Félix Cipriano Coronel Zegarra

Félix Cipriano Coronel Zegarra was born in Piura in 1846, the son of the diplomat Cipriano Coronel Zegarra. His education followed his father’s postings, including study at Georgetown. Returning to Peru, he taught literature at San Marcos and qualified as a lawyer in 1869. ¹

His Chilean service included efforts to secure the detention of the rebel warship Huáscar in 1877, following instructions from Foreign Minister José Antonio García y García. After serving in the justice and finance ministries, he was appointed to Washington in 1888, where the disputed Oroya railway concession was among his assignments. ¹

At the First International Conference of American States in Washington in 1889–1890, he represented Peru and became the conference’s first vice-president. Its rules authorized the vice-presidents, in order, to preside when James G. Blaine was absent. Coronel Zegarra took part in debates over arbitration and conquest. The conference recommended arbitration and repudiated territorial acquisition by force. ^{2, 1}

His book La condición jurídica del extranjero en el Perú examined foreigners’ legal position across property, contracts, marriage, commerce, religion, and consular protection. The legal historian Carlos Ramos Núñez places it among responses to gaps in Peru’s civil code of the nineteenth century. Coronel Zegarra also collected rare books and pamphlets. Ricardo Palma inventoried his library in 1897, the year he died, aged fifty-one. ^{3, 1}