Cipriano Coronel Zegarra

Cipriano Coronel Zegarra was born in Tacna in 1809 and studied law at Chuquisaca. Treasury work and the 1839 constituent congress preceded diplomatic assignments in Ecuador and Bolivia. In 1848 he negotiated a treaty at Sucre revising an earlier settlement between Peru and Bolivia; ratifications followed in 1849. ¹

Sent to Chile in 1855, he helped negotiate the Continental Treaty of 1856. Historian Luis Tello Vidal traces how Chilean foreign minister Antonio Varas redirected Peru’s proposal for collective defence toward commercial and cultural cooperation. ^{1, 2}

Appointed to Washington in January 1859, Coronel Zegarra confronted US compensation demands over the seizure of the guano vessels Georgiana and Lizzie Thompson. Peru maintained that permits issued by insurgent authorities did not authorize their trade. He proposed arbitration, which Washington rejected. The dispute escalated into an American ultimatum in April 1860 and the withdrawal of envoys; he remained in the United States into February 1861. ¹

Back in Peru, he administered the Paita customs house and became minister of Government, Police, and Public Works in 1863. When Spain occupied the Chincha Islands in 1864, he ordered protection for Spanish residents and property while denying supplies to the Spanish squadron. He resigned that July and died in Lima on 16 September 1869. His son Félix Cipriano also entered diplomacy. ^{1, 3}