Haro y Tamariz, Antonio de (1811–1869)

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Haro y Tamariz, Antonio de (1811–1869)

Antonio de Haro y Tamariz (b. 1811; d. 1869), Mexican politician. Born in the city of Puebla, Haro y Tamariz studied law in Rome. He served as finance minister in 1844, 1846, and 1853 and was elected to the Senate in 1850 and 1852. During the war with the United States in 1846, Haro y Tamariz proposed that church property be sold and that the government collect taxes on the sales. Prices would be set on the assumption that annual rents represented 5 percent of the value of the property. Renters would have first preference in purchasing their homes. The church delayed implementation of the plan, and the government's desperate need for funds forced it to drop the disentailment plan, but it later served as a model for the Liberal reforms of 1856.

A lifelong associate of Antonio López de Santa Anna, Haro y Tamariz himself became more conservative, collaborating with Lucas Alamán and serving in Santa Anna's cabinet in 1853. Unable to convince the church to make any further loans to the government and unwilling to borrow from agiotistas (moneylenders), Haro y Tamariz resigned only three months later. After the liberal Revolution of Ayutla overthrew Santa Anna, Haro y Tamariz launched a conservative rebellion in Puebla in December 1855 with the support of the army and the clergy. His Plan of Zacapoaxtla (1855) called for a restoration of the privileges of the church and the army and a return to the conservative Constitution of 1842. After a ferocious battle for the streets of Puebla, Haro y Tamariz was forced to surrender but managed to escape his captors. He supported the Conservative cause during the War of the Reform and the empire of Maximilian.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jan Bazant, Antonio Haro y Tamariz y sus aventuras políticas, 1811–1869 (1985).

Barbara A. Tenenbaum, The Politics of Penury: Debt and Taxes in Mexico, 1821–1856 (1986), pp. 78-79, 121-126, 150-153; Diccionario Porrúa de historia, biografía y geografía de México, 5th ed. (1986).