Biography

In 1842, he began in the administrative career as an officer of parts of the Interior Ministry, on February 17, 1842; Legation officer of Peru, 1844 to 1845; official to the Legation of Chile in the United States from December 9, 1845 to March 1851; commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to visit and study prisons in Philadelphia and Auburn in March 1851; mayor of Coquimbo from June 19, 1852 to October 1855; Vice President of the Superior Commission of the National Conservatory of Music, on March 3, 1856; Postmaster General, in 1855 to 1860 and 1867 to 1876; in charge of business before the Government of Costa Rica and with a representative credential in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, on March 18, 1857; ruler by Santiago, in the year 1858; Plenipotentiary Minister, in charge of business in Peru, the 1st. August 1860; business manager in the United States 1861-1867; also minister in Mexico, on June 30, 1862; member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Chile on April 16, 1874; appointed in commission to indicate measures for the arrangement of accounting of money orders in Chile on May 11, 1875; Secretary General of the University of Chile on April 10, 1877; Head of the Central Statistical Office, May 5, 1876; extraordinary envoy and plenipotentiary minister in the United States, from April 3, 1879 to September 2, 1881; Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and member of the Council of Public Instruction on June 23, 1887; Minister of the Court of Auditors, on March 15, 1888; member of the Court of Auditors, from March 15, 1888 to May 21, 1889; Dean of the Law School of the University of Chile on June 8, 1888 to 1890. 
Had three children, Jorge Astaburuaga Vergara (1855-1924), Luis Astaburuaga Vergara (1860-1914), and Ana Astaburuaga Vergara.