Achá, José María (1810–1868)

José María Achá (b. 8 July 1810; d. 29 January 1868), president of Bolivia (14 January 1861–28 December 1864). After coming to power via a coup, Achá shared power in a three-man junta from 14 January until 4 May after which he became constitutional president.

Achá's presidency was marked by intense internal political agitation. His chief of police of La Paz, Plácido Yáñez, was responsible for Bolivia's worst political massacre on 23 October 1861. Yáñez arrested and then executed more than seventy political opponents, among whom was former president Jorge Córdova. Yáñez was later lynched by a mob. Known as the "Massacre de Yáñez," this episode detracted from Achá's positive accomplishments in the areas of economic and administrative reforms. Achá's administration also faced Chile's first attempts at expansion on the Bolivian coast, actions that eventually precipitated the War of the Pacific (1879–1884), the conflict in which Bolivia lost its coastal area.

Achá's political career, which included an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of Manuel Isidoro Belzú (1850), was ended by a military coup led by Mariano Melgarejo.

See alsoCórdova, Jorge; War of the Pacific.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Julio Arguedas Díaz, Los generales de Bolivia (1929).

Moisés Alcázar, Sangre en la historia (1956).

Alcides Arguedas, La dictatura y la anarquía, in Obras completas, vol. 2 (1959).

                                  Charles W. Arnade