CHAPTER VI
FROM INDEPENDENCE TO THE CHILEAN WAR
If ever country began an independent existence without any basis for a strong, ordered, and stable government, that country was the Peru of 1826. The interior inhabited by Indians long held in abject subjection by the Spanish generals, the long strip of coast divided by local and factional jealousies, the nation had already miserably failed to unite in face of defeats suffered from the Spaniards, or of the military preponderance first of the Argentines and then of the Colombians.
In 1825 all thought of open resistance to Bolivar was manifest folly. Peru was his to do with as he pleased. He went through the farce of summoning a congress and offering to resign his dictatorship, but with thousands of Colombian troops encamped at Lima, it was natural that he should be begged to retain the direction of affairs on his own terms. The "liberator" devoted all his energies to laying the foundations for a great military confederation with himself as its life head. Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador were already united under the name of the United States of Colombia, of which he was president. He hoped to make his tenure permanent by imposing an aristocratic and centralising constitution providing for a life president. The submissive Peruvian congress agreed to adopt his system, and the dictator set out on a triumphal tour to put it in application in upper Peru. Travelling along the coast to Arequipa, he crossed the Cordillera to La Paz, and thence proceeded over the Titicacan plateau to Charcas and Potosí. There he created a new nation which, in his honour, was named Bolivia; wrote its Constitution with his own hand; and, having installed Sucré as life president, returned to Lima at the beginning of 1826.
Apparently Bolivar's system was dominant from the Caribbean to the Argentine pampas, and he regarded himself as certain soon to be virtual emperor of all South America. But the instinct of local pride was growing; the signs of Peru's wish to be rid of him could not be ignored, and the new congress he had summoned was abruptly dismissed. In September the news of disturbances in Venezuela, which foreshadowed the breaking up of Colombia, made it necessary for Bolivar to hasten north. He left General Lara at Lima, but that officer failed to keep the unruly mercenaries upon whom his power depended in good humour. A mutiny broke out; Lara was arrested and deported, and the mutineers entered into negotiations with the Peruvian leaders. The money demanded was soon raised and the Colombian soldiers shortly embarked, leaving the field free for the local chiefs to fight among themselves for supreme power. General Santa Cruz, though by birth a Bolivian, had great influence anions the few Peruvian troops, and tried to forestall his competitors by seizing the direction of affairs and summoning a congress, but General La Mar, himself born at Cuenca in Ecuador, was stronger. The latter secured the selection of his friends, and when congress met he had a two-thirds majority and became president. So long as Sucré remained in control of Bolivia there could, however, be no certainty that Colombian rule might not be re-established, but he was already in trouble on account of the mutinous disposition of his troops. When the Peruvians sent against him a hastily gathered force he was compelled to withdraw, the Bolivarian Constitution was abolished, and Santa Cruz made himself supreme in Bolivia.
