Augusto de Lima

Augusto de Lima
Augusto de Lima
President of Minas Gerais
	In office; 18 March 1891 – 16 June 1891
Preceded by	Frederico Álavares da Silva
Succeeded by	Gama Cerqueira
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
	In office; 1909–1929
Constituency	Minas Gerais
Personal details
Born	5 April 1859; Congonhas de Sabará, Minas Gerais, Empire of Brazil
Died	22 April 1934 (aged 75)
Occupation	Author and jurist

Antônio Augusto de Lima (5 April 1859 – 22 April 1934) was a Brazilian journalist, poet, musician, magistrate, jurist, professor and politician. He was born in Congonhas de Sabará (now Nova Lima).

Augusto de Lima was governor of the state of Minas Gerais, and he idealized the transfer of the state's capital from Ouro Preto to Belo Horizonte (then "Curral Del Rey"). In 1903, he became a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and was elected its president in 1928.

In 1906, Augusto de Lima was elected deputado federal (house representative) and moved to Rio de Janeiro, the federal district. There, he married Vera Monteiro de Barros de Suckow, granddaughter of Hans Wilhelm von Suckow, Major of the Prussian Army (who fought Napoleon's army in the Battle of Waterloo) and patron of Brazil's horse racing — the first breeder of race horses in Brazil.

As a politician, Augusto de Lima defended female suffrage and was also an ecologist. He was strongly devoted to Saint Francis of Assisi, and was responsible for the first Amazon forest protection law in Brazil, implemented after a fifteen-year battle in congress.