Andrew of Santa Cruz

Jossef Andrés de Santa Cruz y Calahumana (Huarina, Spanish Empire, November 30, 1792 – Beauvoir-sur-Mer, France, September 25, 1865) was a Bolivian military and politician -Peruvian. He is considered by many historians as the organizer of the Republic of Bolivia.

He was President of the Government Council of Peru (1826-1827), President of Bolivia (1829-1839), Protector of the South-Peruvian and North-Peruvian State (1836), and Protector of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation (1836 -1839). He was named Grand Marshal of Zepita by the Peruvian Government.

Early Years

Andrés de Santa Cruz was born on November 30, 1792 in the department of La Paz in the current town of Huarina. He was baptized on December 5 in the city of La Paz under the name Jossef Andrés de Santa Cruz y Calahumana. Son of a family of colonial nobility formed by the field teacher José de Santa Cruz and Villavicencio, a noble Creole member of the Order of Santiago, a native of Huamanga, today Ayacucho (Peru), and by Juana Basilia Calahumana, heir to a rich mestizo family who claimed descent from the Incas and who held the chieftainship of the town of Huarina (Bolivia), near Lake Titicaca. At the time of birth, Andrés de Santa Cruz was declared Spanish in his baptismal certificate, a term used in the colonies to refer to the white race, although his mestizo features would mean that throughout his life was constantly called by his political enemies as the Indian or the cholo Santa Cruz.

He completed his first studies at the San Francisco school in his hometown and at the San Buenaventura school in Cuzco; In the latter he met who would later be first his ally and then his bitter rival: Agustín Gamarra. From that last school he escaped in 1809 so as not to receive an unjust punishment.

Service in the Royalist Army

At the age of 17 and obeying his father, he joined the royalist army as lieutenant of the "Dragones de Apolobamba" regiment. Thus began his military career, in the context of the invasion of Upper Peru (present-day Bolivia) by troops from the River Plate, at the beginning of the Spanish-American War of Independence. In 1811 he fought in the battle of Huaqui, under the orders of brigadier José Manuel de Goyeneche and after this action he was promoted to lieutenant. He later fought under the orders of General Joaquín de la Pezuela in the battles of Vilcapugio and Ayohúma, in 1813.

In 1815 he participated in the unveiling of the independence uprising of brigadier Mateo Pumacahua, and collaborated in the subsequent extermination of the scattered guerrillas. He then participated in the offensive on Tucumán under the orders of General José de la Serna. He was already a captain when he was taken prisoner together with his commander Mateo Ramírez before Colonel Gregorio Aráoz de Lamadrid and Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Pérez de Uriondo on April 14 and 15, 1817 in the Battle of Tarija. He was a prisoner in Tucumán and was later transferred to Las Bruscas, near Buenos Aires. He escaped on an English ship to Rio de Janeiro and returned to Peru after a long journey. He rejoined the royalist army, and was entrusted with the military command of Chorrillos, from where he was to extend his surveillance to Nazca, to the south. Then he was entrusted with the command of the royalist militias of Carabayllo, the same ones that went on to reinforce the outstanding division in the central highlands to face the patriotic forces of General Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales. After the battle of Cerro de Pasco (December 6, 1820) he was arrested and taken to the patriot headquarters that General José de San Martín had established in Huaura. There he decided to embrace the independence cause (January 8, 1821).

Service in the Peruvian independence army

Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz.

With the rank of colonel, he went on to exercise the provincial government of Piura where he organized two battalions to reinforce the patriot positions in the vicinity of Cuenca (present-day Ecuador).

The liberating current of the North, headed by Bolívar and which had already made Venezuela and New Granada independent, was advancing at that time towards the Presidency of Quito; and, from there, Sucre, Bolívar's lieutenant, would attack the Spaniards who blocked his way in the Sierra Quito. For its part, the Government of the port of Guayaquil, already independent and under the presidency of Joaquín Olmedo, had the commitment of support from San Martín, who commissioned General Juan Antonio Álvarez de Arenales with an auxiliary division for Quito, but when he was ill he did not accept and It was agreed to hand over command to then Colonel Santa Cruz. Thus, the two liberating currents converged, the one from the North (started in Venezuela) and the one from the South (started in Río de la Plata). While Sucre, with his army, represented Greater Colombia, Santa Cruz, with its 1,500 Peruvian soldiers, embodied Peru's contribution to the fight for the emancipation of Quito and America in general. The Battle of Pichincha (May 24, 1822) was fought, which was a great victory for the patriots, who immediately took Quito. As a result of this victory, Santa Cruz was promoted to brigadier general. The Peruvian Congress gave him a medal of merit (October 22, 1822).

After the Quito campaign, Santa Cruz continued to participate in the independence war on Peruvian soil. After the failure of the First Intermediate Campaign, he led a pronouncement on February 26, 1823 that imposed on Congress the dismissal of the Supreme Government Junta of Peru and the appointment of Colonel José de la Riva Agüero as President of the Republic. It was the first coup in Peruvian republican history.

