In Alto Peru alone, of all the South American colonies, the battle cry of freedom was, from first to last, an unequivocal and fearless declaration of independence. It is significant of the character and sentiment of the whole people that such an audacious stand was possible from the beginning. In all the other South American countries, loyalty to King Ferdinand of Spain, who had been deposed by the Bonapartes, was the pretext for resisting the authority of the viceroys. Even when the leaders of the revolution themselves favored complete emancipation they were obliged to disguise their ultimate purpose, as the masses were still too apathetic or too fearful to look upon the power of Spain as other than inevitable and eternal. They could not be brought so suddenly to strike for absolute freedom. It was the despair of the Venezuelan patriot Miranda that his beloved countrymen would not catch the inspiration of his noble purpose, and in Buenos Aires, Chile, Quito, it was first the declaration of loyalty to the Spanish crown and not a demand for independence that brought about the overthrow of the viceroys and the establishment of the patriot Juntas de Gobierno.

Alto Peru probably suffered more than any other colony of Spain from injustice and oppression. Although its mines had yielded fabulous wealth to the royal treasury, it was the least favored of the Spanish provinces, the most neglected, and its people were the most barbarously treated. The cruel system of the mita had so depopulated the Indian race that the few who remained were obliged to do more than human strength could endure in order to make up for the scarcity of laborers. In common with the rest of the colonies, it was prohibited to Alto Peru to cultivate anything that was grown in the mother country; commerce with foreign countries was forbidden; only Spaniards or their children could hold public office; merchandise was sold to the Indians by the corregidores, to whom they were always in debt; instruction was little more than a name, as no books were allowed in the country except books of devotion. A Bolivian writer on the history of his country says: “The natives of the country were excluded from all posts of honor and profit except when they were able to purchase them at the cost of large sums of money; so that out of one hundred and seventy viceroys, only four were born in the country; of six hundred and two captains-general, or presidents, fourteen were American; of five hundred and fifty bishops, five hundred were Europeans; political liberty was excluded from our soil.” In fact, the last thought, apparently, which the Spanish authorities gave to this province was that which concerned its well being, at least, until later years of colonial rule, when the warning given to Spain by the example of the British colonies in North America suggested the necessity for reforms, and a new commercial regulation was put in force, thirty-three ports were opened to foreign trade, and greater privileges were granted the natives of the country than formerly. But the reform came too late. Even the concession granted by the Council of Regency in 1810 to permit the colonies to send representatives to the Cortes could no longer stay the current of public opinion.

Everyone is familiar with the story of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the capture and imprisonment of King Ferdinand in 1808, when Napoleon’s brother, Joseph Bonaparte, was placed on the Spanish throne, and a Council of Regency at Cadiz governed the affairs of the colonies. The effort of King Ferdinand’s sister, the Princess Carlota de Braganza, to usurp his dominions in America is only of interest in the history of the revolution of Alto Peru because it furnished a pretext for the decisive steps finally taken by the patriots to carry out a plan of campaign which they had been preparing in secret for a long time. An ambitious agent of the princess, Don José Manuel Goyeneche, who had been sent on a mission to interview the South American authorities in her favor, visited Chuquisaca in 1809, and succeeded in winning the president of the Audiencia and the bishop of the diocese as allies of the princess. The right of the oidores to a voice in this matter was ignored, and those who declared their opposition were promptly ordered to prison. Though the order was fulfilled in the case of only one of them, and the president was dismissed from office and imprisoned for his share in the affair, the patriots saw in this event an opportunity to spread the gospel of freedom more openly, and a few devoted apostles set out to make a propaganda of liberty throughout the country. Among them were the intrepid leaders of the revolution which was installed the following year in Buenos Aires, Cornelio Saavedra, who became president of the junta there, Bernardo Monteagudo, and Manuel Moreno.

The revolution inaugurated on the plateau of Alto Peru on the memorable 16th of July, 1809,—the echoes of which will not cease to vibrate in the heart of the Bolivian nation as long as a patriot lives to love his native land,—was not the result of a sudden impulse, but the natural outcome of deliberate and persistent determination. For years the leaven had been working, until there was not a pueblo whose inhabitants were ignorant of the approaching crisis or unwilling to fight for the cause. In their various uprisings throughout the whole period of colonial rule, the people had been unconsciously preparing to initiate one of the greatest patriotic movements in the history of modern times. With the first years of the nineteenth century, definite indications of the tendency of affairs began to appear; and from memoirs written during that period it has been proved that as early as 1798 the inhabitants of La Paz “meditated the independence of the whole continent, and communicated this project to various cities of the kingdom, in every one of which it found patriots ready to undertake the enterprise.”

