List of national founding fathers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Founding Fathers are persons instrumental in the establishment of an institution, usually a political institution, especially those connected to the origination of its ideals. In a national context, it is the establishment of a state.

Contents 1 Africa 1.1 Ghana 1.2 Liberia 1.3 Namibia 1.4 Nigeria 1.5 Sierra Leone 1.6 Somalia 1.7 South Africa 2 Americas 2.1 Argentina 2.2 Brazil 2.3 Canada 2.4 Chile 2.5 Dominican Republic 2.6 United States 3 Asia - Pacific 3.1 Afghanistan 3.2 Australia 3.3 Azerbaijan 3.4 Bangladesh 3.5 China 3.6 India 3.7 Indonesia 3.8 Myanmar 3.9 Pakistan 4 Europe 4.1 Germany 4.2 Ireland 4.3 Italy 4.4 Norway 4.5 Netherlands 4.6 Portugal 4.7 Swiss Confederation 4.8 Turkey 4.9 Spain 5 References

[edit] Africa

[edit] Ghana

Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972) led the nation to its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Liberia

Joseph Jenkins Roberts (1809-1876) was born a free man of Black American descent. In 1829 his family moved to Liberia. In 1839, Roberts became Liberia's lieutenant governor and afterwards, its governor (1841–1848). He is known as the father of Liberia and officially declared Liberia's independence in 1847.^[1]

[edit] Namibia

Sam Nujoma (born 1929) was named Namibia's "Founding Father of the Nation" after the indepedence in 1990^[2]

[edit] Nigeria

Herbert Macaulay (1864-1946), Alvan Ikoku (1900-1971), Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1996), Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987), Sir Ahmadu Bello (1910-1966), Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1912-1966), Murtala Mohammed (1938-1976), Aminu Kano (1920-1983), Joseph Tarka (1932-1980) and Dennis Osadebay (1911-1994) are considered founding fathers of Nigeria. The troika of Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Ahmadu Bello negotiated Nigeria's independence from Britain

[edit] Sierra Leone

Freetown, Sierra Leone was founded in part by an African American slave called Thomas Peters in 1792 who convinced British abolitionists to help settle 1,192 Black Americans who fought for the British in return for freedom. Peters alongside other Black Americans David George and Moses Wilkingson were influential in the establishment of Freetown, but it was Peters who is remembered today as the true influential leader and founder of Sierra Leone. A street was named for Thomas Peters in Freetown by the Krio Mayor Winstanley Bankole Johnson.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Somalia

Ahmad Gurey (1506-1543) and Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (1856-1920) are considered mainly as the founding fathers of Somali nationalism.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] South Africa

Nelson Mandela (1918- )

[edit] Americas

José de San Martín^[3], Simón Bolívar^[4], Jose Antonio Paez^{[citation needed]}, Rafael Urdaneta^{[citation needed]}, Francisco de Paula Santander^[5], Francisco de Miranda^[6] have been referred to as the founding fathers of the northern countries of South America (Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Bolivia).

[edit] Argentina

José de San Martín (1778-1850) and Manuel Belgrano (1770-1820) are usually considered the founding fathers of Argentina.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Brazil

José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva (1763-1838) is regarded as the "Patriarch of Independence" in Brazil. He was responsible to advise the so Prince Regent of Brazil, Pedro de Alcantara, about Portugal's intentions to downgrade Brazil to colonial status, after years the Portuguese American territory was already joint to the European metropolis as a united kingdom. This attitude convinced the Prince Regent to declare the independence of Brazil in September 7, 1822, becoming himself the new independent country's emperor, titled as Pedro I of Brazil (1798-1834).^[7]

[edit] Canada

Main article: Canadian Confederation#Fathers of Confederation

Canada has the "Fathers of Confederation" who attended the Charlottetown, Quebec, and London Conferences to establish the Canadian Confederation.^[8]

[edit] Chile

Bernardo O'Higgins (1778-1842) and José Miguel Carrera (1785-1821) are usually considered the founding fathers of Chile. Other people referred as founding fathers of Chile include Camilo Enríquez and Manuel Rodríguez (1785-1818).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Dominican Republic

Juan Pablo Duarte (1813-1876), Francisco del Rosario Sánchez (1817-1861) and Matías Ramón Mella (1816-1864) are considered the "Padres de la Patria" or Fathers of the Country. Duarte is featured on the $1 coin; Sanchez on the $5 coin and bills; Mella on the $10 bill.^[9]

