Nicolás Remigio Aurelio Avellaneda Silva (3 October 1837 – 24 November 1885) was an Argentine politician and journalist, and President of Argentina from 1874 to 1880. Avellaneda's main projects while in office were banking and education reform, leading to Argentina's economic growth. The most important events of his government were the Conquest of the Desert and the transformation of the Buenos Aires into a federal district.
His grandson was José Domingo Molina Gómez, who took the presidency when Juan Perón was captured.
Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, his mother moved with him to Bolivia after the death of his father, Marco Avellaneda, during a revolt against Juan Manuel de Rosas. He studied law at Córdoba, without graduating. Back at Tucumán he founded El Eco del Norte, and moved to Buenos Aires in 1857, becoming director of the El Nacional and editor of El Comercio de la Plata. He finished his studies at Buenos Aires, meeting Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. Sarmiento helped him to become teacher of economy at the University of Buenos Aires. He wrote "Estudio sobre las leyes de tierras públicas" (Spanish: Study of the laws about public lands), proposing to give the lands to producers that make production from them. This system, similar to the one employed at the United States, suggested to reduce bureaucracy and pointed that this would allow stable populations and population growth.
He was a member of the house of representatives in 1859 and Minister of Government of Adolfo Alsina in the Buenos Aires province in 1866. During Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's presidency, he was Minister of Justice and Education. He implemented the educational reform that was defining of his government.
Avellaneda was the president of Argentina from 1874 to 1880.
He had served in the Argentine Senate for five months in 1874 and returned to the Senate after his Presidency, in 1883, and until his death. He died at the age of 48 on a ship returning from medical treatment in France. He is the shortest-lived President of Argentina.
Avellaneda attained the presidency in 1874. Aged 37, he was the youngest Argentine president ever elected. He had its legitimacy contested by Bartolomé Mitre and supported by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. Mitre deployed the army against Avellaneda but was defeated by Julio Argentino Roca. Mitre was held prisoner and judged by military justice, but Avellaneda indulged him in order to promote pacification. He also included Rufino de Elizalde and José María Gutiérrez, supporters of Mitre, as members of his cabinet.
In line with people like Alberdi or Sarmiento, who thought that European immigration was crucial to the Argentine development, he promoted the "Avellaneda law" that allowed European farmers ease to get terrains. The immigration numbers were doubled in a few years.
He was the first civilian president, not belonging to any of the armed forces. As Sarmiento told him when handing over the presidential sash, "You are the first president who does not know how to use a pistol."
Having won in the Revolution of 1874 and bringing peace to the country, Avellaneda faced a serious economic crisis, centering his efforts on the control of the land with the Conquest of the Desert and expanding the railroads, the cereal and meat exports, and the European immigration, specially to Patagonia. During his presidency, the economy of Argentina was seriously affected by the European crisis putting the country on the edge of debt default. Deciding to take Argentina from its debts, he said that "[...]there are two million Argentines who would economize even to their hunger and thirst to fulfill the promises of our public commitments in the foreign markets". He reduced the budget and applied a weak protectionism. The crisis was eventually fixed with the growing exports of refrigerated meat to Europe, a new developing industrial method of the time.
A prolific writer, his works have been published in 12 volumes.
The permanent budget deficit and the urgency of meeting payments on the public debt, incurred mainly during the Paraguayan War, led to the enactment, during Avellaneda's presidency at the beginning of 1875, of a Customs Law that increased import duties on industrial products by 40%. By the end of 1875, a crisis became evident, caused by the government's financial mismanagement and by the fall in raw-material prices on the world market. The National Bank was used to cover part of the national government's funding needs, but to do so it in turn had to resort to a loan taken from the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires.
Finally, after unsuccessfully seeking other solutions, the president opted for a massive reduction in public spending, dismissing 6,000 public employees and cutting salaries by 15%. In a well-known speech, he declared that
There are two million Argentines who will economize even on their hunger and thirst, in order to respond, in a supreme situation, to the commitments of our public faith in foreign markets.
Not everyone agreed with that solution. There was a faction within autonomism—prominently including Dardo Rocha, Miguel Cané, Carlos Pellegrini and Vicente Fidel López—that, during successive parliamentary debates throughout 1875, proposed some form of protectionism to promote industrialization so that the country would cease depending on exports of primary products and imports of manufactured goods. After a period in which these proposals received some support in the press, they were eventually set aside as the crisis was gradually resolved. That solution was only partly due to government austerity: it was the rise in wool prices that reversed the trade deficit.
As soon as it became clear that the country was emerging from the crisis, the president proposed an Immigration and Colonization Law—the Avellaneda Law—which actively promoted immigration, previously a chaotic process. Under the law, immigrants were guaranteed accommodation at the port of arrival and at the point inland where they chose to settle, and were assisted in obtaining their first job. There was a new rise in the number of immigrants, who settled in agricultural colonies in Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba—and even a few in Buenos Aires—in greater proportion than before.
In 1875 the first Buenos Aires Rural Exhibition was inaugurated, organized by the Argentine Rural Society, and it has continued to be held annually ever since.
In December 1876 the first refrigerated ship arrived in the country, Le Frigorifique, equipped with two chambers that maintained a temperature of 0 degrees Celsius. This significantly changed the outlook for Argentine exports, increased the value of cattle, and made possible the first shipment of frozen meat to Europe, followed the next year by the first grain exports. These activities would gradually grow until they became the two most important sectors of Argentine exports from the 1890s onward.