La Paz was singularly fitted to be the theatre of the opening scene in this drama of liberty. Remote from the chief seat of Spanish authority, out of close range of the Audiencia’s power, the spirit of independence had been fostered by the tolerance, if not actual complicity, of its governor, in whose house members of the revolutionary clubs from various parts of the country were frequently entertained. These clubs were the organizing headquarters of the patriots in Chuquisaca, La Paz, Potosí, Cochabamba, and other cities, and it was their combined effort which installed the revolution in La Paz, by the issuing, in the name of the Junta Tuitiva, of a proclamation which clearly shows the object and scope of the patriots’ programme.

The history of the revolution of La Paz displays constant evidence of the energy, ability, and patriotic ardor of its chief, the president of the Junta Tuitiva, Don Pedro Domingo Murillo, the first of the “promartyrs of the Independence.” The events of this revolution, which was so important in the annals of the Bolivian nation, as the spark that ignited the continent in a flame of patriotic war, have been recorded by one of Bolivia’s foremost writers, Don José Rosendo Gutierrez, from whose gifted pen the story appears, with all the charm that a graceful literary style lends to the relation of glorious episodes.

The important crisis, so long awaited, came at seven o’clock in the evening of July 16, 1809. The conspirators, at whose head were Murillo, Indaburu, and Graneros, took possession of the quartel and imprisoned the governor. Assembled in open Cabildo, Drs. Gregorio Garcia Lanza, Juan Bautista Sagárnaga, and Basilio Catacora were named representatives of the people and admitted and recognized as such. The first act was the Declaration of Independence, which ran: “In the noble and valorous city of Our Lady of La Paz, at eight o’clock at night, on the 16th of July, 1809, assembled in the Salon of the Cabildo, the undersigned, in the name of the people, declare and swear to defend with their blood and fortune the independence of the country.” The signers constituted themselves a Junta Tuitiva, of which Pedro Domingo Murillo was elected president. It was organized as a separate body from the Cabildo, in this way avoiding the confusion from which the Buenos Aires junta suffered later through its ill-defined relation to that corporation.

The Junta Tuitiva of La Paz made the first effort in South America toward democratic government in accordance with republican ideas. Its laws were inspired by motives of democracy and brotherhood; and one of its first acts was to give to the race which had been disinherited by the conqueror a voice in the new government, by appointing an Indian to the junta from each district. Perpetual alliance was sworn to between the European Spaniards and the Americans. Its proclamation is a proof of the courage and sincerity of its authors:

“Until now we have tolerated a kind of exile in the very bosom of our own country; we have seen with indifference for more than three centuries our primitive liberty submitted to the despotism and tyranny of an unjust usurper, who, degrading us below human kind, has reputed us to be savages and looked upon us as slaves; we have kept a silence very like the stupidity which was attributed to us, suffering with tranquillity that the merit of the Americans should be always a sure presage of their humiliation and their ruin. It is high time, then, to shake off a yoke so fatal to our happiness. It is high time to organize a new system of government, founded on the interest of this our country, which has been so depressed by the spurious politics of Madrid. It is high time, in short, to raise the standard of liberty in these unfortunate colonies, acquired without the least title and conserved with the greatest injustice and tyranny.”

Commenting on the proclamation of the junta, Señor Gutierrez says: “This was not all of the programme of July. If there had been nothing more than the document mentioned, the aspiration toward independence would have been reduced to a mere insurrection. But the programme of emancipation came united with the social reorganization of the continent. It insinuated the ideas of democracy and the civil constitution. The programme of July was not only the despedida of the day previous: the placing of the cornerstone in the edifice of the day following.”

