Cañas, José Simeón (1767–1838)

José Simeón Cañas (b. 18 February 1767; d. 4 March 1838), Salvadoran intellectual and politician. Born in Santa Lucía Zacatecoluca, El Salvador, to a wealthy family, Cañas was educated as a priest in Guatemala, where he received his doctorate in theology. He became rector of the University of San Carlos in 1802. He joined with José Matías Delgado and Manuel José Arce in supporting Central American independence in 1821. As a member of the Central American Congress, on 31 December 1823 Cañas made the motion to abolish slavery in Central America, enacted the following year. He subsequently supported the cause of Central American unity. He died, and is buried, in San Vicente, El Salvador.

See alsoCentral America; Slavery: Abolition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Miguel Ángel Espino, La vida de José Simeón Cañas, padre de los esclavos (1955), originally published in Adolfo Pérez Menéndez and José Luis Andreu, eds., Colección patria grande. Época de la independencia. Biografías populares de los hombres símbolos de Centro América (1938).

Ramón López Jiménez, José Simeón Cañas: Su obra, su verdadera personalidad y su destino (1970).

Manuel Vida, Nociones de historia de Centro América (especial para El Salvador), 5th ed. (1957), pp. 143-147.

Ramón López Jiménez and Rafael Díaz, Biografía de José Simeón Cañas (1968).

Additional Bibliography

Alvarado, Hermógenes. José Simeón Cañas: Y la abolición de la esclavitud en Centro América. El Salvador: Delgado, 2000.

                              Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.