Already prestigious as a competent soldier, he was entrusted with the command of the Second Intermediate Campaign, destined to confront the royalists who still resisted in southern Peru. Before leaving he promised before Congress win or die, but he would do neither one nor the other. He engaged in the battles of Zepita, Sicasica and Ayo, with mixed results, and finally led the disastrous retreat of his army from Desaguadero to the coast, in search of a port to embark on (September 1823).

Santa Cruz withdrew to Piura, and despite his previous failure, Bolívar summoned him to join the Liberation Army, with a view to the final campaign of independence that would be waged in the central and southern Peruvian highlands. He was appointed head of the General Staff of the Peruvian Division and as such participated in the battle of Junín (August 6, 1824), whose part he wrote; then he was appointed prefect of Huamanga, where he remained for the remainder of the campaign, Gamarra taking the headquarters of the General Staff in his place. His task was to keep the army's communications operational, watching its rear, recruiting new forces, and containing the occasional scattered party of royalists. For this reason he did not attend the battle of Ayacucho. He later became Chief of Staff of the Liberation Army during the Alto Peru campaign led by Sucre. In April 1825 he was elevated to the highest rank of Grand Marshal and appointed Prefect of Chuquisaca. In Upper Peru, the new Bolívar Republic (present-day Bolivia) was created, under the auspices of Bolívar and with Sucre as its first president.

President of the Government Council of Peru (1826-1827)

Andrés de Santa Cruz, as president of Peru

During the Government of Simón Bolívar in Peru, Santa Cruz was appointed President of the Government Council, for which he traveled to Lima and took office on June 29, 1826. In such capacity he temporarily exercised supreme power when Bolívar He left Peru on September 3 of the same year. He had to preside over the swearing in of the Constitution for Life on December 9, a constitution drafted and imposed by the Liberator, who was also sworn in in Bolivia.

When the mutiny of the Colombian auxiliary troops stationed in Lima occurred, and the subsequent anti-Bolivarian reaction of the people of Lima (January 27, 1827), Santa Cruz was withdrawn in the summer town of Chorrillos. A popular assembly agreed to call him requesting his permanence in the government, with the task of calling a Constituent Congress and meeting it within three months to elect the Constitutional President and issue a new Constitution. Santa Cruz accepted and went on to preside over a Governing Board, which was made up of Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, José de Morales y Ugalde, José María Galdeano and General Juan Salazar.

In fulfillment of the entrusted mission, Santa Cruz convened the second Constituent Congress of Peru, which after the elections, was installed on June 4 of the same year under the presidency of the priest Francisco Javier de Luna Pizarro, of liberal tendency. Before said assembly, Santa Cruz presented his resignation from his position as President of the Governing Council, but it was not accepted, so he remained in power for a few more days.

The next task of Congress was to elect the President of the Republic. Santa Cruz presented himself as a candidate for President of the Republic and was supported by the conservatives, but the liberal deputies of Congress chose to elect Marshal José de La Mar (June 9, 1827).

Santa Cruz was very dissatisfied with that election, as were other ambitious soldiers such as Agustín Gamarra and Antonio Gutiérrez de la Fuente, so they all formed a triumvirate that set to work for the fall of La Mar, what they would ultimately achieve. But in the meantime, the government kept him away, appointing him as Peru's plenipotentiary minister in Santiago de Chile. He was there when the Peruvian invasion of Bolivia under the command of General Gamarra took place in May 1828, whose objective was to put an end to Bolivarian influence in that country. On July 6, 1828, the Treaty of Piquiza was signed, by which President Antonio José de Sucre renounced the power he exercised in Bolivia and the withdrawal of Colombian troops was agreed. Like Gamarra, Santa Cruz considered that it had been a mistake by Bolívar to separate Upper and Lower Peru, so they set out to reunite them, although each one had a different plan to carry it out.

President of Bolivia (1829-1839)

Andrés de Santa Cruz, President of Bolivia

After the end of Colombian influence in Bolivia, this country was threatened with falling into anarchy. It was then that the Bolivian Congress made a transcendental decision: on January 31, 1829, it elected Santa Cruz as President of Bolivia. Santa Cruz, who was in Chile, asked the Peruvian Congress for permission to assume said investiture, which was granted. On the way to Bolivia he passed through Arequipa, where he married the Peruvian lady Francisca Cernadas with whom he would have numerous offspring. According to a letter of his that dates from that year and that he sent to his friends in Arequipa before leaving for Bolivia, he was already clear about the dream that he proposed to crystallize: to turn Bolivia into the Macedonia of South America, that is, into the unifying of the Andean world, as Macedonia was of the Greek world.