The sad history of the unequal fight between the few heroic patriots and the trained army sent to meet them by the Viceroy of Peru; the unfortunate quarrels between the revolutionary leaders at a moment when united strength was indispensable; the antagonism of the Bishop of La Paz, whose anathemas frightened the superstitious Indians and half-breeds out of the patriots’ ranks; all the events that conspired to bring about the disastrous defeat, capture, and final execution of Murillo and his followers, only serve to show what a bitter struggle was to be expected before final victory could be hoped for. But the promartyrs “blazed the trail” and opened a pathway toward liberty which would later direct the eager footsteps of millions. When the patriot Murillo, humble of origin, but of great intelligence and a noble heart, said his farewell from the scaffold on January 29, 1810, exclaiming, in the words of another martyr: “The torch which I have lighted shall never be extinguished,” he made a prophecy which time has amply justified and verified.

Four months after the death of Murillo, the patriots, Saavedra, Monteagudo, Moreno, and others, who had gone from Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, and Potosí to stir up the revolution in Buenos Aires and secure aid for their countrymen, had an army already equipped and on the march to Alto Peru. With General Cornelio Saavedra as president, the Buenos Aires junta had been organized, the viceroy deposed, and a strong revolutionary party, in which General Belgrano and other Argentine leaders were prominent, had pledged itself to lend assistance to continue the fight so heroically begun on the heights of La Paz. Undaunted by the brutal message sent to his Bolivian general by the Viceroy of Peru, “that the Americans had been born to be slaves and to vegetate in obscurity and depression,” the auxiliary army from Buenos Aires, under the command of Balcarce, Diaz Velez, and Castelli, advanced six thousand strong to meet the viceroy’s troops under Nieto, Córdova, and Basagoitia on the field of Suipacha. After an hour of hard fighting the patriots won the day, and the royalist leaders were shot, to avenge the cruelty shown the year before to the La Paz patriots, when eighty-six of their number were put to death or exiled to celebrate the victory over Murillo. Meantime, a revolution in Cochabamba had resulted in a triumph for the patriots; and the leaders, Manuel Esteban Arze and Melchor Guzman Quiton marched on Oruro with a force of one thousand five hundred men, meeting the royalists at Aroma and completely defeating them. This was the first patriot victory on the Bolivian Plateau, and it was after this battle that the Buenos Aires Gazette wrote: “Alto Peru will be free because Cochabamba wills it so.” The royalist forces sent by the Viceroy of Peru to combat the revolutionists in Alto Peru and Argentina were under the command of the same Goyeneche who had treacherously sought to overthrow the existing authority in favor of the Princess of Braganza. It was by his orders that the wholesale slaughter of the vanquished had taken place in La Paz in 1809, and it was his ignoble part to bring defeat and disaster to the auxiliary army by violating an armistice of forty days and suddenly invading the camp at Guaqui on June 20, 1811. The patriots were forced to retreat, the Cochabamba cavalry, under Francisco del Rivero, coming to the rescue too late to save the situation. The auxiliary army was broken up, Castelli and Balcarce retired to Chuquisaca, and Diaz Velez joined Rivero later in Cochabamba. Goyeneche pursued his advantage as far as Cochabamba, where, by great superiority in number and military training, his troops were able to defeat the inexperienced and poorly armed inhabitants. His victory was celebrated with crime and rapine for the space of three days, after which a military tribunal was held to punish the revolutionists, many of whom were condemned to death. Meantime, a second auxiliary army from Buenos Aires, under the command of General Belgrano, met the royalists at Tucuman, September 24, 1812, and again at Salta, February 20, 1813, completely defeating them in both engagements, and obliging their leader, Pio Tristan, to swear “never again to take up arms against the patriots.” Goyeneche having satiated his taste for cruelty in Cochabamba set out for Potosí, but on learning of the approach of Belgrano’s army, he turned his four thousand troops hastily toward Oruro, and asked his retirement. The viceroy sent General Joaquin Pezuela to take Goyeneche’s place.

