We are already closing the first month of the Bicentennial Year of the Declaration of Independence and it is worth reviewing some events that occurred 200 years ago and were decisive for what would happen on August 6, 1825.
In January 1825, defections began in the realistic army of Marshal Pedro Antonio de Olañeta, who was the de facto ruler of Alto Peru. For that to happen, the victory that Antonio José de Sucre obtained over the royalists in Ayacucho, on December 9, 1824, was decisive, because this resulted in a capitulation recognized by Viceroy José de la Serna himself.
After the overwhelming victory in Ayacucho, Sucre began to move south, where the Alto Peru is, and on December 29 he reached Cuzco. His passage through the Desaguadero River, which was the de facto border with the Bolivian territory today, was a matter of days.
In Alto Peru, Olañeta left troops in all important cities under the command of officers who, upon learning of Ayacucho’s capitulation and the proximity of the Sucre army, understood that everything was lost, so they began to desert and did so under a Cunning play: they proclaimed independence and passed to the patriot side.
The first garnish to rebel was that of Cochabamba, on January 14, when the American Dragons cavalry squad revolted, subjected the other two realistic divisions and took prisoner to Governor Pedro Antonio de Assua.
In La Paz there was no uprising, but Olañeta unemployed the city on January 23. José Miguel Lanza, who marched to take it, occupied her after that date and yes … proclaimed independence.
Recently I found documents in the UMSA Central Library that reveal that there was also an uprising in Potosí, which obviously had to explode before the arrival of Olañeta. In a letter to José María Pérez de Urdininea, José Antonio Álvarez de Arenales tells him that “the office of vs. yesterday has been received, in Q. He warns that by a rather safe duct he has just known the Potosí revolution, verified by the officer scratches the same, that of Cochabamba with troops of the same garrison ”. Unfortunately, so far I can’t find out the name of such a line.
This happened in January and was the prelude to other surveys, in Vallegrande, Santa Cruz and Chuquisaca, which occurred in February. On the 5th of that month, from Ilave, Sucre wrote to Bolívar that “I follow my trip for peace, although not with pleasure, because I have always had disgust to go to the south of the Desaguadero. Anyway, I go there. God wants to go well from the noise. ”
And I think we all know how it went.