Santa Cruz was sworn in as the provisional Presidency of Bolivia on May 24, 1829; That same day he promulgated an amnesty law and repealed the Lifetime Constitution of 1826. A liberal with an organizing spirit, he promoted a series of reformist measures, pacified the country, reorganized the army, restructured the battered finances and made improvements in the economic and educational fields.

In 1831 he resigned from the provisional command before the Bolivian Assembly (presided over by Casimiro Olañeta), but he was granted power again, with the rank of marshal and captain general of the Bolivian army (he was already Grand Marshal of the Peruvian army and General of the Colombian Army). He was also granted the title of Great Citizen Restorer of the Fatherland.

In practice, Santa Cruz ruled as a dictator. Under his influence, the Bolivian Assembly gave the liberal Constitution of 1831, which, among other measures, established that the president would be elected for four years, with the possibility of re-election. Santa Cruz was elected Constitutional President, but requested extraordinary powers, which were granted after hectic parliamentary debates.

Administrative work

• He set up the Lancasterian schools.
• He created the University of San Andrés, La Paz and the University of San Simón, Cochabamba.
• He created the medical school of La Paz, the national science school and the Military College of Bolivia.
• He made plans for educated young people to go to Europe.
• It fixed the powers of prefects, governors, corrections and mayors of the field.
• He ordered the public estate, resulting in considerable savings.
• It adapted the Civil Code of Napoleon and the draft Criminal Code of the Spanish deputy Calatrava, and the formation of the Code of Procedures and of the Commercial and Mining Codes, by special commissions to which it sometimes took place.
• He made the first census of the republic and the preparation of the first general map of it.
• He signed a trade agreement in France whose first representative then arrived in Bolivia.
• Established a discount and circulation bank.
• It imposed publicity on the investment of public flows through the General Account.
• He built bridges and roads. To learn about regional and local needs, Santa Cruz traveled all over the country, arriving at Cobija in the Pacific Ocean, a port that declared franc to stimulate its trade and also arriving at Tarija on the Argentine border.
• He reorganized and professionalized the Bolivian army, as a means of defense against the danger posed by President Gamarra of Peru's claims, but at the same time planning an eventual invasion of Peru. In this work several foreign military personnel, including German Braun and Irish O’Connor, collaborated. The national guard was also organized.
• A very censurable measure of his was the emission of feble or low-law currency (1830).

Peru-Bolivian Confederation (1836-1839)

Foreword

Photograph by Andrés de Santa Cruz, as Protector of the Confederation.

By then, Peru was living in a state of anarchy. The provisional president of Peru, General Luis José de Orbegoso, was overwhelmed by internal revolts, the last of which was led by General Felipe Santiago Salaverry, who proclaimed himself Supreme Chief of Peru in February 1835, and gradually extended his authority in the rest of the country. Orbegoso withdrew to the south and installed his precarious government in Arequipa.

At that time, Marshal Agustín Gamarra, who was the greatest opponent of the Orbegoso regime, was in exile in Bolivia. Given the critical situation in Peru, Santa Cruz and Gamarra met in Chuquisaca, where they planned to carry out the project of the Bolivian-Peruvian Confederation. This would be made up of three states: North (Peruvian north), Center (Peruvian south) and South (Bolivia) and would bear the name of the Peruvian Republic, with the Peruvian bicolor flag. Gamarra promised to enter Peru through Puno and occupy Cuzco, where he would authorize the declaration of the independence of the State of the Center; for his part, Santa Cruz promised to obtain the support of Arequipa and the elimination of Orbegoso.

Without waiting for the ratification of his pact with Santa Cruz, Gamarra crossed the Peruvian-Bolivian border (May 1835) and occupied Puno and Cuzco, where he achieved the adhesion of important garrisons.

Alarmed by the presence of Gamarra on Peruvian soil, Orbegoso requested the help of Bolivia, making use of an authorization from Congress given during the civil war of 1834, which allowed him to request foreign aid in case the Republic was in serious danger. Santa Cruz was interested in this proposal, which seemed very advantageous to him, and he then decided to put aside his negotiations with Gamarra.It should be noted that Orbegoso was unaware of the agreements between Santa Cruz and Gamarra.

The pact between Santa Cruz and Orbegoso was signed on June 15, 1835 and Santa Cruz himself promised to send his army to Peru to restore order, after which he would guarantee the formation of a representative Assembly of the north Peruvian and another from the south, who had to decide the new form of government of Peru. Immediately afterwards and in compliance with the pact, Santa Cruz invaded Peru with an army of 5,000 Bolivians, who had been preparing for this purpose for years.

Gamarra, enraged with Santa Cruz for having broken the pact they had made in Chuquisaca, decided to ally with Salaverry to face the Bolivians. This alliance was formalized on July 27, 1835, in Cuzco.

War for the Establishment of the Confederacy

General Felipe Santiago Salaverry.