The auxiliary army, stimulated by victory, advanced toward Oruro to engage Pezuela’s forces and secure a stronghold for the patriots on the plateau, but, taken at a disadvantage, it was defeated after stubborn fighting at Vilcapugio and Ayuma. Pursued by Pezuela, Belgrano was forced to retreat beyond the Argentine border and once more the royalists held complete sway in Alto Peru. The “reign of terror” which followed was so ruthless that thousands of patriots fled to Argentina to escape the royalist vengeance. Yet the spirit of revolution was not subdued, and in the midst of defeat, persecution, and death, an ardent patriot of the south, Don Juan Antonio Alvarez de Arenales, assembling the remnant of the defeated army of Ayuma, marched on to Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, and retiring to Vallegrande, succeeded in organizing an army of four thousand strong. Pezuela sent Don Joaquin Blanco to meet Arenales and an engagement took place on the field of La Florida, resulting in an overwhelming victory for the patriots, May 12, 1814. Blanco died on the battlefield. But, although the news of the victory at La Florida was encouraging, it was not sufficient to make up for the disastrous defeats of Belgrano’s army.

To a people less tenacious of purpose, the apparent hopelessness of the situation, after the battle of Ayuma, would have brought despondency; but the valiant heroes who held freedom worth undying effort, were not to be turned aside from their purpose by defeat. When they could no longer march with an army into the field, they formed themselves into patriot bands all over the country and carried on a system of guerrilla warfare that harassed the enemy on all sides. Indomitable warriors, they set up the standard of their “Republiquetas,” as Bartolomé Mitre calls them, in the cañons of Ayopaya and Omasuyos to the north; in Chayanta, which dominated the routes between Oruro, Cochabamba, and Chuquisaca; in Mizque, surrounding Cochabamba and communicating with Santa Cruz and Vallegrande; in Cinti and Porco, extending to Tarija and the Chaco. In each of these guerrilla centres there were innumerable small bands led by various chiefs, all more or less under the guidance of a few principals, whose names are honored by posterity for the splendid records of bravery they perpetuate. In the north were Don José Miguel Lanza and the indomitable Muñecas; in the central districts, Arenales and Arze; in the east, Warnes and Mercado; and in the south the valorous Padilla, the brave Camargo, Zarate, and Betanzos. After reading the story of their skilful art of war, their unwavering courage and unflinching patriotism, one cannot help deploring the circumstances which prevented their combining in the open field to overthrow the enemy whom they so continually harassed and outwitted. Even their defeats shed glory on the national spirit, undaunted in the face of death, unconquered on the scaffold. Mitre extols the guerrilleros in unmeasured terms, and the Chilean historian, Sotomayor Valdez, says: “Out of the one hundred and two leaders, more or less obscure, only nine survived the fifteen years’ struggle which followed the defeat at Viloma of the third auxiliary army, commanded by General Rondeau, on November 29, 1815. The remaining ninety-three perished in the battlefield or on the gallows, and there was not a single capitulation.”

One of the most renowned of the guerrilla chiefs was Don Manuel Ascension Padilla, whose military genius and devoted patriotism were unsurpassed. He was highly esteemed by General Belgrano for his services to the auxiliary army, and by Don Esteban Arze, who conferred on him the title of commandante. Dr. Valentin Abecia, in an interesting biography of this guerrilla chief, compares him to Morelos of Mexico, and regards him as one of the greatest figures among the heroes of the Independence, “a hero with the soul of a child and the heart of a lion.” And no one thinks of the warrior without at once calling to mind the noble woman who fought by his side, Doña Juana de Padilla, his devoted and beautiful wife. “The Padillas” are enshrined among the dearest memories of the long fight for freedom in Alto Peru; and if “Don Manuel” was admired for his military skill, “Doña Juana” was beloved for her tenderness to the sick and wounded. The Indians adored her “like the image of the Virgin.” In the field, as well as in the camp, she was her husband’s ally and helper, and after his death she continued to fight in the sacred cause until independence was won. According to the Revista Nacional, of Buenos Aires, she took part in seventeen combats, commanded a battalion at Viloma, and was wounded at Villar, where her husband was killed; she was given the title of acting lieutenant-colonel by the Argentine government.

Padilla was among the first of the patriots to insist upon a separate constitution for his country, feeling that the revolutionists of Buenos Aires were disposed to show scant consideration for the interests of Alto Peru in their treatment of this part of the junta’s territory. He expressed this sentiment in a letter to General Rondeau in 1815, to the great disgust of that officer. After repeated and futile efforts on the part of the royalists to capture Padilla, while he eluded them on every side, besieged Chuquisaca for a whole month, and brought despair to the viceroy’s troops, a battle took place at Villar on September 14, 1816. Both sides fought with fury, a thousand victims falling without any sign of yielding on either side, when suddenly Padilla fell dead, pierced by a sabre; and his faithful followers lost heart for the fray, suffering their first and only defeat. They were taken prisoners and barbarously put to death.

