Amán Rawson

Amán Rawson
Born	Haman Rawson 1792 Montague, Massachusetts, United States
Died	January 1847 San Juan, Argentina
Occupation	Doctor, politician

Amán Rawson (1792 - January 1847) was an American physician and merchant based in San Juan, Argentina, who was well known during the first half of the nineteenth century. He was the father of the Argentine interior minister Guillermo Rawson.

Haman Rawson was born in 1792 in Montague, Massachusetts, United States. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1814 and was a surgeon in the United States Navy. He was a descendant of Edward Rawson (politician). He arrived in Buenos Aires in 1818 and after a short time in Mendoza arrived in San Juan at the start of 1819. In 1819 he married Justina Rojo, after officially becoming a Catholic, although he never practiced that religion. Rawson devoted himself to medicine and opened a drugstore or pharmacy. He built an imposing mansion and was the father of the painter Benjamin Franklin Rawson and the physician and minister Guillermo Rawson. After his wife died in 1822, he had an illegitimate daughter with Carmen Castro Nuñez who was called Rosa Rawson.

In 1822 Rawson planned to found an agricultural colony of American immigrants, but ended with one of Argentine people. This was the origin of the present city of Caucete, and the extension of irrigation on the left bank of San Juan River. In the same year he was elected provincial deputy, but resigned in December of the next year. He opposed the revolution of the clergy who rejected the religious freedom advocated by Governor Salvador María del Carril. He was appointed chief physician of the province and had to face an epidemic of smallpox, which allowed him to expand the use of vaccine against the disease.

Rawson became a deputy in 1830, during the period when the province was ruled by the Unitarians. He was chairman of the government that took control for four days in April 1831, along with the priest José de Oro and Ignacio José Sánchez, following the news that Federalist forces led by General Facundo Quiroga were approaching. He called an election, which a moderate Federalist José Tomás Albarracín won. When a supporter of Quiroga, Valentín Ruiz, was elected governor in April the following year, he resigned as legislator.

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