Luis Jose de Orbegoso
Luis Jose de Orbegoso answered a Peruvian civil war by inviting a Bolivian army into the country, and spent the rest of his life being blamed for it. He was a landowner from Trujillo who had joined the independence cause early and financed it. Congress chose him as provisional president in December 1833 as a compromise, over the candidate the outgoing president wanted, and the army in Lima rose against the choice within weeks. He fought that revolt to a negotiated end in 1834. A second rising came the following year under Felipe Santiago Salaverry, a colonel of twenty-nine who declared himself supreme chief while Orbegoso was in the south. Facing an insurrection he could not win alone, Orbegoso signed a treaty with Andres de Santa Cruz, the president of Bolivia, and Bolivian troops entered Peru. They won. Salaverry was captured and shot in the main square of Arequipa in February 1836, and Santa Cruz proclaimed the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, dividing Peru into a northern and a southern state and taking the title of Supreme Protector for himself. Orbegoso was left as president of the north, which meant less than the title suggests. Chile and Argentina both declared war on the Confederation, on the argument that a union of the two countries would dominate the Pacific coast. Orbegoso turned against Santa Cruz in 1838 and declared the north independent, then lost to the Chilean expedition anyway and went into exile. He returned to farm in Trujillo and died there in 1847. Peru has generally recorded him as the man who let a foreign army decide its politics.
- Lived: 1795 CE – 1847 CE
- Nationality: Peruvian
- Roles: head_of_state, politician
