José Mariano Melgarejo

José Melgarejo (1820–1871), 19th President of Bolivia

José Manuel Mariano Melgarejo Valencia (born April 13, 1820 in Tarata , † November 23, 1871 in Lima ) was the 19th President of Bolivia . He was in office from December 28, 1864 to January 15, 1871 .

Life

Melagarejo was born on April 13, 1820 in the vicinity of Cochabamba as the illegitimate child of a Bolivian of European descent and an indigenous man . Thanks to his skillful political agility, he quickly made a career in the military . In 1854 he was finally involved in a revolt against President Manuel Isidoro Belzu (1808–1865), was charged with high treason , but was acquitted in the end. He supported the subsequent dictators before he successfully put on a coup against the military dictator José Maria de Achá in December 1864 and became president himself.

As president he was in the tradition of the Latin American caudillos of the 19th century, but saw the need for the political and economic modernization of Bolivia. A thorn in his side was the common land ownership of the Indians, partly a legacy of the Jesuit reductions of the 18th century. In 1864 he passed a law that provided for the registration and payment of Indian land ownership within sixty days, which led to violent protests by the indigenous population. However, the main beneficiaries of the measure were the large landowners , who were able to legally round off their property in this way.

In terms of foreign policy, he reached an agreement by means of treaties on issues of border demarcation with the Empire of Brazil in the Amazon basin and the southern neighboring country of Chile in the Pacific region. Above all, the latter treaty, which provided for the common border in the Atacama Desert on the 24th parallel and a joint exploitation of the natural resources occurring there, laid one of the cornerstones for the 1879-1884 between Bolivia and Peru on the one hand and Chile on the other fought saltpeter war .

In 1871 Melgarejo was overthrown by dissatisfied Indians together with part of the disappointed upper class and murdered while they were fleeing.

literature

• Hans-Joachim König: Small history of Latin America . Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-15-010612-9 .
• Charles E. Chapman: Melgarejo of Bolivia: An Illustration of Spanish American Dictatorships . In: Pacific Historical Review , 8/1. 1939. online

predecessor	Office	successor
José María Achá	President of Bolivia 1864–1871	Agustín Morales Hernández