The guerrilla chief Lanza, one of the most audacious and cunning of them all, led the royalists a “wild goose chase” among the mountains of Ayopaya, without giving them a single advantage. Camargo was no less successful in guerrilla tactics, until through treachery he was killed, with eight hundred of his followers, and his head sent on a pike to Pezuela in token of a famous capture. Warnes, the daring “border chief” of Santa Cruz, fell in a battle with the enemy, after his men had killed two thousand eight hundred royalists out of an army of three thousand. The victorious general ordered the execution of nine hundred patriots, of all ages and both sexes, to soothe his vengeance. Muñecas, the curate whose patriotism was no less active than his piety, was captured after brave resistance, and assassinated while on his way to trial. History teems with examples of the tenacity and boldness with which the guerrilleros fought to the end.

On July 9, 1816, the Congress of Tucuman declared the independence of the Argentine provinces. Several notable patriots of Alto Peru were in the assembly, among others Pedro Carrasco, president of the congress, and Pedro Ignacio Rivero, Cochabambans; and José Mariano Serrano, secretary of the congress, who edited the Act of Independence of Argentina, and Mariano Sanchez Loria, Chuquisacans. The important rôle played by the patriots of Alto Peru in the organization and development of the revolutionary party of Buenos Aires, and the framing of the Argentine constitution, was due, in great part, to the educational advantages which Alto Peru offered at that time in the celebrated universities of Chuquisaca and Carolina, which were among the first in Spanish America.

One of the first acts of the Argentine government after the assembly of the Congress of Tucuman was to send a fourth auxiliary army into Alto Peru. General Pezuela had been appointed Viceroy of Peru, and had sent General Ramirez to take his place in the command of the royalist army. After six months, Ramirez was replaced by General La Serna, who came from Spain with officers and soldiers of very different calibre from those who had sacked and plundered the country under Goyeneche and Pezuela. But General La Serna remained only long enough to realize the horrible condition in which his predecessors had left the people, and then resigned his command in favor of General Ramirez, who returned to the field in time to meet the fourth Argentine army of patriots, under La Madrid. The royalists, led by one of Ramirez’s officers, Captain Andrés Santa Cruz, who became president of the republic of Bolivia later, fought the auxiliary army in two engagements, resulting in a final victory for the royalists, June 24, 1817. Thus, the fourth effort of the Argentine revolutionists to help the cause in Alto Peru proved as disastrous a failure as the three preceding, and the fight was again left to the guerrilleros, to whom was chiefly due whatever the patriot cause gained during the long fifteen years’ struggle. So exasperating were their tactics, and so effective their methods, that one of the royalist generals was forced to exclaim, with more fervor than hope: Esta guerra es eterna!—“This war is eternal!” Olañeta, sent by the viceroy to conquer Lanza, wrote to his chief: “Lanza sustained the fight with infernal obstinacy!”

The four years of guerrilla warfare that followed the defeat of the last auxiliary army from Buenos Aires made a continuous record of alternating successes and defeats. Olañeta, named general of division of the royalists, fought a wearisome series of engagements with the various guerrilla leaders, gaining little or nothing in spite of the superior number and experience of his troops. General Valdez, who had charge of the garrisons of Oruro and La Paz, was thoroughly disheartened. The outlook seemed to justify the exclamation: “This war is eternal.”

In July, 1821, the news came from Lima which gave promise of the rapid approach of a crisis in the affairs of Alto Peru. The great liberating army of Chile and Argentina, under the command of General San Martin, had disembarked in Pisco; his squadron had captured the best Spanish ships in the harbor of Callao; the patriots were now in possession of Lima, the viceroy having fled from the capital, and the independence of Peru was assured in a proclamation bearing the date of July 28, 1821. Meantime, La Serna had been appointed viceroy to replace Pezuela.

