Juan Álvarez Mendizábal

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Juan Álvarez Mendizábal

Juan de Dios Álvarez Mendizábal , b. Álvarez Méndez (born February 25, 1790 in Cádiz , † November 3, 1853 in Madrid ) was a Spanish politician and Prime Minister of Spain ( Presidente de Gobierno ) .

Life

Spanish War of Independence and Revolution of 1820

Juan de Dios Álvarez Méndez learned modern languages ​​and received commercial training in his father's business. In the Spanish War of Independence he did military service. On February 21, 1812 he married Teresa Alfaro and changed his second surname to Mendizábal, which he had used earlier. Since 1819 he was in contact with the revolutionary liberals in Andalusia .

During the revolution of 1820 (Trienio Liberal) Mendizábal was entrusted with equipping the troops of Ferdinand VII , which he used to support the revolutionaries around Rafael del Riego . In 1823, after he fled to Gibraltar , he was sentenced to death in Spain. He went to prison in London, where he had emigrated. From there he ran Spanish wine shops that took him to France in 1828 and 1830. In the following period he participated in the financing of the Portuguese civil war (on the part of the liberal camp) and that of a troop contingent in Belgium.

Rise to prime minister and exile

In 1834 Álvarez Mendizábal was called to Spain by the Spanish Prime Minister Conde de Toreno and elected Member of Parliament (Congreso de los Diputados) on June 30th . On July 15, 1835, he was appointed Minister of the Treasury (Ministerio de Hacienda) .

On September 25, 1835, he replaced Miguel Ricardo de Álava as Prime Minister . Álvarez Mendizábal's term of office is primarily associated with the secularization of church property. Through the disarmortization decrees (Spanish: Desamortización de Mendizábal ) of February 9, 1836 and March 8, 1836, unproductive areas and lands of the church and the order were expropriated. A transfer to the poorer classes was avoided by selling the land in large blocks. The resistance against the "desamortizaciones" was so strong that Álvarez Mendizábal had to resign on May 15, 1836 after barely eight months in office. His successor as Prime Minister was Francisco Javier de Istúriz .

In the following years Álvarez Mendizábal was repeatedly elected MP. Until the elections on February 1, 1841, he alternately and partially also represented the constituencies of Girona , Barcelona , Cádiz , Granada , Madrid , Málaga , Pontevedra , Albacete , Murcia and Ávila . From May to July 1843 he was again Minister of the Treasury. The counterrevolution forced him to flee to France in 1846.

literature

  • Juan Pan-Montojo: Juan Álvarez y Mendizábal (1790-1853). El burgués revolucionario. In: Isabel Burdiel and Manuel Pérez Ledesma (eds.): Liberales, agitadores y conspiradores. Biografías heterodoxas del siglo XIX. Espasa Calpe; Madrid 2000. ISBN 84-239-6048-X .

Web links

Commons : Juan Álvarez Mendizábal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of Members of Parliament from 1810 to 1977
  2. ↑ List of Treasury Ministers ( Memento of December 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
predecessor Office successor
Miguel Ricardo de Álava Prime Minister of Spain
1835 - 1836 		Francesco Xavier de Isturiz
personal data
SURNAME Álvarez Mendizábal, Juan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Álvarez Mendizábal, Juan de Dios; Álvarez Méndez (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish politician, briefly Minister of Economics and Prime Minister
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1790
PLACE OF BIRTH Cadiz
DATE OF DEATH November 3, 1853
Place of death Madrid