Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0040/00409.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 31KB | 497 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00409}
$Pretitle{266}
$Title{Bolivia
Chapter 2B.   Independent Bolivia}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Thomas E. Weil}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{peru
bolivia
president
bolivian
general
years
bolivia's
independence
country
forces}
$Date{1974}
$Log{}
Country:     Bolivia
Book:        Bolivia, A Country Study
Author:      Thomas E. Weil
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1974

Chapter 2B.   Independent Bolivia

Liberation

     A critical event leading to the independence struggle was the invasion of
the Iberian Peninsula in 1807 and 1808 by Napoleonic forces. The overthrow of
the Bourbon dynasty divided local sentiment in Charcas into three main camps:
those loyal to the deposed dynasty, those loyal to Spain irrespective of royal
incumbency, and those desirous of pursuing an independent course in the
Spanish American territories. Charcas had already made significant
contributions to the third camp through the intellectual ferment of its
academies and through its relatively iconoclastic behavior in the face of
royal authority over a period of three centuries.

     Like all Spanish America, Charcas was rent by the standing quarrel
between peninsulares and criollos, the latter resentful of the privileges
reserved to the former and consequently open to radical ideas that promised
them an improved position. At the same time, among those loyal to Spanish rule
were conservatives, most of them prepared to wait for the question of
legitimacy to resolve itself in Spain, and liberals, eager to welcome the
reforms of colonial rule and practice that the Bonapartist victory seemed to
promise.

     In 1808 Jose Manuel de Goyeneche, a Peruvian general representing the
junta of Seville-an organ of popular Spanish support for the Bourbon Ferdinand
VII against the Napoleonic forces-arrived in Chuquisaca. He came to press
simultaneously the claims of Ferdinand and his sister Carlota, then governing
Brazil with her husband, the Prince Regent John of Portugal, and anxious to
extend her position into Spanish America. Goyeneche sowed confusion in the
Audiencia of Charcas and gained the support of the president, Ramon Garcia
Leon de Pizarro. When Pizarro attempted to arrest the judges of the audiencia
for their resistance to Goyeneche and their general intransigence, the people
of Chuquisaca rose against the president, arrested him, forced the archbishop
to flee for safety, and established their own government under the
recalcitrant audiencia. This move in the direction of independence (although
based on proclaimed loyalty to the deposed Ferdinand) made May 25, 1809, an
important date in Bolivian history.

     La Paz was the next city to fall to the forces of independence and,
indeed, went further than had Chuquisaca in demanding independence from Spain.
By November Cochabamba, Oruro, and Potosi had followed suit. Although the
movement received sharp setbacks at the hands of royalist forces sent to La
Paz under Goyeneche by the viceroy of Peru and to Chuquisaca by Viceroy
Liniers of La Plata, Alto Peru was never again wholly subdued.

     In Spain the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte brought Ferdinand back to his
throne in 1814. The Spanish Cortes (legislature) was favorably disposed toward
the interests of the overseas Spaniards and, during a constitutional interlude
in 1821, passed measures designed to conciliate them. But Ferdinand set aside
the liberal Constitution of 1812 and, in 1823, reestablished his absolutist
regime. In Alto Peru he enjoyed the unquestioning loyalty of General Pedro de
Olaneta, an unswerving monarchist who resisted appeals by independence forces
and Spaniards with equal vehemence. As commander of the absolutist forces,
Olaneta was the paramount force in Alto Peru for the last years of the Fifteen
Years' War. He finally found himself in the curious position of trying to
found an independent kingdom in that territory for the sake of preserving it
intact for Ferdinand. It was Olaneta's pocket of royalist resistance that
confronted Simon Bolivar in 1825 after the rest of Spanish America had been
liberated.

     Apart from the hardship inflicted on the countryside by marauding troops
and on the cities as they changed hands repeatedly, economic life and social
organization were disrupted; the population probably numbered fewer than 1
million by this time. Although Marshal Antonio Jose de Sucre, Bolivar's
Venezuelan-born lieutenant, was impressed by the patriotism of the partisans
of independence in Alto Peru, he had a premonition of what awaited him when
Bolivar appointed him to lead an army in pursuit of Olaneta. Not wishing to
assume the task, he expressed the fear that he and his forces would get
themselves "into a maze of trickery."

     After a bloodless campaign in which the remaining Spanish forces
gradually melted away and, after Olaneta had been killed, Sucre witnessed the
convocation of the General Assembly of Alto Peru in Chuquisaca on July 10,
1825. In accordance with the marshal's decree of the preceding February, the
delegates to the assembly were chosen by the five provinces-La Paz,
Cochabamba, Chuquisaca, Potosi, and Santa Cruz-to decide on the future
political status of the country. Although Bolivar was cool to Sucre's
initiative in this matter, the latter did his best to ensure honest elections
so that the voters could choose freely among the alternatives. He even
withdrew the army of liberation to avoid any hint of pressure on the
delegates.

     Despite Sucre's good intentions, the assembly was less interested in
faithful representation of the country's interests than in furthering the
ambitions of the delegates. Almost all of them ,however, desired sovereign
status for Alto Peru and, after much rhetoric, rejected two
alternatives-attachment to the Viceroyalty of La Plata and reunion with Peru.
Not altogether absent from their consideration was the factor of balance among
the nations of the southern part of the continent. By choosing independence
the assembly hoped to prevent Argentina from assuming undue weight in the
regional configuration. Before the assembly completed its work, it adopted the
Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on August 6, 1825; and five days later
the assembly resolved to name the new nation after Bolivar, not without the
hope that this act would placate Bolivar's reservations about independence
for Alto Peru.

     On August 18, 1825, Bolivar entered La Paz and was greeted by elaborate
ceremonies to honor him as Liberator-recognition that he never failed to share
with Sucre. But Bolivar was outspoken about his doubts as to the ability of
Bolivians to govern themselves. In all official acts from that time until his
departure at the end of the year, he was careful to avoid recognition of
Bolivia's independence, always referring to it as Alto Peru and signing his
many decrees as dictator of Peru. Only in January 1826, when he turned the
country over to Sucre, did he promise approval by the Peruvian congress of
Bolivia's independent status.

     Bolivar's tenure as dictator of Bolivia was marked by energetic attempts
to impose his ideas as a blueprint for the country. His decrees covered
matters of landholding, education, public works, and the ordinary affairs of
government, and he showed his awareness of the Indian problem by seeking to
inculcate respect for manual labor in the rest of the population, hoping
thereby to overcome the liability of continued exploitation of the indigenous
population. Even after he had left Bolivia late in 1825, Bolivar, on request,
supplied the General Constituent Assembly with the draft of the country's
first constitution (see ch. 9).

     Marshal Sucre inherited Bolivar's mantle of authority in January 1826 and
continued to govern by decree. He was an able administrator and farsighted in
such matters as encouraging immigration. Formally installed as president after
the General Constituent Assembly convened in May, he carried on the Bolivarian
policies already elaborated. At t