By one count, Peru experiences at least twenty-four regime changes, averaging one per year between 1821 and 1845, and the constitution is rewritten six times.

This is not to say that larger political issues do not inform these conflicts.

A revisionist study by historian Paul E. Gootenberg shows in great detail how the politics of trade (free or protectionist) and regionalism were central to the internecine caudillo struggles of the period.

In this interpretation, nationalist elites—backing one caudillo or another—manage to outmaneuver and defeat liberal groups to maintain a largely protectionist, neomercantilistic, post- colonial regime until the advent of the guano boom at mid-century.

This view stands in opposition to the dominant interpretation of the period, according to which unrestricted liberalism and free trade led to Peru's "dependency" on the international economy and the West.

General Jose de San Martin, the son of a Spanish army officer stationed in Argentina, had originally served in the Spanish army but returned to his native Argentina to join the rebellion.

Once Argentine independence was achieved in 1814, San Martin had conceived of the idea of liberating Peru by way of Chile.

As commander of the fifty-five hundred-man Army of the Andes, half of which was composed of formerly enslaved blacks, San Martin, in a spectacular military operation, had crossed the Andes and liberated Chile in 1817.

Three years later, his somewhat smaller army leaves Valparaiso for Peru in a fleet commanded by a former British admiral, Thomas Alexander Cochrane (Lord Dundonald).

Although some isolated stirrings for independence had manifested themselves earlier in Peru, the landing in Pisco of San Martin's forty-five hundred-man expeditionary force in September 1820 persuades the conservative Creole intendant of Trujillo, Jose Bernardo de Tagle y Portocarrero, that Peru's liberation is at hand and that he should proclaim independence.

It is symptomatic of the conservative nature of the viceroyalty that the internal forces now declaring for independence are led by a leading Creole aristocrat, the fourth marquis of Torre Tagle, whose monarchist sympathies for any future political order coincide with those of the Argentine liberator.

The defeat of the last bastion of royal power on the continent, however, proves a slow and arduous task.

Although a number of other coastal cities quickly embrace the liberating army, San Martin is able to take Lima in July 1821 only when the viceroy decides to withdraw his considerable force to the Sierra, where he believes he could better make a stand.

Shortly thereafter, on July 28, 1821, San Martin proclaims Peru independent and is named protector by an assembly of notables.

However, a number of problems, not the least of which is a growing Peruvian resentment over the heavy-handed rule of the foreigner they dub "King Jose," stalls the campaign to defeat the royalists.

As a result, San Martin decides to seek aid from Simon Bolivar Palacios, who has liberated much of northern South America from Spanish power.

Bolívar, with significant help from San Martin's forces, now proceeds to invade Peru, where he wins the Battle of Junin in August 1824, but it remains for his trusted lieutenant, thirty-one-year-old General Antonio José de Sucre Alcala, to complete the task of Peruvian independence by defeating royalist forces at the hacienda of Ayacucho near Huamanga (a city later renamed Ayacucho) on December 9, 1824.

This battle in the remote southern highlands effectively ends the long era of Spanish colonial rule in South America.

Peru's transition from more than three centuries of colonial rule to nominal independence in 1824 under President Bolivar (1824-26) proves tortuous and politically destablizing.

Independence does little to alter the fundamental structures of inequality and underdevelopment based on colonialism and Andean neo-feudalism.

Essentially, independence represents the transfer of power from Spanish-born whites (peninsulares) to sectors of the elite Creole class, whose aim is to preserve and enhance their privileged socioeconomic status.

However, the new Creole elite is unable to create a stable, new constitutional order to replace the crown monolith of church and state.

Nor is it willing to restructure the social order in a way conducive to building a viable democratic, republican government.

Ultimately, the problem is one of replacing the legitimacy of the old order with an entirely new one, something that many post-colonial regimes have difficulty accomplishing.

A particularly virulent form of Andean caudillismo surges into the political vacuum left by the collapse of Spanish rule.

Caudillo strongmen, often officers from the liberation armies, manage to seize power through force of arms and the elaboration of extensive and intricate clientelistic alliances.

Personalistic, arbitrary rule replaces the rule of law, and a prolonged and often byzantine struggle for power is waged at all levels of society.

The upshot is internal political fragmentation and chronic political instability during the first two decades of the post-independence era.

The two liberators meet in a historic meeting in Guayaquil in mid-1822 to arrange the terms of a joint effort to complete the liberation of Peru.

Bolivar refuses to agree to a shared partnership in the Peruvian campaign, however, so a frustrated San Martin chooses to resign his command and leave Peru for Chile and eventual exile in France.

Dom Pedro means to rule Brazil frugally and starts by cutting his own salary, centralizing scattered government offices, and selling off most of the royal horses and mules.

