Aniceto Arce

Aniceto Arce Ruiz de Mendoza (15 April 1824 – 14 August 1906) was a Bolivian lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd president of Bolivia from 1888 to 1892. He also served as the fourth vice president of Bolivia from 1880 to 1881 under Narciso Campero. The Aniceto Arce Province is named after him.

Through his stakes in the silver-mining company Compañía Minera Huanchaca Arce was Bolivia's wealthiest man. In addition, he came to own a vast cattle ranch in the southeastern lowlands, an indigenous Ava Guaraní territory forcefully incorporated to Bolivia in the second half of the 19th century.

He was born to Diego Antonio Arce and Josefa Ruiz de Mendoza, both members of the colonial elite within the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Arce was a native of Tarija but was educated as a lawyer and resided most of his life in Sucre, where he became one of the country's foremost silver-mining tycoons. Much of his wealth stemmed from his 1850 investment in Mariano Ramírez's Compañía Minera Huanchaca.

Arce was a supporter of José María Linares and his Constitutionalist government, even backing the President when he proclaimed himself dictator. During the Linares regime Arce began his career in Congress during, a role which he would occupy until the 1870s, when Hilarión Daza seized power.

Unlike other capable leaders of his day, Arce did not enlist to serve when the War of the Pacific developed in 1879. Indeed, his became one of the most accommodationist voices in the political spectrum, perhaps as a result of his extensive business connections to Chile, where he sold much of his silver, invested his profits, and sought financing for his projects. Arce believed that the Litoral was, for various lamentable reasons, largely indefensible. Thus, the country should cut its losses and seek an alliance with Chile rather than with Peru.

Despite this minority position, what rang more clearly in the ears of most Bolivians was Arce's steadfast call for the establishment of a conservative democratic order, with the primacy of law, regular elections, and rule by enlightened pro-business elites such as himself. To this end, he founded the Conservative Party, and participated as a candidate in the 1880 Congress that toppled General Daza, and had a role in the drafting of the country's new Constitution. Moreover, he agreed to become Narciso Campero's vice-president for the crucial, nation-building 1880-84 period.

Arce was married to Amalia Argandoña Revilla, the sister of Francisco Argandoña Revilla, Prince of La Glorieta. He was one of the wealthiest men in Bolivia and became a business partner of Arce. Arce would actually encourage Argandoña's marriage to Clotilde de Urioste Velasco, who the member of a powerful family from Sucre and sister of one of Arce's staunchest detractors, Atanasio de Urioste Velasco. Paradoxically, Urioste would save the life of Arce when a mob surrounded the Cathedral of Sucre and had the intention to lynch the president. Urioste disguised Arce as a priest at took him into his own home. All this despite the fact that they had completely opposite political views.

Arce's pro-Chile stance clashed with those of the patriotic President and retired General, who favored rearmament and a sustained diplomatic offensive against Chile, perhaps leading to a mediation of the conflict and if not, to a reinsertions of Bolivian troops in Peru's aid. Arce, as explained, favored a "realistic" policy of recognition that Bolivia had indeed lost its access to the Pacific, and that the best that could be done was to reach a modus vivendi with Santiago (which had the upper hand), even if this meant abandoning the hitherto sacrosanct alliance with Lima. President Campero took this to be a sign of treason and, in 1881, expelled Arce, his own vice-president until then, from Bolivia.