it was annexed by the United States four years earlier. By February 16, 1903, Frederic René Coudert, Jr.
, an international-law attorney from New York who launched the Downes v. Bidwell case for clients protesting tariffs levied on goods shipped between Puerto Rico and the United States, joined Paul Fuller, Charles E. LeBarbier and Federico Degetau in the Gonzalez case as collaborators.
The groundbreaking case, which became known as Gonzales v. Williams, was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court on December 4 and 7th, 1903 and was presided by Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller. The case sparked the administrative, legal, and media discussions about the status of Puerto Ricans. It also questioned the issues of immigration and U.S. doctrines in the treatment of U.S. citizens, chiefly women and people of color (dark skinned). Gonzalez and her lawyers moved among the legal realms, aided by shared languages of race, gender, and morality, while Williams and his lawyers, focused on what he considered were failed parents, rearing children outside moral, economically self-sufficient homes.
Gonzalez, who was out on bond, secretly married her fiance and thus became "a citizen of this country through marriage," and acquired the right to remain stateside. She could have ended her appeal, but instead she decided to press her claim that all Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens.
On January 4, 1904, the Court determined that under the immigration laws González was not an alien, and therefore could not be denied entry into New York. The court, however, declined to declare that she was a U.S. citizen. The question of the citizenship status of the inhabitants of the new island territories remained confusing, ambiguous, and contested. Puerto Ricans, instead, came to be known as something in between: "noncitizen nationals."
, in his honor.
Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...
was a Puerto Rican
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico
Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico
The Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico is a non-voting member of the United States House of Representatives elected by the voters of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico every four years...
to the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
.
Early years
Degetau was born in Ponce, Puerto RicoPonce, Puerto Rico
Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...
, where he also attended the common schools and the Central College of Ponce. His father was Mathias Degetau, son of a wealthy Hamburg, Germany, family. In Ponce his father Mathias managed the banks of the Overman and Dede House, of which his father, Otto Georg Christian Degetau (Federico's grandfather), was a partner. Federico's mother was Maria Consolacion Gonzalez, daughter of a respected San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
family. His parents married in 1851.
He completed an academic course at Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, Spain, and was graduated from the law department of the Central University of Madrid. He was admitted to the bar
Bar (law)
Bar in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession.-Courtroom division:...
and commenced practice in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Spain. He founded the newspaper La Isla de Puerto Rico to communicate the plight of Puerto Rico to the colonial power
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
.
Political career
Degetau returned to Puerto Rico, and was one of the four commissioners sent by Puerto Rico under Luis Muñoz RiveraLuis Muñoz Rivera
Luis Muñoz Rivera was a Puerto Rican poet, journalist and politician. He was a major figure in the struggle for political autonomy of Puerto Rico....
to petition Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
for autonomy in 1895. The petition was denied but a colonial-civil government was imposed by the U.S. Congress three years later as a result of the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
. He settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
and continued to practice law
Practice of law
In its most general sense, the practice of law involves giving legal advice to clients, drafting legal documents for clients, and representing clients in legal negotiations and court proceedings such as lawsuits, and is applied to the professional services of a lawyer or attorney at law, barrister,...
.
Degetau was a member of the municipal council of San Juan in 1897, and mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of San Juan in 1898. He was deputy to the Spanish Cortes Generales
Cortes Generales
The Cortes Generales is the legislature of Spain. It is a bicameral parliament, composed of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate . The Cortes has power to enact any law and to amend the constitution...
of 1898. After the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, he was appointed by the military governor
Governor of Puerto Rico
The Governor of Puerto Rico is the Head of Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Since 1948, the Governor has been elected by the people of Puerto Rico...
General Guy Vernor Henry as the Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...
in the first cabinet formed under American rule in Puerto Rico, in 1899. He was appointed by General Henry's successor, General George W. Davis, as a member of the Insular Board of Charities.
Resident Commissioner
Degetau became a member of the Insular Republican PartyRepublican Party (Puerto Rico)
The Republican Party is a political party in Puerto Rico, and the affiliate of the national Republican Party of United States. The party supports statehood for the island. Carlos Méndez, the Mayor of Aguadilla, is the local chairman and the party is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico.Luis G...
, which was founded in 1899. He was the first vice president of the municipal council of San Juan in 1899 and 1900, and was president of the Board of Education of San Juan in 1900 and 1901. He was elected as a Puerto Rican Republican to the Resident Commissioner post in 1900, and reelected in 1902. He served from March 4, 1901 until March 3, 1905, in the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses. He was a member of the Committee on Insular Affairs, and submitted a bill
Act of Congress
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by government with a legislature named "Congress," such as the United States Congress or the Congress of the Philippines....
to grant United States citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
to Puerto Rico residents, which failed. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1904, and resumed the practice of law.
