Waser, Johann Heinrich

▪ Swiss politician

born April 2, 1600, Zürich

died Feb. 20, 1669, Zürich

      burgomaster (mayor) of Zürich and one of the most prominent Swiss political figures of the mid-17th century.

      Waser enjoyed an active role as an arbiter among the Protestant cantons and in the confederation Diet, and in 1644 he presided over a tribunal adjudicating an intercommunal dispute in the Grisons. Chosen burgomaster of Zürich in 1652, he succeeded in peacefully quelling a local peasant disturbance the following year; but his counsels of moderation in the face of widespread rural discontent were largely ignored in the other cantons. Against threats of a disruption of the confederation—the results of continuing antagonism between Catholic and Protestant cantons—he urged the strengthening of the confederation and proposed the replacement of the numerous traditional local alliances with a single unitary treaty conferring equal rights and obligations on all confederation members (1655). Despite his initial opposition to continuing the French alliance, Waser subsequently headed the official confederation delegation at Paris that brought about its renewal (1663).

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