The general rejoicing with which the devoted patriots of Alto Peru received the glad tidings of the arrival of San Martin’s conquering hosts may well be imagined. In all the chief cities there were meetings of the revolutionists, and new courage animated the hearts of the whole people. Early in August of 1823, an army of six thousand men, commanded by General Andrés Santa Cruz, who had joined the patriot cause, was sent by the junta of Lima to establish the independence of Alto Peru. General Santa Cruz was accompanied by Augustin Gamarra, who commanded one-half of the division.

With the arrival of the liberating troops, the famous guerrilleros joined the ranks and fought with new zeal in the cause to which they had given all their energy for fifteen long years. One cannot help smiling with satisfaction upon reading that Olañeta, who had received special instructions from the viceroy a few years before “to conquer the guerrilla chief Lanza at all hazards,” fled precipitately in January, 1825, at the notice of the approaching troops of the independent army “commanded by General José Miguel Lanza!”

On the fifteenth anniversary of the martyrdom which the first patriots of the Independence suffered in the plaza of La Paz, at the same hour which had witnessed their execution, the last of the Spanish authorities evacuated the city, January 29, 1825. The same day, the Independent Army of Alto Peru, commanded by General José Miguel Lanza, brother of the martyred patriot, made its solemn entry into the city; and on the following day General Lanza read the proclamation of Alto Peru’s independence, and, in the name and with the authority of General Bolivar and General Sucre, he assumed command of the province of La Paz, with the title of “president,” which was equivalent to that of “prefect.” What more fitting than that the noble veteran of the cause, who had sustained it through good fortune and evil, in the army ranks and on the guerrilla hunts, the famous warrior who had won and lost with equal equanimity and had never grown disheartened, should be the chosen patriot to issue the proclamation of national independence!

The war of independence was ended. The record of final victory had been sealed on the battlefield of Ayacucho, on December 9, 1824, when General Antonio José de Sucre, who commanded the liberating army in the absence of his chief, General Simon Bolivar, swept away the last shred of hope harbored by the royalists, and realized forever the liberty of America from European domination. The meeting in Lima of the two great liberators of South America, San Martin of the Chile and Argentine army and Bolivar of the Colombian, had resulted in the withdrawal of San Martin from the field, leaving Bolivar in possession, as dictator, a title bestowed upon him by the Congress of Lima. The first victory of Bolivar’s troops over those of the Viceroy La Serna was on the field of Junin, near Cerro de Pasco, where the royalist general Canterac was completely defeated and put to flight. Bolivar then returned to Lima, leaving General Sucre in command of the army, which met the viceroy in the decisive battle of Ayacucho. The Spanish troops were overthrown and the viceroy was taken prisoner. General Sucre, with the magnanimity that characterized him, conceded an honorable capitulation to the vanquished, authorizing facilities for their embarking to return to Spain.

The capitulation of Ayacucho is thus described by the Bolivian historian, Luis M. Guzman: “The victory of Ayacucho had broken the Spanish yoke. Great were the losses of that memorable day. The viceroy La Serna had fallen wounded and a prisoner at the beginning of the combat. The lieutenant-general Canterac, as the remaining chief of the royalist army, hastened to formulate on the very field of battle the eighteen articles in which is comprehended the capitulation of Ayacucho. In them the Spanish general proposes to save the honor of his arms; to secure the persons and properties of Spanish subjects; to guarantee the civil and military posts of those who may wish to serve in the independent army; to facilitate the departure of troops returning voluntarily to Spain, and to provide for their transportation; to give full amnesty for their political opinions. The vanquished royalists were permitted to dictate the conditions of peace, which were admitted with few modifications by the victorious patriots. Thus General Sucre triumphed twice over his enemies. His valor overthrew them on the field of battle; his heroic generosity disarmed them with gratitude. A more exigent conqueror would have turned against himself the arm of despair, which might still have proved fatal for the independent army, because of the numerous royalist troops and garrisons that yet remained at various points of upper and lower Peru.”

General Sucre signed two copies of the capitulation, one of which is preserved in the archives of Madrid. The other, from which the photograph was made to illustrate this chapter, is a valued possession of Señora Hortensia Gutierrez de Pinilla, the wife of Bolivia’s foreign minister, and daughter of one of its foremost scholars. It is treasured with patriotic pride, and occupies the place of honor in the library of her beautiful home in La Paz, where it hangs beside a portrait of the “Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho.”