This war had two phases:

• The war between Gamarra and Santa Cruz.
• The war between Salaverry and Santa Cruz.

The first to confront Santa Cruz was Gamarra, who assembled an army in Cuzco, mostly made up of Indians armed with sticks. With such a force, he faced the well-prepared Bolivian army, being defeated in the battle of Yanacocha, on August 13, 1835. Gamarra managed to escape and went to Lima, being later exiled to Costa Rica by the same Salaverrista authorities, suspicious of the presence of he.

Simultaneously, Salaverry set out for southern Peru, declaring war to the death on the Bolivians. He seized Arequipa, but could not reverse the fact that most of southern Peru sympathized with the federation with Bolivia and gave its support to Santa Cruz, so his forces were diminished.

After an initial victory in the battle of Uchumayo, Salaverry was totally defeated by Santa Cruz in the battle of Socabaya, on February 7, 1836, and shot on the 18th in Arequipa.

The Confederacy

The assembly of the southern departments of Peru (Cuzco, Arequipa, Ayacucho and Puno), meeting in Sicuani, created the Southern Peruvian State and appointed Santa Cruz as its Supreme Protector (March 1836). A few months later, the assembly of the northern departments (Amazonas, Lima, La Libertad and Junín) met in Huaura (August 1836), which agreed to the creation of the North Peruvian State, also granting political power to Santa Cruz as Supreme Protector.. On the other hand, in Bolivia an Extraordinary Congress (Tapacarí Congress) met in June that authorized Santa Cruz to carry out the project of the Confederation.

On August 16, 1836, Santa Cruz took possession of the supreme command in Lima, in his capacity as Supreme Protector of the North Peruvian State, as he already was of the South Peruvian State; he also retained the presidency of Bolivia. By decree given on October 28 of the same year, he established the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, made up of the three states or republics:

• The State Nor Peruano with capital in Lima.
• The Peruvian South State, with capital in Tacna.
• The Bolivian State, with capital in La Paz.

Santa Cruz then convened a congress of plenipotentiaries from the three states, the so-called Congress of Tacna, to discuss the bases of the administrative structure of the Confederation. This Congress gave the so-called "Fundamental Law of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation", better known as the Pact of Tacna (May 1, 1837), which served as a magna carta or political constitution. According to this document, each State would have its own government, but there would be a central executive power (Protectorate) and a general legislative power (a Congress with two chambers: that of senators and that of representatives). Santa Cruz was designated as Protector of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, with a term of government of ten years, with the possibility of continuous re-election.

As the Pact of Tacna did not satisfy Bolivia or the two Perus, mainly because the plenipotentiaries of the Congress had been imposed by Santa Cruz, he decided to convene a new Congress, on March 13, 1838. But the The war unleashed by Chile and the Peruvian émigrés against the Confederation prevented the meeting of that new assembly.

Administrative work

In this respect his work was vast:

• He reorganized the administration of justice.
• It issued a Trade Regulations, and its complement, a Customs Regulation.
• He ran the national statistics.
• It carried out a census in the Peruvian territory, which gave a population of 1,373,736 inhabitants.
• It established better monitoring of income and expenditure. The national budget deficit disappeared.
• He created the ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs and War and Marina.
• He created the Legion of Honor, in imitation of the French.
• In Peru, civil, criminal and prosecution codes, as well as the Rules of Courts, were already in force. Although the nationalism of the Peruvians hurt, these measures meant substantial progress, as they replaced the old and confusing colonial legislation with another more modern one.
• It encouraged wheat and sugarcane crops, as well as the export of sheep and cotton wool.
• The mining of gold, silver, copper, azogue and salitre increased.
• He declared free ports (that is, open to international maritime traffic) to those of Arica, Cobija, Callao and Paita, all of which meant a rough blow for the marine trade of the Chilean port of Valparaíso.
• He improved the services of Charity and Public Instruction.
• It improved the National Library of Peru.

End of the Confederacy

The Marshal Agustín Gamarra, the conned adversary of Santa Cruz.

The establishment of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, as well as the figure of Santa Cruz as its highest authority, generated discontent from the governments of Chile and Argentina, but much more from the first than the second. At that time, the staunchest enemy of the Confederation governed Chile: Minister Diego Portales. Although José Joaquín Prieto was the president of Chile, Portales was the one who in fact ruled the country, holding three of the four existing ministries (Interior and Foreign Relations; Justice, Worship and Public Instruction; War and Navy, that is, all except the Treasury.). Portales glimpsed the danger that the consolidation of the Confederation meant for the interests of Chile, since under its shadow the continental hegemony that he yearned for his country could not be achieved.

Adducing a series of pretexts, the Chilean government declared war on the Confederation (December 26, 1836). Although the idea of going to war against the Confederation was extremely unpopular in Chilean public opinion, the death of Portales, on June 3, 1837, shot in Valparaíso at the hands of a battalion that mutinied precisely because he was against the war Paradoxically, it paved the way for Chile's definitive entry into the war instigated by Portales himself, a cause that now, after the death of the minister, enjoyed great popular support.