He issues decrees that eliminate the royal salt tax to spur output of hides and dried beef, forbid arbitrary seizure of private property, require a judge's warrant for arrests of freemen, and bans secret trials, torture, and other indignities.

He also sends elected deputies to the Cortes in Portugal.

However, slaves continue to be bought and sold and disciplined with force, despite his assertion that their blood is the same color as his.

In September 1821, the Cortes, with only a portion of the Brazilian delegates present, vote to abolish the Kingdom of Brazil and the royal agencies in Rio de Janeiro and to make all the provinces subordinate directly to Lisbon.

Portugal sends troops to Brazil and placed all Brazilian units under Portuguese command.

In January 1822, tension between Portuguese troops and the Luso-Brazilians (Brazilians born in Portugal) turn violent when Pedro accept petitions from Brazilian towns begging him to refuse the Cortes's order to return to Lisbon.

Responding to their pressure and to the argument that his departure and the dismantling of the central government will trigger separatist movements, he vows to stay.

The Portuguese "lead feet," as the Brazilians call the troops, riot before concentrating their forces on Cerro Castello, which is soon surrounded by thousands of armed Brazilians.

Dom Pedro "dismisses" the Portuguese commanding general and orders him to remove his soldiers across the bay to Niteroi, where they await transport to Portugal.

Pedro forms a new government headed by José Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva of São Paulo.

This former royal official and professor of science at Coimbra is crucial to the subsequent direction of events and is regarded as one of the formative figures of Brazilian nationalism, indeed, as the patriarch of independence.

The atmosphere is so charged that Dom Pedro seeks assurances of asylum on a British ship in case he loses the looming confrontation; he also sends his family to safety out of the city.

In the following days, the Portuguese commander delays embarkation, hoping that expected reinforcements will arrive.

However, the reinforcements that arrive off Rio de Janeiro on March 5, 1822, are not allowed to land.

Instead, they are given supplies for the voyage back to Portugal.

This round has been won without bloodshed.

Blood had been shed in Recife in the Province of Pernambuco, when the Portuguese garrison there had been forced to depart in November 1821.

In mid-February 1822, Bahians revolt against the Portuguese forces there but are driven into the countryside, where they begin guerrilla operations, signaling that the struggle in the north will not be without loss of life and property.

To secure Minas Gerais and São Paulo, where there are no Portuguese troops but where there are doubts about independence, Dom Pedro engages in some royal populism.

Towns in Minas Gerais had expressed their loyalty at the time of Pedro's vow to remain, save for the junta in Ouro Preto, the provincial capital.

Pedro realizes that unless Minas Geraisis  solidly with him, he will be unable to broaden his authority to other provinces.

With only a few companions and no ceremony or pomp, Pedro plunges into Minas Gerais on horseback in late March 1822, receiving enthusiastic welcomes and allegiances everywhere.

Back in Rio de Janeiro on May 13, he proclaims himself the "perpetual defender of Brazil" and shortly thereafter calls a Constituent Assembly (Assembleia Constituinte) for the next year.

To deepen his base of support, he joins the freemasons, who, led by Jose Bonifacio Andrada e Silva, are pressing for parliamentary government and independence.

More confident, in early August he calls on the Brazilian deputies in Lisbon to return, decrees that Portuguese forces in Brazil should be treated as enemies, and issues a manifesto to "friendly nations."

The manifesto reads like a declaration of independence.

Seeking to duplicate his triumph in Minas Gerais, Pedro rides to São Paulo in August to assure himself of support there and begins a disastrous affair with Domitila de Castro that will later weaken his government.

Returning from an excursion to Santos, Pedro receives messages from his wife and from Andrada e Silva that the Cortes consider his government traitorous and is dispatching more troops.

In a famous scene at Ipiranga on September 7, 1822, he has to choose between returning to Portugal in disgrace or opting for independence.

He tears the Portuguese blue and white insignia from his uniform, draws his sword, and swears: "By my blood, by my honor, and by God: I will make Brazil free."

Their motto, he said, will be "Independence or Death!"

Pedro's government employs Admiral Thomas Alexander Cochrane, one of Britain's most successful naval commanders in the Napoleonic Wars and recently commander of the Chilean naval forces against Spain.

Pedro's government also hires a number of Admiral Cochrane's officers and French General Pierre Labatut, who had fought in Colombia.

These men are to lead the fight to drive the Portuguese out of Bahia, Maranhao, and Para, and to force those areas to replace Lisbon's rule with that of Rio de Janeiro.

Money from customs at Rio de Janeiro's port and local donations outfits the army and the nine-vessel fleet.

The use of foreign mercenaries brings needed military skills.

The much-feared Cochrane secures Maranhao with a single warship, despite the Portuguese military's attempt to disrupt the economy and society with a scorched-earth campaign and with promises of freedom for the slaves.

