James Martin Eder (June 24, 1838 – December 26, 1921), known in

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

as Santiago Martín Eder Kaiser,

don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

Santiago Eder or simply "El Fundador", is considered the pioneer of the

sugar industry The sugar industry subsumes the production, processing and marketing of sugars (mostly sucrose and fructose). Globally, most sugar is extracted from sugar cane (~80% predominantly in the tropics) and sugar beet (~ 20%, mostly in temperate cli ...

, and is widely recognized as one of Colombia's leading 19th century industrial pioneers.

Early life

Eder was born to a

Lithuanian Jewish Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas o ...

family in

Goldingen Goldingen is a former municipality in the ''Wahlkreis'' (constituency) of See-Gaster in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. On 1 January 2013 the former municipalities of Goldingen and St. Gallenkappel merged into the municipality of E ...

in the

Duchy of Courland The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia ( la, Ducatus Curlandiæ et Semigalliæ; german: Herzogtum Kurland und Semgallen; lv, Kurzemes un Zemgales hercogiste; lt, Kuršo ir Žiemgalos kunigaikštystė; pl, Księstwo Kurlandii i Semigalii) was ...

in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. He was the son of Martin Sass Eder and Dorina Kaiser, and was the youngest of their seven children. In 1851 Santiago Eder immigrated from Courland to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

where his older brother and most of his siblings already lived. He completed his education and after some work experience entered

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

in 1858. In 1861 he moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, and from there moved to the Colombian sea port of Buenaventura where he worked as a lawyer and a commercial representative for

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

nian trading firms when Panama was still part of Colombia. In 1864 he bought the

Manuelita Manuelita is a Colombian agribusiness corporation, headquartered in Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, whose main products are refined sugar, ethanol, palm oil, biodiesel, mussels, shrimp and fruits and vegetables. Manuelita was founded in 1 ...

sugar and coffee farm near the city of Palmira in the Cauca Valley of Colombia. He bought this farm at a public auction in

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...

from the father of leading Colombian novelist

Jorge Isaacs Jorge Isaacs Ferrer (April 1, 1837 – April 17, 1895) was a Colombian writer, politician and soldier. His only novel, '' María'', became one of the most notable works of the Romantic movement in Spanish-language literature. Biography His f ...

. In 1866 Eder became the

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throug ...

of the

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in Buenaventura, as well as the vice-consul of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. In 1867 he traveled to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

where he met and married Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Benjamin in the New Synagogue. In their marriage certificate, the name of don Santiago's father is given as 'Moses Eder'. From this marriage were born his children Henry, Charles, Luisa, Walter, Phanor, Fanny and Edith Eder.

Industrial pioneer in Colombia

In 1901,

became the first Colombian

sugar mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw or white sugar. The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice. Processing There are a number of steps in pro ...

to move from

mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two pos ...

steam powered A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

mills. As such, don Santiago became one of Colombia's first industrialists. In 1903 he left his children Charles James and Henry James Eder in charge of his business interests and moved with his wife to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. He remained there until his death at 83 in 1921. Eder is buried at the Shearith Israel Cemetery in

Cypress Hills, Brooklyn East New York is a residential neighborhood in the eastern section of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, United States. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise, are roughly the Cemetery Belt and the Queens borough lin ...

. His nephew

Montague David Eder (Montague) David Eder (1 August 1865 – 30 March 1936) was a British psychoanalyst, physician, Zionist and writer of Lithuanian Jewish descent. He was best known for advancing psychoanalytic studies in Great Britain. Education and medical trai ...

was one of England's leading Zionists. After his death, the Manuelita sugar company saw further expansions in 1927 and 1939. In 1952 under the management of Harold Henry Eder, Santiago's grandson, Manuelita became the first

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...

mill in Colombia to make refined sugar. Under Santiago Eder's great-grandson Henry James Eder Manuelita started an international expansion, and today is one of Colombia's leading agro/industrial companies with operations in Colombia,

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Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

. The current president of Manuelita is Harold Eder Garcés, is don Santiago's great-great-grandson and belongs to the fifth generation of the Eder family in Colombia. Much of Santiago Eder's correspondence, mostly business-related, but also dealing with the Colombian government and personal family matters, are preserved at the Phanor James Eder Collection at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

References

*Eder, Phanor James. (1959). ''El fundador Santiago M. Eder.'' Bogotá: Antares.
EDER, FAMILIA
- article at the

Luis Ángel Arango Library Luis Ángel Arango Library (Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango or BLAA) is a public library located in Bogotá, Colombia. It is one of the largest and most important libraries in the world. It was founded in 1958 as a small library with a few books o ...

, which is administered by Colombia's Bank of the Republic, the central bank.
Phanor James Eder Collection
at the

Early life

Industrial pioneer in Colombia

References

See also