Jose Maria Linares Lizarazu (10 July 1808-23 October 1861) was President of Bolivia from 9 September 1857 to 14 January 1861, succeeding Jorge Cordova and preceding Jose Maria de Acha.
Biography[]
Jose Maria Linares was born in Ticala, Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata in 1808, and he belonged to a noble and wealthy Andalusian family. He joined the patriotic revolt in Potosi in 1825, after which he became a lawyer and liberal politician. He contributed to Bolivia's 1839 constitution and served as Interior and Foreign Minister under President Jose Miguel de Velasco from 1839 to 1841, containing Jose Ballivian's revolutionary attempts and organizing resistance to Agustin Gamarra's invading Peruvian army in 1841. He was exiled to Europe after Ballivian's seizure of power in 1841, and he served as Bolivia's ambassador to Spain in 1847 before returning to Bolivia after Ballivian's fall that same year. He defended President Velasco against Manuel Isidoro Belzu, and, after Velasco's fall, he fled to Argentina and inspired various anti-caudillism conspiracies against Belzu. In 1857, he overthrew Belzu's son-in-law Jorge Cordova and assumed the presidency, becoming Bolivia's first civilian president. He declared himself dictator in 1858 and fervently advocated free trade, liberalism, the exploitation of silver mines, and the establishment of a mercury monopoly while confronting the power of the clergy and the military through a reform program and repressing several uprisings. In 1861, he was deposed by his own supporters and was exiled to Chile, where he died that same year.