Graduated Juris Doctor from Universidad Repúblicana in Bogotá (now the Free University of Colombia) on 26 June 1896,[1] his graduate thesis La Doctrina Monroe was a comprehensive account of the Monroe Doctrine and was held in high regard by his contemporaries.
[2] On 8 October 1908, he was promoted to the rank of Counselor ad honorem, but was instead transferred a few days later on 13 October to the legation in the German Empire still maintaining the same rank, this was at the behest of his friend Gutiérrez who now served as Envoy to His Germanic Imperial and Royal Majesty's Government.
[3] He returned to Colombia in the early months of 1909, and was named Colombian Minister of Finance and Treasury by President Rafael Reyes Prieto in replacement of Nemesio Camacho Macías for a very short period, the appointed was intended to fulfill protocol as President Reyes's term ended a few weeks later.
[6] In October 1933 he was appointed as the 1st Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Colombia to Japan by President Enrique Olaya Herrera with the mission of establishing direct diplomatic ties with The Land of the Rising Sun.
His parents were Domingo Esguerra Ortiz and Dolores Plata Bernal, but was raised in the home of his paternal uncle Nicolás following the murder of his father in 1897, and remained there after his mother died in 1901.