Wars of independence (1810–1824)
Peru’s movement toward independence was launched by an uprising of Spanish-American landowners and their forces, led by José de San Martín of Argentina and Simón Bolívar of Venezuela.
San Martín, who had displaced the royalists of Chile after the Battle of Chacabuco, and who had disembarked in Paracas in 1819, led the military campaign of 4,200 soldiers. The expedition which included warships was organized and financed by Chile which sailed from Valparaíso in August 1820.
San Martin proclaimed the independence of Peru in Lima on July 28, 1821, with the words
“… From this moment on, Peru is free and independent, by the general will of the people and the justice of its cause that God defends. Long live the homeland! Long live freedom! Long live our independence!”
Still, the situation remained changing and emancipation was only completed by December 1824, when General Antonio José de Sucre defeated Spanish troops at the Battle of Ayacucho.
Spain made futile attempts to regain its former colonies, such as at the Battle of Callao, and only in 1879 finally recognized Peruvian independence.
Territorial disputes (1824–1884)
After independence, Peru and its neighbors engaged in intermittent territorial disputes.
A short-lived attempt to reunite Peru and Bolivia was made during the period 1836–1839 when the Peru-Bolivian Confederation came into existence, severe internal opposition led to its demise in the War of the Confederation.[20]
Peru embarked on a railroad building program. Henry Meiggs built a standard gauge line from Callao across the Andes to the Interior, Huancayo; striking for Cuzco he built the line but also bankrupted the country.
In 1879, Peru entered the War of the Pacific which lasted until 1884. Bolivia invoked its alliance with Peru against Chile. The Peruvian Government tried to mediate the dispute by sending a diplomatic team to negotiate with the Chilean government, but the committee concluded that war was inevitable.
Chile declared war on April 5, 1879. Almost five years of war ended with the loss of the department of Tarapacá and the provinces of Tacna and Arica, in the Atacama region.
Originally, Chile committed to a referendum for the cities of Arica and Tacna to be held years later, in order to self determine their national affiliation. However, Chile refused to apply the Treaty and both countries could not determine the statutory framework.
In an arbitrage that both countries admitted, the USA decided that the plebiscite was impossible to take, therefore direct negotiations between the parties led to a treaty (Treaty of Lima, 1929), in which Arica was ceded to Chile and Tacna remained in Peru. Tacna returned to Peru on August 29, 1929. The territorial loss and the extensive looting of Peruvian cities by Chilean troops left scars on the country’s relations with Chile that have not yet fully healed.
Following the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War of 1941, the Rio Protocol sought to formalize the boundary between those two countries. Ongoing boundary disagreements led to a brief war in early 1981 and the Cenepa War in early 1995, but in 1998 the governments of both countries signed a historic peace treaty that clearly demarcated the international boundary between them. In late 1999, the governments of Peru and Chile likewise similarly implemented the last outstanding article of their 1929 border agreement.
Aristocratic Republic (1884–1930)
After the War of the Pacific, an extraordinary effort of rebuilding began. The government started to initiate a number of social and economic reforms in order to recover from the damage of the war. Political stability was achieved only in the early 1900s.
In 1894, Nicolás de Piérola, after allying his party with the Civil Party of Peru to organize guerrillas with fighters to occupy Lima, ousted Andrés Avelino Cáceres and once again became president of Peru in 1895. After a brief period in which the military once again controlled the country, civilian rule was permanently established with Pierola’s election in 1895.
His second term was successfully completed in 1899 and was marked by his reconstruction of a devastated Peru by initiating fiscal, military, religious and civil reforms. Until the 1920s, this period was called the “Aristocratic Republic”, since most of the presidents that ruled the country were from the social elite.
During Augusto B. Leguía’s periods in government (1908–1912 and 1919–1930, the latter known as the “Oncenio” (the “Eleventh”), the entrance of American capital became general and the bourgeoisie was favored. This policy, along with increased dependence on foreign investment, focused opposition from the most progressive sectors of Peruvian society against the landowner oligarchy.
In 1929, Peru and Chile signed a final peace treaty, the Treaty of Lima by which Tacna returned to Peru and Peru yielded permanently the formerly rich provinces of Arica and Tarapacá, but kept certain rights to the port activities in Arica and decisions of what Chile can do on those territories.