The Chileans sent a first expedition to Peru, called "Restauradora" and which was commanded by Admiral Manuel Blanco Encalada, and with the support of opposition Peruvian émigrés from Santa Cruz, headed by General Antonio Gutiérrez de la Fuente. After disembarking in Islay and occupying Arequipa, the restorers did not receive the support of the population and were surrounded by the Confederate forces under the command of Santa Cruz himself. Both parties celebrated a peace treaty, called the Treaty of Paucarpata (November 17, 1837), by which Santa Cruz allowed the Chileans to return to their homeland, provided they recognized the Confederation. While on the other front, the Bolivians contained the Argentine offensive, the Bolivian army, under the command of General Otto Philipp Braun, defeated the Argentine Confederation in the Battle of Montenegro, achieving their withdrawal in the Tarija area and even crossing the border. and threatened the city of Jujuy..

The Chilean government ignored the Treaty of Paucarpata and a second Restoration Expedition left Valparaíso. It was under the command of the Chilean general Manuel Bulnes, and also had the support of the Peruvian émigrés, led this time by Agustín Gamarra (United Restoring Army). This expedition landed in Ancón, some 37 km north of Lima, that is, in the territory of the North-Peruvian State, where the cause of the confederation was not as popular as in the south. The president of said State, Mariscal Orbegoso, assumed a pure Peruvian position and set out to expel both the Chileans and the Bolivians, but was defeated by the restaurateurs in the combat of Portada de Guías, on the outskirts of Lima (August 21). of 1838). The restorers entered Lima and Gamarra was proclaimed as Provisional President of Peru; but in November of the same year they had to abandon Lima, which returned to the confederates.

The restorers then decided to change the scene of the fight. They withdrew to the Callejón de Huaylas, in northern Peru, where they provisioned and reorganized. After an indecisive first encounter in Buin, the confederates, led by Santa Cruz, were definitively defeated in the battle of Yungay (January 20, 1839).

Santa Cruz hurriedly fled to Lima, where he arrived after four days of riding. With tears in his eyes he informed a few friends of the defeat he had suffered. But he did not give up and marched towards Arequipa with the purpose of going up to Bolivia and starting a reconquest war. But when he arrived in Arequipa, he found out that the Bolivian generals Ballivián and Velasco had risen up against him. Seeing, then, all lost, he renounced all power from him on February 20, 1839, and headed for the port of Islay accompanied by some loyal officers. There he embarked on the English frigate Sammarang , bound for Ecuador. Thus he ended his government as protector of the Peruvian and Bolivian binational state.

Banishment

Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz. Photo of the Courret Archive.

He lived for some time in Guayaquil and then in Quito. Knowing that his name was invoked in successive pronouncements, he tried to return to Bolivia. After disembarking in the Camarones cove, he was arrested on November 2, 1843. Alarmed by his presence, representatives of the governments of Peru, Bolivia and Chile met to decide his fate, considering him a disturber of public order. He was handed over to the Chilean government, which confined him in Chillán, with all kinds of comforts, in the south of the country (including hiring a French cook to take care of feeding him). President Manuel Bulnes appointed Commander Benjamín Viel to accompany, protect and guard Santa Cruz. There the wise Domeyko visited him, who wrote the impressions that the old Protector produced on him:

For his face and figure he had the air of a simple Indian of the Bolivian mountain ranges. Of a size as small as Thiers, skinny, dry, of a coated color, narrow forehead and black and thick hairs. His eyes were black with ebony, bright; but with an expression of distrust, his cheeks wide and outgoing, and his lips thick; the face seemed always shaved. The sadness was not seen in him. He had no air to meditate much on what he was talking about; however, he did not say nonsense. His judgment was right, with some penetration and practical spirit, but with little science. He kept dreaming of the revolution and the conquest of his throne. He kept secret communications with his supporters of La Paz and Potosí, and more than once he managed to mock surveillance...

This confinement provoked protests from the governments of Ecuador, France and England, so that after a new agreement between Chile, Bolivia and Peru it was arranged for him to leave American soil and leave for Europe (December 17, 1845). He went on to France, where after some inconvenience, he served as Bolivia's minister plenipotentiary from 1848 to 1855.

Last years

He returned from exile in 1855, running that same year from Argentina for the presidency of Bolivia, but was defeated by General Jorge Córdova. This, already president, was uncomfortable that Santa Cruz decided to settle in the Argentine province of Salta near the border with Bolivia, for which he obtained that he be removed from there, then settling in the province of Entre Ríos.

