Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez

Cuban journalist

Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez
Portrait of Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez
Born	Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez de la Victoria (1758-04-03)April 3, 1758 Bayamo, Captaincy General of Cuba
Died	June 2, 1819(1819-06-02) (aged 61) Bogotá, Viceroyalty of New Granada
Occupation	Librarian, carpenter, journalist
Language	Spanish
Nationality	Cuban
Citizenship	Colombian
Subject	Journalism
Notable works	El Semanario (1791) Papel Periódico de la Ciudad de Santafé de Bogotá (1791) El Redactor Americano (1806) El Alternativo del Redactor Americano (1807) La Constitución Feliz (1810)
Relatives	Manuel Baltasar Rodríguez (father) María Antonia de la Victoria (mother)
Signature

Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez (Bayamo, Captaincy General of Cuba, April 3, 1758 - Bogotá, Viceroyalty of New Granada, June 2, 1819) was a Cuban journalist. He is considered to be the founder of journalism in Colombia. Five years before his arrival in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, the 1785 Viceroyalty of New Granada earthquake had happened, described in the Aviso del Terremoto and published the day of the earthquake.^[1] This sparked the birth of journalism in Colombia, when Del Socorro started to report in 1791.^[2]^[3]

Biography

Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez was born in Bayamo, Cuba with parents Manuel Baltasar Rodríguez and María Antonia de la Victoria. Approximately in June 1790, he left the Caribbean island for Cartagena in the Viceroyalty of New Granada, present-day Colombia. Del Socorro embarked on a boat sailing the Magdalena River and reached Honda, Tolima. From there, he went to Bogotá.^[3]

In 1791, Del Socorro started publishing El Semanario. After this initial newspaper, he published Papel Periódico de la Ciudad de Santafé de Bogotá in the same year,^[2] El Redactor Americano in 1806 and El Alternativo del Redactor Americano in 1807. Reporting about the Colombian independence movement from Spain, he published La Constitución Feliz in 1810.^[3]

Del Socorro Rodríguez died in the capital on June 3, 1819, before the factual independence was established.

References

^ (in Spanish) 1785: Terremoto en Santafé - Banco de la República
^ ^a ^b (in Spanish) Papel periódico de Santafé de Bogotá - first edition of 9 February 1791
^ ^a ^b ^c (in Spanish) Biografía Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez

Dimaté, Cristina, and Mónica Arcila. 2006. Amenaza sísmica sobre Bogotá: ¿leyenda o realidad?. Innovación y Ciencia XIII. 11-15. Accessed 2017-01-12. Archived 2013-11-09 at the Wayback Machine
Espinosa Baquero, Armando. 2004. Historia Sísmica de Bogotá, 1-10. Sociedad Geográfica de Colombia. Accessed 2017-01-12.
Espinosa Baquero, Armando. 2003. La sismicidad histórica en Colombia - Historical seismicity in Colombia. Revista Geográfica Venezolana 44. 271-283. Accessed 2017-01-12.
Gómez Capera, Augusto Antonio; Elkin de Jesús Salcedo Hurtado; Dino Bindi; José Enrique Choy, and Julio Antonio García Peláez. 2014. Localización y magnitud del terremoto de 1785 en Colombia calculadas a partir de intensidades macrosísmicas. Revista de la Academia Colombiana de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales 38. 206-217. Accessed 2017-01-12.
Ramírez, Jesús Emilio. 1975. Historia de los terremotos en Colombia, 1-250. Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi.
Sarabia Gómez, Ana Milena; Hernán Guillermo Cifuentes Avendaño, and Kim Robertson. 2010. Análisis histórico de los sismos ocurridos en 1785 y en 1917 en el centro de Colombia. Revista Colombiana de Geografía 19. 153-162. Accessed 2017-01-12.