Peru: Independence Movement

Peru's path to independence began later than in many other Spanish American territories. The 1808 Napoleonic invasion of Spain destabilized royal authority throughout the empire, but Peru's conservative colonial elite, the substantial Spanish population in Lima, and the concentration of royalist military strength in the viceroyalty meant that Peru remained a stronghold of loyalist resistance well into the 1820s, even as neighboring regions moved toward self-rule.

Momentum shifted with the campaigns of Jose de San Martin, the Argentine general who had already helped secure independence for Argentina and Chile. After leading an army across the Andes in 1817 to liberate Chile, San Martin organized a combined naval and land expedition against Peru, landing forces and occupying the port of Pisco in September 1820. As royalist troops withdrew inland rather than risk battle, San Martin entered Lima and formally declared Peruvian independence on July 28, 1821, becoming the country's Protector.

San Martin's position proved difficult to sustain, and remaining royalist forces held much of the interior. Seeking reinforcements, he met Simon Bolivar at Guayaquil in 1822, but the two leaders could not agree on how to proceed, and San Martin withdrew from the struggle. Bolivar's forces, under the field command of Antonio Jose de Sucre, went on to defeat the last major royalist army at the Battle of Ayacucho in December 1824, an engagement widely regarded as securing Peru's independence and effectively ending Spanish rule on the South American mainland.