Balcarce, Mariano (1807–1885)

views updated

Balcarce, Mariano (1807–1885)

Mariano Balcarce (b. 8 November 1807; d. 20 February 1885), Argentine diplomat. The son of Antonio González Balcarce, a military hero of the struggle for independence, Mariano Balcarce was born in Buenos Aires. He spent most of his life in diplomatic service in Europe. His first assignment, at age twenty-four, was as an assistant to the Argentine minister to Great Britain. He later moved to Paris, where he was living at the time of his death. Balcarce negotiated the treaty by which Spain recognized Argentine independence, and he assiduously publicized the attractions of Argentina for prospective immigrants. He befriended numerous Argentine and other Latin American visitors to France and established a particularly close relationship with José de San Martín during the latter's years of exile in France; he married Mercedes de San Martín, the Liberator's daughter, in 1832.

See alsoArgentina: The Nineteenth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Diccionario histórico argentino, vol. 1 (1953), p. 415.

César H. Guerrero, San Martín y su familia (1978), pp. 81-89.

                                           David Bushnell