Marco Avellaneda

Marco Manuel Avellaneda (18 June 1813 – 3 October 1841) was the governor of Tucumán Province in Argentina, and father of the Argentine President Nicolás Avellaneda. He was executed after an unsuccessful revolt against the Federal government, and his head was displayed on a pike. Early years Manuel Marco Avellaneda was born in San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca on 18 June 1813, son of Nicolás Avellaneda y Tula, the first governor of Catamarca Province. He learned his first letters in the Franciscan school of Father Ramon de la Quintana, who taught Latin and rhetoric. In 1823, his parents moved to San Miguel de Tucumán. Marco Avellaneda won an official scholarship to study at the College of Moral Sciences in Buenos Aires. There he made friends with Juan Bautista Alberdi, Vicente Fidel López, Marcos Paz, Carlos Tejedor and Juan María Gutiérrez. In 1834 he earned his doctorate in Jurisprudence. Even then he stood out as speaker, and his companions called him "Marco Tulio". He collaborated in those years on the newspaper El amigo del país (The Friend of the country). He wanted to stay in Buenos Aires, but his parents called him back to Tucuman. He had been persecuted for his journalistic activity against Juan Manuel de Rosas. Political career