[edit] United States

Main article: Founding Fathers of the United States

The signatories of the Declaration of Independence are often called "Founders," and the delegates of the Philadelphia Convention which prepared the Constitution are often called "Framers." According to Joseph J. Ellis, this concept emerges in the 1820s as the last survivors died out. George Washington was always the dominant figure. He was joined by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and after that, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, George Mason, Samuel Adams, and others. Ellis says the "the founders," or "the fathers" comprised an aggregate of semi-sacred figures whose particular accomplishments and singular achievements were decidedly less important than their sheer presence as a powerful but faceless symbol of past greatness. For the generation of national leaders coming of age in the 1820s and 1830s — men like Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun — "the founders" represented a heroic but anonymous abstraction whose long shadow fell across all followers and whose legendary accomplishments defied comparison. "We can win no laurels in a war for independence," Webster acknowledged in 1825. "Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us ... [as] the founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defence and preservation."^[10]

[edit] Asia - Pacific

[edit] Afghanistan

Ahmad Shah Abdali (1723-1773) unified the Pashtun tribes and founded Afghanistan in 1747.^[11]His mausoleum is in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he is fondly known as Ahmad Shah Baba (Father of Afghanistan).^[12]

[edit] Australia

Sir Henry Parkes (1815-1896) is regarded as the "Father of Federation" in Australia. During the late 19th century, he was the strongest proponent for a federation of Australian territories. Unfortunately he died before Australia federated, and never got to see his plan come to fruition.^[13]

[edit] Azerbaijan

Mammed Amin Rasulzade is the founding father of Azerbaijan.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Bangladesh

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975) is regarded as the "Father of the Nation" in Bangladesh. A charismatic politician and popularly called as "Bangabandhu" (friend of the Bengal)Newsweek magazine referred to him as the "poet of politics" when he was incarcerated by the Pakistani forces in 1971, the year of Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan.^{[citation needed]}

Though most part of Mujib's political career featured a struggle for democracy and defiance against military rule in the State of Pakistan, he banned all opposition political activities and introduced one party system (called BAKSAL-Bangladesh Farmers Workers Awami League) in the newly created state of Bangladesh.^{[citation needed]}

In the mid-night of August 15, 1975, a group of disgruntled army officers brutally killed him along with most of his family members at his residence in Dhaka (see Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman). His daughter Sheikh Hasina served as Bangladesh's Prime Minister during 1996-2001 and leader of opposition in the national Parliament during 1991-1996 and 2001-2006.In an opinion poll conducted by the BBC Radio in 2003, he was voted as the greatest Bangalee (a native of the Bengal)of all times.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] China

Sun Yat-sen is revered as the "Father of the Country" (國父) in both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China.

[edit] India

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) is referred to as the founding father of India. He was one of the top leaders of the Indian National Congress which struggled for the liberation of India from British rule. Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), the first Prime Minister of India, is also considered a founding father^[14]. It also refers to Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), the architect of the Indian constitution, also an educationist, prominent political figure and India's first law minister. Indian constitution provided constitutional guarantees and protections for a wide range of civil liberties for individual citizens, including freedom of religion, the abolition of untouchability and the outlawing of all forms of discrimination. Ambedkar argued for extensive economic and social rights for women. The Constitution was adopted on November 26, 1949 by the Constituent Assembly. ^[15].

Although this usage is declining, when used in the plural, as the "Founding fathers" it usually refers to the members of the Constitutional Assembly's Draft Committee ^[16]. Ironically the Drafting Committee also included women, among its ranks.

[edit] Indonesia

Soekarno and Mohammed Hatta are the founding fathers of Indonesia. They were the one who proclaimed and made the state of Indonesia on 17 August 1945 (Indonesian Independence Day).^[17]

[edit] Myanmar

General Aung San is the founding father of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Although he did not lived to see the country's independence, he is credited in forming the basic structure of the independence movement and government. He started his political career in 1930 as the editor of the Rangoon University's Newspaper - where he accused one of the British administrators of misconduct. He later went to Japanese controlled Taiwan and Xiamen in late 1940 to receive military training, and he led the Burmese National Army as the spear-head of the Japanese invasion of Burma. He later switched sides towards the Allies, and helped in the Burma Campaign. After the war, he was appointed into the government of the returning British Administration, and was able to negotiate Burma's independence. He helped organized the Panglong Agreement in February 1947, to achieve independence of all Burmese territories. However, on Saturday, 19th July 1947, Aung San, along with ministers of his cabinet, were assassinated at the Secretariat Building in Rangoon.

