Arenales, Juan Antonio Álvarez de (1770–1831)
Arenales, Juan Antonio Álvarez de (1770–1831)
Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales (b. 13 June 1770; d. 4 December 1831), military and political leader of the Independence era. Born in Spain, Arenales entered on a military career that in 1784 took him to South America. He served in Upper Peru (later Bolivia) where he demonstrated a special interest in the welfare of the Indian population. His involvement in the 25 May 1809 revolution at Chuquisaca led to his arrest and imprisonment, but he escaped to collaborate first with Manuel Belgrano in his campaigns in the Argentine Northwest and Upper Peru and then with José de San Martín in his attempt to liberate Peru. Returning to Salta, where he had married, he became governor in 1823. Arenales sought to emulate the enlightened reformism of Bernardino Rivadavia and the Unitarist faction and also participated in the final mopping up of royalist resistance in Bolivia. However, in the general backlash against the Unitarists' effort to impose a centralist constitution, Arenales was deposed as governor early in 1827. He died in exile in Bolivia.
See alsoPeru: From the Conquest Through Independence .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jacinto R. Yaben, Biografías argentinas y sudamericanas: Perú en 1821, vol. 1 (1938), pp. 165-173.
Additional Bibliography
Castro Rodríguez, Carlos. Don Juan Antonio Alvarez de Arenales: soldado de la independencia americana, brigadier general del Ejército Argentino y mariscal de Chile y del Ejército del Perú. Sucre: Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación, 1997.