José Francisco Chaves (June 27, 1833 – November 26, 1904) was a nineteenth-century military leader, politician, lawyer and rancher from the New Mexico Territory.

José's father, Don Mariano Chaves, was chief of staff under Governor Manuel Armijo in the revolution of 1837 and inspector general of all the military forces of New Mexico.

His daughter, Dolores Elizabeth "Lola" Chávez de Armijo, is noted for her successful fight to keep her job as state librarian after Governor William C. McDonald attempted to remove her on the basis that she was a woman.

[4] José Francisco Chaves attended schools in St. Louis, Missouri, studied medicine at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons and engaged in livestock raising in the New Mexico Territory.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Governor Connelly commissioned Chaves as major when the 1st Regiment NM Volunteers for the Union Army formed.

In politics he was a staunch Republican and in 1858, while absent campaigning against the Navajos, was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the territorial legislative assembly, taking his seat in 1860.

Chaves career was cut short by an assassination in Pinoswells, New Mexico on November 26, 1904, where he was shot through a window while dining in the home of a friend.