During his stay in Argentina, he linked up with the family of President Justo José de Urquiza, whose daughter he married his son Simón. Some time later she returned to France and settled in Versailles, where her family lived. After a journey as ambassador, diplomat and minister plenipotentiary, he died on September 25, 1865 in Beauvoir-sur-Mer, near Nantes, and was buried in Versailles. Shortly before, upon learning of the conflict between Spain and Peru, he had written an exciting letter to Peruvian President Juan Antonio Pezet recalling the glories of independence and offering himself for whatever was necessary.

Repatriation of your remains

In 1965, on the occasion of the centenary of his death, the remains of Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz were repatriated from France and transferred in a solemn ceremony to the Cathedral of Peace where they rest until today.

Interpretation of her figure

Bust of Santa Cruz in the Pantheon of the Proceres in Lima

For Bolivian and part of Peruvian historiography, Santa Cruz is an outstanding character, considered a great leader, winner of independence, skilful politician and administrator. For Bolivians in particular, he is the caudillo who led his nation to a time of maximum apogee, which he has never seen again.

The Peruvian position is divided. For many Peruvians, Santa Cruz symbolized the desire for union between Upper and Lower Peru, and the administrative work that he carried out and that produced a time, albeit short, of order and progress in all aspects, is highlighted. However, for his Peruvian opponents, Santa Cruz represented a serious danger to the unity and independence of Peru. He is based on the fact that the confederation project, imposed with arms and without consulting the popular will, was fundamentally fragile and everything indicated that sooner or later it would collapse; The greatest danger lay in the fact that, apparently, Santa Cruz's minimal expansionist plan was to annex southern Peru to Bolivia, for which reason Peru ran a serious risk in those years of being reduced to the territory of the North-Peruvian State. We also know that when he was exiled to Ecuador in 1839, he asked this republic for support in his attempt to retake power in Peru, with the promise of ceding territory to him, once his plan was carried out.

Controversy over his nationality

Andrés de Santa Cruz, with the flags of Peru and Bolivia, 1829

Until before 1825, the year in which the Republic of Bolívar was created, the inhabitants of Charcas were called by the traditional colonial denomination “Altoperuanos” and in more general terms, simply Peruvians. With the creation of Bolivia, the Bolivian term began to be extended to those who were originally from the regions included in the new republic even if they had been born on earlier dates, as was the case of Santa Cruz, born in La Paz.

When the Peruvian troops led by General Agustín Gamarra forced the departure of Sucre from Bolivia and a transitional government headed by José Miguel de Velasco was installed there, he, by popular request, called Santa Cruz to assume power in Bolivia. Santa Cruz, who was in Chile fulfilling diplomatic functions at the service of the Peruvian state, then stated that it was in Peru where he had "his best friends" and where he felt bound "by gratitude and blood" and where his efforts " protected by fortune, they have been consecrated by affection», but in the face of the deep evils that his homeland suffered and the cordial appeals that its inhabitants made to him, he would go there, also stating that he wanted Bolivia «always a friend of Peru»; some historians believe they see in this phrase the maturation of the Santa Cruz project to unify both states, dated 1829.

Before leaving for Bolivia, Santa Cruz asked the Peruvian Congress for permission to assume the presidency of Bolivia, which was granted. Both nations therefore considered him as one of their own. But political whims would upset all this.

When the war for the establishment of the confederation broke out, Santa Cruz's enemies in Peru (represented by Gamarra, Salaverry and the coastal elites) considered him a foreign usurper. Defeated at first, they went to Ecuador and Chile as emigrants and did not give up their intention to return and end the Confederation. Finally they obtained the help of Chile, which organized two expeditions called "restorers". Discontent also arose in Bolivia where Santa Cruz was accused of being a Peruvian. After the defeat of Santa Cruz and the dissolution of the Confederation in 1839, in Peru the ousted Protector continued to be considered an upstart, however this did not prevent his figure from being included later in various biographical works on prominent Peruvian personalities, as well as in Bolivia, where some time after his fall he was vindicated in life, holding some public positions in that country, unlike Peru where he was completely cut off from the government after his defeat in Yungay.

Marriage and offspring

Santa Cruz, accompanied by his family, in La Paz.

He married in January 1829, in Arequipa, with the lady from Cuzco María Francisca de Paula Cernadas y de la Cámara, daughter of Galician Pedro Antonio de Cernadas y Bermúdez de Castro, oidor of Real Audiencia of Cuzco, and Eulalia de la Cámara y Mollinedo from Cusco, with whom he had:

• Simon Andrés Rafael de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1831-1911). He was born in La Paz and died in Buenos Aires.
• Pedro Octavio de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1833). He was born in La Paz and died in two days.
• María Trinidad Eulalia Enriqueta de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1834-1897). He was born in La Paz and died in (without data).
• Elena Basilia de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1837-1916). He was born in La Paz and died in Buenos Aires.
• Andrés Octavio de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1841-1914). He was born in Quito and died in Versailles.
• María Mercedes Clementina de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1845-1892). He was born in Bordeaux and died in Versailles.
• María Victoria de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1846-1932). He was born in Bordeaux and died in Versailles.
• Manuel Alejandro Óscar de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1849-1933). He was born in Paris and died in La Paz. He has a son in La Paz with Maria Enriqueta Schuhkrafft Mendoza: Enrique Santa Cruz Schuhkrafft (1893-1980).
• Andrés Domingo Friso de Santa Cruz y Cernadas (1854-1887). He was born in Paris and died in Versailles.

