Background
José Manuel Pando was born in Arica on 25 December 1849.
José Manuel Pando was born in Arica on 25 December 1849.
Pando spent most of his youth in La Paz, where he received his bachelor’s degree at 16 and completed six years of medical school. In an effort to topple the dictator Mariano Melgarejo, he abandoned his medical career and joined the army in 1871.
Although progressing rapidly through the ranks, he retired while a lieutenant colonel. During the War of the Pacific, he rejoined the army as a captain and emerged from the war a hero.
After the war. Pando became chief of the Liberal Party and led various Liberal revolts against entrenched Conservative governments, causing his exile to Chile and confinement to the Acre wilderness in northeastern Bolivia. While exploring the northeastern jungles, he became aware of the Brazilian encroachments and the need to incorporate the wealthy rubber region into the nation.
In December 1898 Pando led the Liberals in the successful Federal Revolution. A governing junta was established, headed by Colonel Pando. A Liberal-dominated constitutional assembly proclaimed José Manuel Pando as president.
After leaving office, Pando remained much involved in politics. He and other prominent Liberals broke with the Liberal Party and founded the Republican Party in 1914. Three years later Pando was assassinated by a political opponent.
Despite their initial program of federalism, the Liberals instituted a unitary system not unlike that of the Conservatives. Although the Liberals had enlisted Indian support for the revolution with promises of agrarian reform, once in power they continued to despoil Indian community lands and espoused the racist-Positivist philosophies of the day which characterized the Indian as subhuman.
In the Acre region, rubber tappers, instigated by Brazil, revolted four times between 1899 and 1902. In 1901 Pando assigned concessionary rights for rubber exploitation to North American investors for 33 years, expecting in return U.S. political and diplomatic support for Bolivia against Brazilian encroachments, but the North Americans failed to intervene. The Pando government finally negotiated the Treaty of Petropolis with Brazil in 1903, which gave most of Acre to Brazil for a promised payment of $10 million and construction of a railway outlet to the Amazon.