Severiano de Heredia (8 November 1836 – 9 February 1901)[1][2] was a Cuban-born biracial[3] politician, a freemason,[4] a left-wing republican,[5] naturalized as French in 1870,[6] who was president of the municipal council of Paris[7] from 1 August 1879 to 12 February 1880, making him the only native of the American continent who was appointed on relevant post of the Mayor of Paris[note 1] and the first mayor of African descent of a Western world capital.

He served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1881 to 1889 and was briefly Minister of Public Works for the cabinet of Maurice Rouvier in 1887,[10] at the time when the Eiffel Tower first started being built, where he planned and oversaw the construction of some of the finest French highways.

[15] Reportedly he was the natural son of his godfather Don Ignacio Heredia y Campuzano-Polanco[note 2] married to the French Madeleine Godefroy, who adopted him and sent him to France at the age of 10 for his education, attending the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris.

In 1871, while he was assuming the role of a conciliator,[19] he published a political essay entitled "Paix et plébiscite"[note 3] in which he pleaded for a democratic end to the Franco-Prussian war.

As a strong advocate for the separation of church and state he played a very active role in the struggle for free, secular and compulsory education, professional training and the creation of municipal libraries.

[30] On September 10, 2013, at the initiative of Socialist elected official Lamine Ndaw and with the support of Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, her name was associated with a thoroughfare in the 17th arrondissement, as part of an operation to improve the diversity and parity of outstanding personalities in the public space19.