Federico Degetau y González (December 5, 1862 – February 20, 1914) was a Puerto Rican politician, lawyer, writer, author, and the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to the United States House of Representatives. Early years Degetau was born in 1862 in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, where he also attended the common schools and the Central College of Ponce. His father was Mathias Degetau, son of a wealthy Hamburg family. In Ponce, Mathias managed the banks of the Overman and Dede House, of which his father, Otto Georg Christian Degetau (Federico's grandfather), was a partner. Federico's mother was María Consolación González, daughter of a respected San Juan family. His parents married in 1851. Degetau completed an academic course at Barcelona, Spain, and was graduated from the law department of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Madrid, Spain. He founded the newspaper La Isla de Puerto Rico to communicate the plight of Puerto Rico to the colonial power. Political career Degetau returned to Puerto Rico, and was one of the four commissioners sent by Puerto Rico under Luis Muñoz Rivera to petition Spain for autonomy in 1895. Eventually, the petition was accepted by Práxedes Mateo Sagasta's government. He settled in San Juan, Puerto Rico and continued to practice law. Degetau was a member of the municipal council of San Juan in 1897, and mayor of San Juan in 1898. He was deputy to the Spanish Cortes Generales of 1898. After the Spanish–American War, he was appointed by the military governor General Guy Vernor Henry as the Secretary of the Interior in the first cabinet formed under American rule in Puerto Rico, in 1899. He was appointed by General Henry's successor, General George W. Davis, as a member of the Insular Board of Charities. Resident Commissioner Degetau became a member of the Insular Republican Party, which was founded in 1899. He was the first vice president of the municipal council of San Juan in 1899 and 1900, and was president of the Board of Education of San Juan in 1900 and 1901. He was elected as a Puerto Rican Republican to the Resident Commissioner post in 1900, and reelected in 1902. He served from March 4, 1901 until March 3, 1905, in the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses. In a lecture delivered in 1902 to the Columbian University, today George Washington