Rui Barbosa de Oliveira was born in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, on the 5th of November 1849, and died in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the 1st of March 1923. A famous politician and juror, he was a deputy, senator, a minister for taxation (Inland Revenue equivalent in Britain), a diplomat and cadidate for presidency of the republic. For his part in the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), "peace conference" of the Hague (1907), he earned the nickname of the Eagle of the Hague.

He was famous for his support of fiat money, as opposed to a gold standard, and during his stay as minister of finance, implemented far-reaching reforms of Brazil's financial regimes, instituting a vigorously expansionist monetary policy. The result was a veritable chaos and institutional instability, and the so-called fiat experiment was a dismal failure, resulting in an orthodox backlash under the Murtinho program later in the decade.