The territory comprising the Audiencia de Charcas,…

The territory comprising the Audiencia de Charcas, also known as Alto Perú, now Bolivia, had been an integral province of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru from its creation.

In 1776, it was administratively severed and became a province of the newly created Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.

For geographical and historical reasons, it always remained closer to Lima than to its administrative capital, Buenos Aires, in present-day Argentina.

Marshall Andrés de Santa Cruz, named President of the Government Council in Lima in April 1825, had been left in charge of the Peruvian Executive after Bolívar returned to the Greater Colombia on September 4, 1826 until the collapse of the Bolivarian regime in Peru on January 27, 1827.

He had then assumed the post of President up to June 9, 1827 when Congress had elected José La Mar.

Removed from power, Santa Cruz had been named Peruvian ambassador to Chile, but is now recalled from Bolivia where he has been proclaimed as President.

Sworn in on May 24, 1829, he finds a country afflicted by endemic internal disorders and very near to bankruptcy.

Measures undertaken to resolve this problems include purging conspirators, reforming and strengthening the Army, reforming the bureaucracy, reforming public finances, issuing new currency, issuing a new Constitution, issuing a new Civil Code based on the Napoleonic Code and establishing Cobija as a free port.

The authoritarian regime imposed by Santa Cruz, who commands the respect of Amerindians in both Bolivia and Peru, brings stability to Bolivia at a time when most countries in Latin America face widespread unrest.

Furthermore, it forms a solid base from which to pursue his main project, the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, an ambitious project to reunite the territories of Bolivia and Peru based on a confederacy.