Bernardo Cólogan in Peking, 1900.
Bernardo Jacinto de Cólogan y Cólogan (Puerto de la Orotava, La Orotava, Canary Islands, January 13, 1847 - Madrid, July 30, 1921), was a Spanish diplomat.
Biography[]
Bernardo Jacinto was born in the port of La Villa de la Orotava, current Puerto de la Cruz, island of Tenerife, as the second son of the marriage formed by Tomás Fidel Clogon and Bobadilla de Eslaba and Laura Micaela Clogon-Franchi and Heredia, Marquesa de La Candia.
At the age of eighteen, he began his diplomatic career, being appointed on November 11, 1864 as a young man of languages at the Spanish legation in Athens. From 1868 to 1871 he was a secretary at the Constantinople legation and attended the opening of the Suez Canal.
In 1894 he was sent to Peking as Minister Plenipotentiary, a position he held during the Boxer uprising of June 1900. After the 55-day siege, he led the negotiations between the Western powers and China. He, as dean, presided over the the headquarters of the Spanish delegation a hundred meetings that concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Xinchou or "Bóxer Protocol", a document that he himself drafted and signed. After almost a year of negotiations, on September 7, 1901, foreign countries set a global compensation of 450 million taels (67,500,000 dollars), of which the maximum beneficiaries were, in this order, Russia, Germany and France. The compensation that fell to Spain, the least of all, was 388,055 taels (±0.086% of the total).
His performance earned him to receive from the Spanish government the great cross of Military Merit with a white badge, which he received from the hands of the Minister of War Valeriano Weyler by Royal Decree of January 21, 1902.
He was appointed ambassador to Mexico, a position he held from February 1907 to 1914. He was present during the triumph of the Maderista Revolution and the resignation of Porfirio Díaz. During the Tragic Decade, he was instigated by his American peer, Henry Lane Wilson, who pressured the diplomatic corps to request the resignation of constitutional President Francisco I. Madero. Despite not being entirely convinced, Cologan gave in to pressure from Lane Wilson.
He was transferred to the legation of Buenos Aires, exercising the position of Ambassador of Spain from 1914 until the date on which he retired, having a successful diplomatic performance in this country and culminating his career back in Spain. He died in Madrid on July 30, 1921.