Indian participation in the War of Independence of the Charcas

The war for independence on the territory of modern Bolivia lasted for 15 years. It was a war of military liberation campaigns, patriot uprisings, and guerrilla movements that made the territory of this colony of Spain a place where no royalist victory guaranteed tranquility. Charcas was a place where the vast majority of the population belonged to the indigenous Amerindian peoples, Aymara and Quechua, on whose labor the welfare of the colony and the wealth of the metropolis were built. The fate of Bolivian independence largely depended on the position of this majority. The Indians were an important actor in the Charcas War of Independence, the fate of the warring parties depended on their position, but they never took sides, but acted in accordance with their opportunistic interests, entering into ad hoc alliances with the Creoles, Mestizos, and Spaniards. Their goal was to maintain a "pact of reciprocity" with the white world, whether with the Crown, whether with the Patriots, which implied the preservation of Indian autonomy and guarantees of limited exploitation. The goal of the Indians was their survival as a communal people, the recognition by the new political forces of the special rights and interests of these peasant peoples. They managed to defend this special "project" within the framework of cardinal changes of the times of the War of Independence, so the restoration of the old regime by republican governments just a couple of years after the declaration of independence of the countries did not cause discontent and indignation of the Indian population.

War of Independence, Indian peoples, Charcas, Bolivia, republicans, royalists, patriots