Narciso Campero

General Narciso Campero Leyes (29 October 1813 – 12 August 1896) was president of Bolivia from 1880 to 1884. The Narciso Campero Province was named after him.

Campero was born in 1813 to landowners from Tarija. He attended Chuquisaca's St. Francis Xavier University and chose a military career. He was an officer with integrity. Campero fought at the battles of the Confederation (1836–39) and at Ingavi (1841) against Peru. He was a graduate of the prestigious St. Cyr military academy in France, but as a supporter of José Ballivián chose to retire from the army and remained in France during the Belzu era (beginning in 1847) as a sign of disgust with the period the historian Alcides Arguedas has referred to as the apogee of "the savage caudillos."

On 24 June 1872 he married Lindaura Anzoátegui Campero.

Campero volunteered his services when the War of the Pacific against Chile ignited in February 1879. He was then in his mid-60s. He commanded the Bolivian 5th Division in a number of catastrophic battles, among the last skirmishes fought by Bolivia before withdrawing to the highlands behind the Andes in early 1880. Campero's patriotism, commitment, and willingness to sacrifice despite his advanced years were nonetheless noted, and the emergency Congress of Notables convened in La Paz in December of that fateful year resolved to tap him for the difficult post of Constitutional President following Hilarión Daza's overthrow.

It was thus that the 66-year-old General Campero took control of his country's fate in early 1880 at the most critical juncture in its history, it having essentially lost the War of the Pacific, surrendered its entire access to the Pacific to Chile, and abandoned its ally Peru to fight the rest of the war alone. His Congress-designated vice-president was the Conservative leader Aniceto Arce. Although Campero was given a full four-year term, much remained to be done, not least of which was the task of repairing the torn institutional and economic fabric of the nation, restoring confidence, writing a new constitution, founding a democratic republic based strictly upon the rule of law, and perhaps concluding some sort of ceasefire or armistice with Chile, should the war, as expected, come to an end on the Peru front. Despite the poignant grimness of the moment, it seemed a propitious one to establish a new foundation in the country. It was ironic that the task of sounding the death knell to the era of rampant military intervention in politics fell to a retired military man, but Congress' choice of Campero for this job proved to be an inspired one.

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