Juan Prats Explained

Juan Prats
Order1:47th
Office1:Mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico
Term Start1:1 January 1849[1]
Term End1:30 June 1849[2]
Successor1:Esteban Vidal
Order2:49th
Office2:Mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico
Term Start2:1 October 1849[3]
Term End2:31 December 1849[4]
Predecessor2:Esteban Vidal
Birth Date:c. 1800
Birth Place:Catalonia, Spain[5]
Death Date:c. 1870
Death Place:Ponce, Puerto Rico
Nationality:Spain[6]
Profession:Appraiser[7] and Hacendado[8]

Juan Prats (ca. 1800  - ca. 1870) was Mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico, twice in 1849.[9] He was a landowner, owning—among others—Hacienda La Matilde, in Ponce.[10] He was also an appraiser, best known for the contentious appraisal of the plot of land where the Ponce City Hall was built.

Background

Prats was a Spaniard from Catalonia.[11] In 1841 —eight years before he became mayor— as a result of a legal dispute brought against the municipality of Ponce by Catalina Rodriguez, granddaughter of José Rodriguez (a.k.a., "El Portugués", and after whom sources state Río Portugués is said to have been named), Prats was contracted by the Municipality to appraise a land property that Catalina Rodriguez owned and which the Municipality wanted to build on.[12] He was a very wealthy merchant and hacendado. At the height of his wealth, he was the wealthiest man in Ponce and one of the wealthiest in Puerto Rico.[13] In 1859 he owned three sugar haciendas in addition to his wholesale company.[14]

First mayoral term

Juan Prats was mayor of Ponce beginning on 1 January 1849[15] and ending on 30 June 1849, when Esteban Vidal started serving as mayor.[16]

Second mayoral term

Prats again served as mayor beginning on 1 October 1849[17] and ending on 31 December 1849,[18] when Flavius Dede began his mayoral term.

References

  1. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p. 277.
  2. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p. 277.
  3. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p. 277.
  4. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p. 277.
  5. Citing Archivo General de Puerto Rico (AGPR, Records of the Spanish Governors of Puerto Rico [formerly, Record Group # 186 at the National Archives, Washington, D.C.], Political and Civil Affairs, entry 9, box 14, "Lista...de los vecinos blancos...) and Archivo Histórico de Ponce (c. 52-A, leg. 54, exp. 1, Padrón de Población, 1838.), Francisco Antonio Scarano states Juan Prats was born in Spain. See "Sugar and slavery in Puerto Rico: the municipality of Ponce, 1815-1849." Appendix A: "On the National Origin of the Hacendados." Table II. "Hacendados in 1845." Page 445. Ph. D. Thesis. Columbia University. 1978.
  6. Eduardo Neuman Gandia. Verdadera y Autentica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. 1913. p. 14.
  7. Mariano Vidal Armstrong. Ponce: Notas para Su Historia. San Juan, PR: Oficina Estatal de Conservación Histórica. Segunda Edición. 1986. p. 29.
  8. Socorro Girón. Ponce, el teatro La Perla y La Campana de la Almudaina. Gobierno Municipal de Ponce. 1992. Page 57.
  9. http://www.enciclopediapr.org/ing/print_version.cfm?ref=09012901 Ponce.
  10. Socorro Girón. Ponce, el teatro La Perla y La Campana de la Almudaina. Gobierno Municipal de Ponce. 1992. Page 57.
  11. Francisco Antonio Scarano. Sugar and slavery in Puerto Rico: the municipality of Ponce, 1815-1849. page 207, footnote 4. Ph. D. Thesis. Columbia University. 1978.
  12. Mariano Vidal Armstrong. Ponce: Notas para Su Historia. San Juan, PR: Oficina Estatal de Conservación Histórica. Segunda Edición. 1986. p. 29.
  13. Francisco Antonio Scarano. Sugar and slavery in Puerto Rico: the municipality of Ponce, 1815-1849. page 207, footnote 4. Ph.D. Thesis. Columbia University. 1978.
  14. Francisco Antonio Scarano. Sugar and slavery in Puerto Rico: the municipality of Ponce, 1815-1849. page 207, footnote 4. Ph.D. Thesis. Columbia University. 1978. Cited in: Archivo General de Puerto Rico. Records of the Spanish Governors of Puerto Rico. Political and Civil Affairs. Entry 23. Box 68.
  15. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. "Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p.277.
  16. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. "Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p.277.
  17. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. "Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p.277.
  18. Eduardo Neumann Gandía. "Verdadera y Auténtica Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. 1913. p.277.

See also

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