United States Supreme Court:Gonzales v. Williams
In 1902, the United States Treasury Department issued new immigration guidelines that changed the immigration status of all Puerto Ricans. Isabel GonzalezIsabel Gonzalez
Isabel González was a Puerto Rican activist who helped pave the way for Puerto Ricans to be given United States citizenship...
, a young, but pregnant, single Puerto Rican woman was traveling aboard the S.S. Philadelphia when the new immigration guidelines took effect and she was detained at Ellis Island
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
as a "alien" and "burden" to the state. She lost her appeals in the Board hearings and took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, on August 30 of that year, Federico Degetau, unaware of the Gonzalez situation, wrote to the U. S. Secretary of State
Secretary of State
Secretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
in protest of the new rules subjecting Puerto Ricans to immigration laws. His protest was forwarded to the U.S. Treasury Department. Degetau then contacted Le Barbier and Parker, who informed him that they planned to appeal Gonzalez's case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Once Isabel lost her administrative appeal, switching tactics and focusing instead on the "public charge" issue, she decided to argue that all Puerto Ricans were citizens of the United States and as such should not be detained, treated as aliens, or denied entry into the United States.
Degetau saw in the Isabel Gonzalez case, the perfect "test case" for challenging the new immigration guidelines because now it would not be about whether immigration inspectors, following guidelines suffused with concepts of race and gender, deemed Isabel Gonzalez and her family desirable, but about settling the status of all the native islanders living in Puerto Rico at the time it was annexed by the United States four years earlier. By February 16, 1903, Frederic René Coudert, Jr.
Frederic René Coudert, Jr.
Frederic René Coudert Jr. ; born, died in New York City) was a Representative from New York.-Background:Coudert attended Browning and Morristown Schools in New York City, then graduated from Columbia University in 1918 and from its law school in 1922...
, an international-law attorney from New York who launched the Downes v. Bidwell case for clients protesting tariffs levied on goods shipped between Puerto Rico and the United States, joined Paul Fuller, Charles E. LeBarbier and Federico Degetau in the Gonzalez case as collaborators.
The groundbreaking case, which became known as Gonzales v. Williams, was argued in the U.S. Supreme Court on December 4 and 7th, 1903 and was presided by Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller. The case sparked the administrative, legal, and media discussions about the status of Puerto Ricans. It also questioned the issues of immigration and U.S. doctrines in the treatment of U.S. citizens, chiefly women and people of color (dark skinned). Gonzalez and her lawyers moved among the legal realms, aided by shared languages of race, gender, and morality, while Williams and his lawyers, focused on what he considered were failed parents, rearing children outside moral, economically self-sufficient homes.
Gonzalez, who was out on bond, secretly married her fiance and thus became "a citizen of this country through marriage," and acquired the right to remain stateside. She could have ended her appeal, but instead she decided to press her claim that all Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens.
On January 4, 1904, the Court determined that under the immigration laws González was not an alien, and therefore could not be denied entry into New York. The court, however, declined to declare that she was a U.S. citizen. The question of the citizenship status of the inhabitants of the new island territories remained confusing, ambiguous, and contested. Puerto Ricans, instead, came to be known as something in between: "noncitizen nationals."
Written works
As an author, he wrote El secreto de la domadora in 1885, El fondo del aljibe in 1886, Que Quijote!, Cuentos para el camino in 1894, Juventud in 1895, and La Injuria in 1893.Death and Legacy
Degetau died in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and was interred in the Cemetery of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The people of the municipality of Ponce named the larger of the two squares the city's central plaza, Plaza DegetauPlaza Degetau
Plaza Degetau, formally Plaza Federico Degetau, is the larger of two plazas at Plaza Las Delicias, the main city square in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. The other plaza is named Plaza Muñoz Rivera and is located north of Plaza Degetau. The square is notable for its fountains and for the various...
, in his honor.
See also
- List of famous Puerto Ricans
- German immigration to Puerto RicoGerman immigration to Puerto RicoGerman immigration to Puerto Rico increased when German businessmen immigrated to Puerto Rico during the early part of the 19th century. However, it was the economic and political situation in Europe during the early 19th century plus, the fact that the Spanish Crown issued the Royal Decree of...