The victorious army of the Independence, with General Sucre at its head, marched from the battlefield of Ayacucho to Cuzco and thence, by way of Lake Titicaca and the Desaguadero River, to La Paz. When the news of its approach to La Paz was heralded abroad, the city went wild with joy. For miles around the scene was one of animated expectancy. A committee of distinguished citizens, headed by General Lanza and Casimiro Olañeta,—the latter a nephew of the royalist leader,—met the conquering hero a few leagues out of the city and welcomed him on behalf of the nation. On February 7, 1825, he made his triumphal entrance, amid the jubilant acclamations of the people, under arches of victory garlanded with roses, and through streets gaily decorated with flags and banners bearing mottoes of eulogy. At the plaza the hero paused, to pay a tribute to the memory of Murillo and the other martyred patriots of 1809; and as tears came to his eyes in the contemplation of the scene, now gay with the joyous manifestations of a free people, once sad in the shadow of the gallows on which the nation’s brave sons were sacrificed, the impressive moment created a sudden stillness, broken again immediately by a burst of cheers and shouts from the enthusiastic multitude. Feasting, music, and dancing reigned throughout the city; and the visitors were entertained with balls, soirées, and banquets for a month. Two days after his arrival, General Sucre issued a decree convoking a national assembly in Oruro to determine the future government of the country. In March he set out to visit the interior, leaving a division of his army in La Paz under command of General José Maria Córdova. In every city his arrival was the signal for general rejoicing.

The first national assembly met in Chuquisaca in June, 1825. To General Sucre belongs the honor of having been the prime organizer of the republic, and the best beloved of its leaders. In the hall where the first national assembly met hangs the portrait of the grand-marshal of Ayacucho, and the words of his testament: “Still another reward I ask of the entire nation and of its administrators: not to destroy the work of my creation; to preserve, amid all dangers, the independence of Bolivia.” And the last words of their liberator have been made the watchword of the nation.

During the deliberations of the first congress two despatches were received of portentous significance. One came from the International Congress of La Plata, leaving to the provinces of Alto Peru perfect freedom to constitute themselves an independent republic, although they had been a part of the viceroyalty of La Plata under the colonial régime. The other was a high-handed message from General Bolivar, declaring Alto Peru subject to the authority of the Congress of Lima, and ordering the Congress of Chuquisaca to suspend its sessions. Indignation blazed up fiercely at the unwarrantable attitude of the great liberator in thus summarily disposing of the destiny of a free and independent people who had given the best blood of the country to secure its sovereign freedom. The fiery and eloquent Olañeta, the guerrillero Lanza, and others, protested in vigorous terms against any such despotism, and, overriding Bolivar’s proclamation, a unanimous vote declared that Alto Peru, “which, on the South American continent, had been the altar on which was spilled the first blood of the free and the tomb in which lay buried the last of the tyrants,” constituted a sovereign state, “independent of all nations, both of the Old and the New World, to be governed by its own people and ruled by the constitution, laws, and authorities which they should believe most conducive to the future happiness of the nation.” The president of the assembly, Don José Mariano Serrano,—the illustrious patriot who, as secretary of the Congress of Tucuman nine years before, had, as we have seen, edited the first constitution of the Argentine republic,—wrote the Act of Independence of Bolivia, which bears the date of August 6, 1825. The new state took the name Bolivar, afterward changed to Bolivia, in honor of the great liberator, and for its government adopted the republican unitarian system. Chuquisaca was made the provisional capital, under the name of Sucre, to commemorate the part taken in the national organization of the new republic by the great Bolivar’s most distinguished general. Also, with that discretion which is the better part of valor, in order to avoid a conflict with Bolivar, a deputation was sent by the congress to convey to that general assurances of gratitude and esteem in recognition of his great service to the cause of independence, and to offer his excellency the presidency of the new republic which had been named in his honor. It was a diplomatic stroke that won the heart of the liberator—a man not without vanity.