Aymara, Peruvian and Spanish lineage

The surname Santa Cruz came from Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain, being the great-great-grandfather Francisco V. de Santa Cruz y López Salcedo the first representative of that Hispanic lineage in Peruvian lands with the position of General of the EE.RR of the King of Spain at the end of the XVII century (1699), in Lima he married the Lima lady María de Castro, together her Peruvian son was born to her in Lima: General José Andrés de Santa Cruz y Castro (Andrés' grandfather), José Andrés married the Lima lady Ildefonsa de Villavicencio e Ibáñez, daughter of Spaniards settled in Huamanga, her father being Corregidor de Huamanga: Jerónimo Agustín Fernández de Villavicencio y Morla.

From the union of José Andrés and Ildefonsa was born in 1744 the father of Andrés, Colonel José de Santa Cruz y Villavicencio, a native of Huamanga (today Ayacucho), who for work reasons arrived in La Paz - Alto Peru and got married with the Aymara mestizo lady Juana Basilia de Calahumana y Salazar, a native of Huarina (Andrés's mother).

The maternal grandparents came from a Peruvian Creole lineage and Inca curacazgo being the parents of Juana Basilia: General Matías de Calahumana y Jambaique, a native of Huarina, born in 1744 in Audiencia de Charcas - Viceroyalty of Peru, son of Aymara chiefs and married to Juana Justa de Salazar y Vargas (lady from La Paz Creole in Huarina).

Finally, this lineage continued with the union of Santa Cruz with the Cusco lady María Francisca de Paula Cernadas y de la Cámara, daughter of the Spanish Pedro Antonio de Cernadas y Bermúdez de Castro (Oidor of the Royal Court of Cuzco), a natural from Galicia and Eulalia de la Cámara y Mollinedo, a Creole from Cuzco. Nine children were born from this union, leaving several descendants in Bolivia, Argentina, Peru and France.

Physical and psychological description

Physically it was Santa Cruz strong and robust. On the recamada casca, usually ornate of medals and crowned by two thick charreteras and by a embroidered, tall and hard neck, a face with a certain arrogance was born, not martial within the fashion of the beard that was then used. The color was cobrizo, with cholo, detail that did not leave aside their enemies when fighting it in writing. The eyes, black and almond, had a vivid bird look that used to hide and never surrendered to the interlocutor. Two small groves descended from the lip comisures, giving the face an expression of cunning and experience. Although zealous to give his position respectability and maximum decorum, reaching formulism and sumptuousness, he was personally sober and economic. Hosco and hurrah, of his person emanated a certain coldness. He kept his affections for his own—his wife and children—and, consciously, premeditatedly, he chose for his enemies the treatment of surprising generosity or implacable cruelty. In short, perhaps he did not inspire fascination, but he deserves respect and admiration.

Jorge Basadre Grohmann

Law removing General Santa Cruz from all honors

In Peru he is dismissed from all his honors by Agustín Gamarra, on September 21, 1839

THE CIUDADAN AGUSTÍN GAMARRA,

GREAT MARISCAL OF NATIONAL EJECTS, PROVISORY PRESIDENT OF THE PERUANA REPUBLIC, ETC. As the General Congress has issued the following decree: THE GENERAL CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC CONSIDERING:

I. That the former president of Bolivia Andrés Santa Cruz breaking
of nations and pre-existing treaties with Peru,
held with Luis José Orbegoso La Paz, 15 June
1835, to destroy the unity, integrity and independence of Peru and
their fundamental laws;
II. That even without waiting for the ratification of the traitor Orbegoso, he introduced his
Army in the Peruvian territory, thus manifesting its
true intention to invade and conquer it without ambush, which has
publicly confessed in a letter he addressed from the Cuzco to his
accomplice the traitor, answering the charges he did to another
of 3 August 1838;
III. That by stepping on the invader the Peruvian territory declared in Puno 10 of
July its system of dividing and holding with its bayonets
treaty;
IV. That after having killed the prisoners of Yanacocha,
declared by their decrees of 17 and 19 August that they would have the same
all citizens of Peru who did not harass the Army
national, putting General Salaverry, the heads and the
to writers who oppose their plan of invasion and conquest;
V. That consistent with such horrible principles has shed in the
every one raised in the squares of Arequipa Cuzco, the blood of
the same prisoners, with whom during the struggle had agreed
the regularization of war, which has also condemned
innumerable Peruvian expatriation, and reduced to slavery
soldiers prisoners to serve in their farms;
VI. That at the time of his command he destroyed the Republic
Peruana; extinct the illustration; degraded the illustration vilely and purposely
the dignity of Peru and the honour of their children;
future rest; disrupted its legal regime and fundamental laws
of the representative popular system, giving in all the fatal example of
the armed intervention and the conquest, which threatened all
to all South American Republics;
VII. That launched from the Peruvian territory by the indignation of the peoples
and after his defeat in Ancash faked
ridiculously conforming to his fate, publishing decrees
resignation and voluntary resignation from the command in Peru
Bolivia, continues to conspire from Guayaquil against freedom and
Independence of the same Republics, drawing attention
general by such abominable conduct; and in order that it is absolute
need to take security measures and repression against the
enemy of the freedoms of America.
DECLARA:
Andrés Santa Cruz is the capital enemy of Peru;
And as a consequence he decrees:
Article 1. Andrés Santa-Cruz has lost all rights, honors and
jobs he got in Peru before the invasion.
Article 2. All public officials and citizens are authorized to
surrender him alive or dead if he ever dare to tread on the Peruvian territory.
Article 3. The one who does it, is benemerit to the homeland and creditor to the
rewards that the government has to point out for such important service
the cause of America.
Article 4. They are subject to the penalties set against the traitors all
authorities or persons who knowingly refuse to apprehend him or
contribute to your evasion in the case of presenting at any point in the
Republic.
Contact the Executive Branch to provide the necessary
compliance by sending it to print, publish and circulate.
Given in the conference room in Huancayo, 21 September 1839.
Juan Francisco de Reyes, Vice President.– Pius Vicente Rosel, Representative Secretary.– Ramon Aspur, Deputy Secretary. The Minister of State in the office of Government and Foreign Affairs is responsible for its implementation. Therefore, print, post and circle. Given at the government house in Huancayo, 21 September 1839. Agustín Gamarra

By order of S. E.– Benito Laso

Congress of the Republic of Peru

In Bolivia, he is removed from all his honors by José Miguel de Velasco, on November 2, 1839.

JOSE MIGUEL DE VELASCO

PROVISORY PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
He declares a traitor to the country and unworthy of the Bolivian name to Mr. Andres Santa Cruz; he puts him out of the law and sends him out of the civil and military lists. Provisions relating to Mr. Calvo and his Ministry. Relative to the triple treaty of 11 November of 845 and the provisions of 29 January and 27 October of 55.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL GENERAL CONGRESS OF BOLIVIA. DECLARA. Don Andres Santa Cruz, President of Bolivia, has resorted to the crimes of betrayal and usurpation, that he was responsible, according to article 73 of the Constitution of 1834, for the following acts:
1.o For having directly influenced, with coercive measures and violence, the popular elections.
2. For having in fact destroyed the independence and sovereignty of Bolivia, establishing a regime of government, contrary to the Constitution of the Republic.
3.o For having plucked out of the Lejislative Corps resolutions contrary to the then victorious constitution, destroying the inviolability of the Deputies, with the prisoner of a verified Senator at the time of extraordinary meeting the Congress, in the city of Cochabamba.
4.o For having ratified public treaties, without prior consent of the Congress, as required by article 74 case 20 of the Constitution.
5.o For having committed Bolivia to wars against the Republics of Chile and the Rio de la Plata, without prior consent of the Congress.
6.o For having admitted jobs, titles and emoluments of another Government, without permission from the Senate.
7. For having operated in Bolivia unfamiliar authorities in the Constitution and having made them give obedience, even to the Ministers of State.
8. For having given different laws on all branches of public administration, and having invested with unlimited extraordinary powers, without permission from Congress or the Council of State in its case.
9. For having dilapidated public funds, suppressed national incomes. And passing them to the alien, so-pretest of a common customs.
10. For having stripped of his nationality to the Bolivian Army, consolidating it in the so-called Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation.
11. For having violated the secret of private correspondence.
12. For suffocating the freedom of printing.

And I'm sure you're right.
Article 1.o.- It is declared to D. Andres Santa Cruz, President of Bolivia, to assign traitor to the country, unworthy of the Bolivian name, erased from the civil and military lists of the Republic and put out of the law, from the moment he asked for his territory.
Article 2. The disstitution, which the peoples made in February last, of the Ex-Vice-President Mariano Enrique Calvo, and of its Ministers Andres Maria Torrico, and Felipe Braun, is declared just and legitimate.
Article 3.o.- Being declared by the law of August 27 last the pecuniary responsibility of the past administration, for having dispelled the funds of the National Treasury and usurped other powers; the executive will take care to make it effective before the Supreme Court of Justice.

Congress of the Republic of Bolivia