By mid-1823 the contending forces number between ten thousand and twenty thousand Portuguese, some of whom are veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, versus twelve thousand to fourteen thousand Brazilians, mostly in militia units from the Northeast.

Some historians have erred in supporting historian Manuel de Oliveira Lima's contention that independence came without bloodshed.

In fact, although both sides avoid massive set battles, they do engage in guerrilla tactics, demonstrations, and countermoves.

There is little information on casualties, but the fighting provides a female martyr in Mother Joana Angelica, who is bayoneted to death by Portuguese troops invading her convent in Bahia; and an example of female grit in Maria Quiteria de Jesus, who, masquerading as a man, joins the imperial army and achieves distinction in several battles.

Britain and Portugal recognize Brazilian independence by signing a treaty on August 29, 1825.

Until no, the Brazilians had feared that Portugal would resume its attack.

Portuguese retribution, however, comes in a financial form.

Secret codicils of the treaty with Portugal require that Brazil assume payment of one million fp=our hundred thousand pounds sterling owed to Britain and indemnify Dom Joao VI and other Portuguese for losses totaling six hundred thousand pounds sterling.

Brazil also renounces future annexation of Portuguese African colonies, and in a side treaty with Britain promises to end the slave trade.

Neither of these measures please the slave-holding planters.

Organizing the new government quickly brings the differences between the emperor and his leading subjects to the fore.

In 1824 Pedro closes the Constituent Assembly that he had convened because he believes that body is endangering liberty.

As assembly members, his advisers, Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva and Dom Pedro's brothers, have written a draft constitution that would limited the monarch by making him equal to the legislature and judiciary, similar to the president of the United States.

They want the emperor to push the draft through without discussion, which Pedro refuses to do.

Troops surround the assembly as he orders it dissolved.

He then produces a constitution modeled on that of Portugal (1822) and France (1814).

It specifies indirect elections and creates the usual three branches of government but also adds a fourth, the moderating power, to be held by the emperor.

The moderating power will give the emperor authority to name senators and judges and to break deadlocks by summoning and dismissing parliaments and cabinets.

He also has treaty-making and treaty-ratifying power.

Pedro's constitution is more liberal than the assembly's in its religious toleration and definition of individual and property rights, but less so in its concentration of power in the emperor.

The constitution is more acceptable in the flourishing, coffee-driven Southeastern provinces than in the Northeastern sugar and cotton areas, where low export prices and the high cost of imported slaves are blamed on the coffee-oriented government.

In mid-1824, with Pernambuco and Ceara leading, five Northeastern provinces declare independence as the Confederation of the Equator, but by year's end the short-lived separation is crushed by Admiral Cochrane.

With the Northeast pacified, violence now imperils the South.

In 1825 war flares again over the Cisplatine Province, this time with Buenos Aires determined to annex the East Bank.

The empire can little afford the troops, some of whom are recruited in Ireland and Germany, or the sixty warships needed to blockade the Rio de la Plata.

A loan from London bankers is expended by 1826, and Pedro has to call the General Assembly to finance the war.

The blockade raises objections from the United States and Britain, and reverses on land in 1827 make it necessary to negotiate an end to the thirty million US dollar Cisplatine War.

The war at least leaves Uruguay independent instead of an Argentine province.

Lord Cochrane, on his own initiative, organizes and leads the capture of Valdivia on February 6, 1820, despite only having three hundred men and two ships to deploy against seven large forts.

Having become a citizen of unrecognized Republic of Chile on December 11, 1818, at the request of Chilean leader Bernardo O'Higgins, he had been appointed Vice Admiral and had taken command of the Chilean Navy in Chile's war of independence against Spain.

Cochrane had reorganized the Chilean navy with British commanders, introducing British naval customs and, formally, English-speaking governance in their warships.

Taking command in the frigate O'Higgins, he had blockaded and raided the coasts of Peru, as he had those of France and Spain.

Cochrane had failed in his attempt to capture the Chiloé Archipelago for Chile.

O'Higgins had ordered him to convoy the Liberation Army of General José de San Martín to Peru, blockade the coast, and support the campaign for independence.

Forces under Cochrane's personal command cut out and capture the frigate Esmeralda, the most powerful Spanish ship in South America, in November 5, 1820.

Okhotsk is ranked just after Barnaul as the neatest, cleanest and most pleasant town in Siberia, according to the observations of the English traveler Captain John Dundas Cochrane in 1822.

An illegitimate son of Scottish adventurer Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, Cochrane comes from a large and adventurous family—he is a cousin of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, and nephew of Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane.

John Dundas Cochrane has crossed France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Russia and Asia to Kamchatka on foot, hence his nickname of the "Pedestrian Traveller" ("voyageur pédestre" in France).

He marries Ksenia Ivanovna Loginova (1807-1870) in 1822; she is an adoptive daughter of Admiral Pyotr Rikord, the Russian governor of Kamchatka.