José Miguel García Lanza

José Miguel García Lanza (17??–1828; also José Miguel Lanza) was a hero of the Bolivian wars of independence. Historian William Lofstron describes him as a "guerrilla chieftain" who, after many years of warfare against Spanish forces, finally "occupied his native La Paz in late January 1825," before the arrival of the liberating general Marshall Sucre.

In power, Lanza was less successful. Sucre "complain[ed] bitterly" to his fellow liberator Simón Bolívar that "Lanza's administration would result in the utter ruin of departmental finances" because of "Lanza's apparent inability to control the greed and corruption that surrounded him."

Elected to the national Assembly in 1825, Lanza left La Paz for Potosí. He died in 1828.

References

• Lofstrom, William (November 1973), "From Colony to Republic: A Case Study in Bureaucratic Change", Journal of Latin American Studies, 5 (2): 177–197, doi:10.1017/S0022216X00007495, JSTOR 155806, S2CID 146333661.