José Balmaceda was born on July 19, 1840 in Santiago, Chile. He was the eldest of the 12 children of Manuel José Balmaceda Ballesteros and Encarnación Fernández Salas. His parents were wealthy, and in his early days he was chiefly concerned in industrial and agricultural enterprises.
In 1849, he attended the School of the French Friars, and considered joining the clergy, studying several years of theology at the Santiago Seminary.
In 1878, after gaining a reputation as an orator and a forceful politician, he was sent as Chilean envoy to Buenos Aires, where his diplomatic skill helped to keep Argentina from joining Peru and Bolivia against Chile in the War of the Pacific. He then was made minister of foreign affairs and of the interior, and in 1886 he became president of Chile.
Balmaceda's presidency was one of the stormiest in Chilean history. Despite the instability of his cabinets and the turbulence of opposing congressional factions, Balmaceda carried through an energetic program of public works. Though the country suffered setbacks from the 1886-1887 cholera epidemic and from incipient labor troubles, its flourishing nitrate industry brought growing prosperity.
Balmaceda held that the state should have the major voice in controlling the economic expansion, and he thereby came into conflict with the business circles who believed in a laissez-faire policy. In 1890 Balmaceda's policies and increasingly autocratic conduct of affairs precipitated a major constitutional crisis.
The opposition made use of its majority in Congress to withhold funds and impose the appointment of a cabinet acceptable to itself. Balmaceda then replaced this cabinet by one of his own choice, dissolved Congress, and began to assume openly dictatorial powers. Congress attempted to depose him and civil war broke out.
The navy supported Congress, and most of the army, the president. Congressional leaders established a junta at lquique and set about raising an army in northern Chile, which they financed from the nitrate revenues. Balmaceda summoned a fresh Congress and began energetically to organize his forces. These forces, however, suffered defeat in the battles of Concón and Placilla, and the President was forced to abdicate and seek asylum in the Argentine embassy.
There he committed suicide on September 18, 1891.
His defeat, vindicating the ultimate supremacy of Congress over the presidency, was regarded by his opponents as the triumph of democracy over dictatorship.
His admirers claimed that it represented only the triumph of an oligarchy of wealthy families, backed by foreign nitrate interests, who felt threatened by the President's nationalist policies and his concern for social justice.
On the basis of this radical program, he was elected Deputy for Carelmapu several times: 1864–1867; 1870–1873; 1873–1876; 1876–1879; 1879–1882. Under President Aníbal Pinto, he discharged some diplomatic missions abroad and is credited with persuading Argentina not to join the War of the Pacific in 1878. In 1882 he was re-elected both for Carelmapu and Santiago. He decided to accept neither and became instead successively Minister of Foreign Affairs and Colonization and of the Interior under the presidency of Domingo Santa María. He was proclaimed a candidate to the presidency on the Odeon Theater of Valparaíso on January 17, 1886, with the support of the Nacional, Liberal and part of the Radical Parties. On June 25 he was elected President as sole candidate.
He was destined for the Church but entered politics instead as a liberal reformer. In 1869 he joined the Club de la Reforma, which became the political basis of the Liberal Party.
Balmaceda instituted wide-reaching reforms, believing that he had now secured the support of the majority in Congress for any measures he decided to put forward. The new President initiated an unparalleled policy of heavy expenditure on public works, school building, and the strengthening of the naval and military forces of the republic. Contracts were given out to the value of £6, 000, 000 for the construction of railways in the southern districts; some $10, 000, 000 dollars were expended in the erection of schools and colleges; three cruisers and two seagoing torpedo boats were added to the Navy; the construction of the naval port at Talcahuano was actively pushed forward; new armament was purchased for the infantry and artillery branches of the Army, and heavy guns were acquired for permanently and strongly fortifying the ports of Valparaíso, Talcahuano, and Iquique.
Balmaceda-the handsome, gifted, and wealthy liberal reformer whose evolution into the most authoritarian of presidents ended in civil war and personal tragedy-remains one of the most striking and controversial figures in Chilean history.
On 11 October 1865, Balmaceda married Emilia de Toro Herrera, granddaughter of Mateo de Toro Zambrano, 1st Count of La Conquista, and together they had eight children, six of whom survived to adulthood.
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(6 November 1875 – 1967)
(born 14 September 1870)
(3 March 1878 – 4 January 1962)
(born 13 March 1882)
(23 April 1868 – 1889)