[edit] Pakistan

Pakistan's founding father is Mahomed Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), an Indian Muslim Barrister, originally from the Indian National Congress and later the Muslim League, who fought for the rights of Muslim minority in India, is widely held to be the creator of Pakistan. Jinnah is referred to as Quaid-e-Azam or the "Great Leader".

Mr. Jinnah started his career as firmly a secular Indian nationalist and later on was reluctantly converted to the cause of Muslim nationalism through the efforts of Aga Khan III, martyred Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan and Poet Philosopher Allama Iqbal both of whom are also revered to a certain extent as founding fathers. Aga Khan was also the founding president of the All India Muslim League. Ch. Rahmat Ali coined the term Pakistan and is considered the father of the word "Pakistan". Muslim modernist and reformist Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the founder of Aligarh Educational Movement, is sometimes referred to as the father of the two nation theory, the basic principle on which Pakistan was founded.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister after the fall of Dacca and one of the founders of Pakistan Peoples Party, is hailed as the father of the current Pakistani constitution. He and his family members have passed on in tragic circumstances.

[edit] Europe

Main article: Founding fathers of the European Union

There are a number of men who are considered to be founding fathers of European unity or, what is now, the European Union. These include Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), Joseph Bech (1887-1975),^[18] Winston Churchill (1874–1965) Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972), Alcide De Gasperi (1881-1954), Jacques Delors (born 1925), Sicco Mansholt (1908-1995), Jean Monnet (1888-1979), Lorenzo Natali, Robert Schuman (1886-1963), Mario Soares (born 1924), Paul-Henri Spaak (1899-1972), Altiero Spinelli (1907-1986), and Pierre Werner (1913-2002).^[19][20]

[edit] Germany

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), the "Iron Chancellor", engineered the unification of the numerous states of Germany. Modern, democratic Germany was decisively shaped by the "Fathers of the Basic Law" in the 1948 Constitutional Convention at Herrenchiemsee and by the first Federal Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Ireland

The movement towards Irish Freedom had its roots in the ascent to the leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party by Isaac Butt. His passing of the mantle to the great orator and leader Charles Stewart Parnell led milataristic and constitutional nationalists to join forces in the pursuit of land redistribution first followed by the Home Rule campaigns.

The great Irishman John Redmond finally brought Home Rule through the Houses of Parliament only for it to be suspended on account of the 1914-1918 war. This fomented unrest among those who didn't serve in the war and led to an unsuccessful but symbolically important rising on Easter Monday 1916. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic was signed by Thomas J. Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada, Thomas MacDonagh, P. H. Pearse, Éamonn Ceannt, James Connolly and Joseph Plunkett.

In addition to the above, these figures also popularly get the status of Founding Father conferred upon them: - Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin, - Michael Collins, guerilla leader and subsequent Minister for Finance, - WT Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State - Eamon deVelara, founder of Fianna Fáil and subsequent Taoiseach.

There were others who played important roles but these men constitute the nation's founding fathers.

[edit] Italy

Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), Count Camillo Benso (1810-1861), Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) have been referred to as the founding fathers of the Kingdom of Italy.^[21]

[edit] Norway

Usually the Riksforsamlingen at Eidsvoll in 1814, consisting of 112 men from most of the country, in Norway often referred to as the Eidsvoll Fathers or the Fathers of the Constitution.^[22]

[edit] Netherlands

Often Prince William I of Orange (1533-1584) is referred to as the vader des vaderlands or father of the fatherland of the Netherlands.^[23]

[edit] Portugal

Henry of Burgundy (1066–1112), was appointed Count of Portugal as a reward for military services to Kingdom of León, and with the purpose of expanding the territory southwards. And, more importantly, his son, Count Afonso I of Portugal (1109–1185), a Templar Brother who took control of the county after Henry died and was recognized by the Holy See, in 1179, as the first King of Portugal, through the Manifestis Probatum bull.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Swiss Confederation

Both the anonymous Eidgenossen who drew up the Federal Charter of 1291, or the liberal statesmen who helped found the modern Swiss Confederation in 1848 can be considered the founding fathers of Switzerland. Among the latter, those who became the first members of the Swiss Federal Council were perhaps the most notable: Ulrich Ochsenbein, Jakob Stämpfli, Jonas Furrer, Martin J. Munzinger, Daniel-Henri Druey, Friedrich Frey-Herosé, Wilhelm Matthias Naeff and Stefano Franscini.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) the founder of the Republic of Turkey and its first President.^[24]

[edit] Spain

Don Pelayo,The Catholic Monarchs.

[edit] References