General Sucre returned to La Paz to meet General Bolivar, who arrived on the 18th of August, 1825, amid such demonstrations of enthusiasm as had never before been witnessed in that city. It was the first meeting between Bolivar and Sucre since they had parted after the battle of Junin, and the scene was an affecting one, as was also Bolivar’s inspired eulogy of the noble troops who had won the day at Ayacucho. The victorious regiment, dressed in full parade uniform in honor of the arrival of the commander-in-chief, was the first to greet General Bolivar upon his arrival at the Altos, the heights above the city. Under the gallant escort of his beloved troops the liberator descended, surrounded by an admiring multitude, who pressed so eagerly on the advancing hero that the procession could only make slow progress, enthusiastic vivas continually ringing out from the midst of the jubilant crowds. At the entrance to the city, where a grand triumphal gateway had been erected, a golden key was presented to the liberator by two citizens, who thanked him in the name of the people for the eminent services he had rendered the cause of liberty. Opening the gates with impressive ceremony he passed into the city, and was received by the municipal authorities with the honor due to such a distinguished guest. In the principal plaza, now the Plaza Murillo, General Bolivar addressed his army with the affection and pride that a great leader feels when he stands in the presence of faithful followers who have successfully carried out his plans, upon which depended not only the welfare of the nation, but the glory of his own name in the records of posterity. Napoleon felt the sentiment when he eulogized his magnificent army. Bolivar felt it when he stood in the midst of the serried troops that filled the plaza Murillo, and, in a voice that thrilled by its magnetic quality and fascinated by its eloquence, expressed in a few words his appreciation and admiration of their loyal services to the cause of patriotism. From his heart he spoke: “Soldiers! At last the moment that I have longed for has come, to salute and embrace you with the affection which I feel and which you deserve, after your glorious and marvellous deeds on the field of Ayacucho, whose victory, bestowing upon you imperishable fame and renown, has crowned your generous efforts in favor of the liberty of America. The strength, valor, constancy, and loyalty with which you have fulfilled your vow to save America from its tyrants and oppressors are sufficient merits upon which to enter the temple of immortality and glory, and to rest there from the fatigues of the illustrious campaign which you have just ended, defeating and annihilating the hosts of tyrants who for three centuries dared to stain the soil of America with their accursed footprints! Soldiers! Finished the memorable task that has finally brought us to the feet of yonder colossus [Illimani], which at this moment looks down upon you as if in proud contemplation, we shall constitute these provinces free, and we shall leave them in possession of their political and social rights. May their happiness be as genuine and their liberty as true as the aspirations of the Liberating Army and of your general!”

The Colombian troops were deeply moved while listening to the voice of their beloved general; and as soon as the last words were spoken, they broke into enthusiastic cheers, and shouts of Viva el General Bolivar! were repeated on all sides. General Sucre responded in behalf of the army, and then, in the name of the city of La Paz, presented a gold chain to the liberator, attempting to put it over his head as a token of admiration and esteem, “woven by the hands of Liberty and Victory for their best-beloved son, the genius of Colombia, the hero of South America.” Bolivar resisted, and placed the chain around Sucre’s neck, saying: “He it was who gave liberty to Peru on the field of Ayacucho;” to which the modest victor replied: “Your name alone made me conquer at Ayacucho!” It must have been a pretty exhibition of the politeness so characteristic of the race, and altogether appropriate between two such distinguished heroes. The author of this description, Don Luis Crespo, says the chain was finally given by General Sucre to his chief of division, José Maria Córdova.

General Bolivar received with great ceremony the deputation from the national assembly; and after accepting at their hands the supreme gift of the nation, which he eulogized as his hija predilecta, “best-beloved daughter,” he left La Paz on September 20, 1825, in company with General Sucre and a part of his army, and proceeded to the capital, where his welcome was one worthy of the city which had been for nearly three centuries the metropolis of social and intellectual culture in Alto Peru.

With the arrival of Bolivar in Sucre, and his inauguration as first president of the republic of Bolivia, closes the “storm and stress” period that had lasted throughout the long war of independence. After having been the first to start the patriotic movement in South America, and the first to promulgate its doctrines in the sister province of La Plata,—which owed the organization of its revolutionary junta and the preparation of its first republican constitution to the genius of patriots of Alto Peru,—this long-suffering nation finally reaped the reward of its labors, though it was the last to benefit by the blessings of a free and independent government. But when the dawn of a new life broke over its hills and lighted its valleys with the joy of hope, the sun shone out all the clearer to brighten the day of its birth as an independent nation, because of the shadows that had enveloped the night before.