Quick History of Peru: Pizarro up to 1884
From Guide to Modern Peru: Its Great Advantages and Vast Opportunities by Adolfo de Clairmont, 1908.
From: 1532 C.E. To: 1884 C.E.
Location: Peru
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From Guide to Modern Peru: Its Great Advantages and Vast Opportunities by Adolfo de Clairmont, 1908.
Francisco Pizarro, after several unsuccessful attempts, finally reached the coast of Peru in 1532. The vast Inca Empire at that time is said to have extended over more than one-half of the entire South American continent. Pizarro found a people highly civilized, with excellent social and political institutions, who had developed agriculture to a remarkable degree, he was received with great courtesy by the Emperor, and having been invited to visit him in Cajamarca,
Pizarro entered the city on November 15, 1532, and made the unsuspecting Inca a prisoner in his own capital. By this bold stroke he at once obtained complete control over the natives, who accustomed to being ruled in a paternal fashion, easily submitted to the invaders. When Pizarro had put Atahuau'a, the Emperor of the Incas, to death, after a mock trial, on August 29, 1533, he enslaved the Indians, forcing them to work in the mines for the benefit of the conquerors, and they soon perished by thousands under the exactions of their cruel masters.
Pizarro was appointed governor of the newly acquired territory and founded the city of Lima, the present capital of the Republic of Peru, on January 16, 1535, naming it the City of the Kings. Hegoverned the country until his death by assassination on June 26, 1541.
Don Cristobal de Vaca was governor until the year 1544, when the viceroyalty of Peru was created. The first viceroy, Don Blasco Nunez Vela, arrived at Lima on May 17, 1544, and was received with great honors and rejoicing. His jurisdiction at that time extended over the entire continent of South America, but the territory was subsequently divided into three viceroyalties, that of New Granada being created in 1718 and of the Rio de la Plata in 1776.
Forty viceroys succeeded Blasco Nunez in the government of Peru, under whose rule the enslavement of the Indians and the destruction of their ancient civilization was continued. Although the King of Spain issued laws for the better treatment of the aborigines, due to the unceasing efforts of Bishop Las Casas, their lot was not improved to any considerable extent.
The movement for independence began early in the nineteenth century in Peru, which was at that time the stronghold of Spanish power, but the various attempts were repressed with the greatest severity, the first martyrs to Peruvian independence being Ubaldo and Aguilar. Other patriots, however, took up the cause, and the struggle continued with varying success until in the year 1820 San Martin, the great Argentine general, came to the aid of the Peruvians. He was ably assisted by the Admiral Lord Cochrane, having command of the Chilean fleet, who captured and destroyed the Spanish force and attacked the fort at Callao.
On July 9, 1821, San Martin made his triumphal entrance into Lima, and on July 28, 1821, the independence of Peru was formally declared. On September 20, 1822, a constituent congress met. and on February 28, 1823 the first President of Peru, Don Jose de la Riva Aguero, was inaugurated. La Serna, the last viceroy, continued, however, to resist the newly installed government, and it was largely due to the heroic efforts of Simon Bolivar that the country was finally freed of the enemy. General Sucre, Bolivar's able lieutenant, defeated and completely routed the royalists at the battle of Ayacucho on December 9, 1824.
The question of boundary involved Peru in a war with Chile in the year 1879, which lasted for five years, and which was finally settled by the treaty of March 8, 1884, whereby Peru ceded to Chile the Province of Tarapaca and the Territories of Tacna and Arica for a period of ten years, at the end of which term a plebiscite was to decide to which country the territories were to belong.
Clairmont, Adolfo de. Guide to Modern Peru: Its Great Advantages and Vast Opportunities. 1908.
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