Independence of Peru

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The economic crisis favored the indigenous rebellion from 1780 to 1781. This rebellion was headed by Tupac Amaru II. At this time, the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and the degradation of the Royal power took place. The Creole rebellion of Huánuco arose in 1812 and the rebellion of Cuzco between 1814 and 1816. These rebellions defended the liberal principles sanctioned by the Constitution of Cadiz of 1812.

Don Jose de San Martin proclaimed the independence of Peru on July 28, 1821.

Supported by the power of the Creole oligarchy, the Viceroyalty of Peru became the last redoubt of the Spanish dominion in South America. This Viceroyalty succumbed after the decisive continental campaigns of Simón Bolivar and Jose de San Martin. San Martin, who had displaced the royalists of Chile after the battle of the Andes, and who had disembarked in Paracas in 1819, proclaimed the independence of Peru in Lima on July 28, 1821. Three years later, the Spanish dominion was eliminated definitively after the battles of Junín and Ayacucho.

The conflict of interests that faced different sectors of the Creole society and the particular ambitions of the caudillos, made the organization of the country excessively difficult. Only three civilians: Manuel Pardo, Nicolás de Piérola and Francisco García Calderón could accede to the presidency in the first seventy-five years of independent life.

Francisco García Calderón, President of Perú during the Chilean Occupation of Lima (1881-1883)

After the splitting of the Alto Peru in 1815, the Republic of Bolivia was created. In 1837, the Peru-Bolivian Confederation was also created but, it was dissolved two years later due to the Chilean military intervention. Peru initiated a period of political and economic stability in the middle of the XIX century, under the General Ramon Castilla's caudillista hegemony. The completely consume of the guano, main foreign currency source, and the war of the Pacific with Chile because of the dispute of the saltpeter deposits of Tarapacá, caused the economic bankruptcy and activated the social and political agitation of the country.

The civilist movement headed by Nicolas de Piérola opposed the military caudillismo that arose from the warlike defeat and the economic collapse. He arrived to the power with the 1895 revolution. The reformist character of Pierola’s dictatorship had continuity in Augusto B. Leguía’s. During Leguia’s government periods (1908-1912 and 1919-1930, this last one was well-known as “the Oncenio” – The eleventh), the entrance of American capitals became general and the bourgeoisie was favored. This politics along with the increase of the foreign capital dependency, contributed to generate opposition focuses between the landowner oligarchy as much as the most progressive sectors of the Peruvian society. Between these last ones, it should be underlined the constitution of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA). This is a nationalistic movement, populist and anti-imperialist headed by Victor Raul Haya de la Torre in 1924. The communist party was created four years later and it was led by Jose C. Mariategui.

After the world-wide crisis of 1929, numerous brief governments followed one another. The APRA party had the opportunity to cause system reforms by means of political actions, but it was not successful. By this time, it begins a sudden population growth and an urbanization increase. The general Manuel A. Odría implants a dictatorial government that lasted for eight years (1948-1956) and ended in the middle of incessant agrarian rebellions. These and the increasing summit of the leftist guerrilla -in 1963 approximately- were unsalvable obstacles for the reformist attempt of Fernando Belaunde Terry’s first government. In similar circumstances, in 1968, the general Juan Velasco Alvarado’s coup d'etat took place. The populist and nationalist character that Velasco printed in his government finished in a conflict with the interests of the foreign capital and the local oligarchy, that promoted general Francisco Morales Bermúdez’s coup d’etat in 1975. From then, the crisis caused by the unstoppable increase of the external debt conditioned the action of the successive Peruvian governments, who were impotent to stop the progressive impoverishment of the population as well as the increase of the drug trafficking operations, the terrorist actions of the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. Neither Belaunde Terry, between 1980 and 1985, nor Alan Garcia, between 1985 and 1900, were successful with their economic and social plans. In a climate of generalized chaos and violence, the electoral victory of Alberto Fujimori took place in 1990. Once he was in the power, he closed the Congress and convene to a referendum for elaborating a new Constitution (1992). With the support of the Army and the international financial organisms, he imposed a rigorous plan of economic readjustment, simultaneously he fought with effectiveness the drug trafficking and the terrorism. His achievements in these aspects allow him to be reelected in 1995.