The so-called Early Horizon (1400–400 BC) was an era of architectural innovation and activity, which is most evident in the ruins of Chavín de Huantar, on the eastern slopes of the Andes in Peru. However politically Bolivia was split between Conservatives and Liberals. In 1884 Bolivia lost the strip of coast she controlled and became a landlocked country. Alto Perú, which would later become Bolivia, fell for a brief time into the possession of Diego de Almagro, who was assassinated in 1538. Within a year Francisco Pizarro, Diego de Almagro and their bands of merry conquistadores arrived in Cuzco. One theory speculates that Tiahuanaco was uprooted by a drop in Lake Titicaca’s water level, which left the lakeside settlement far from shore. Olañeta, convinced that these measures threatened royal authority, refused to join either the liberal royalist forces or the rebel armies under the command of Bolívar and Antonio José de Sucre. After the fall of Tiwanaku empire, the many Aymara Lake Titicaca were conquered by the Inca empire. Both revolts were put down by forces sent to La Paz by the viceroys of Peru and the Río de La Plata.[10]. After less than a year in power, Torres was overthrown in a bloody coup d'état led by the colonel Hugo Banzer, supported by the Brazilian military regime and the United States. In 1903, a piece of Bolivia’s Acre Province, rich in rubber, was ceded to Brazil; and in 1938, after losing the Chaco War of 1932-1935 to Paraguay, Bolivia gave up its claim to nearly 100,000 sq mi of the Gran Chaco. McAndrews, Timothy L. et al. The Oriente includes much of the northern departments of Beni and Pando, where the low plains are covered by savanna and, in the far north, by expanses of tropical rainforest. In 1537 Manco Inca, whom the Spanish had established as a puppet emperor, rebelled against the new rulers and restored a "neo-Inca" state. The Kollas living around the Tiahuanaco site were essentially absorbed by the Inca and their religion was supplanted, but they were permitted to keep their language and social traditions. After heavy fighting the military was defeated and Paz Estenssoro finally took power. Tangible history lives on in most of Bolivia’s best known destinations. The continuing legal battle attracted attention from anti-globalization and anti-capitalist groups. In February 2009 a new constitution was enacted by Evo Morales. The series of canals were built up with layer upon layer of substances – cobblestone topped with gravel and impermeable clay – designed to keep salt from the lake’s brackish waters from seeping into the topsoil. Easily susceptible to European diseases, the native population decreased rapidly. The Indians believed they could revamp the old Inca Empire and replace the unjust and oppressive Spanish rule. Bolivia's defeat by Paraguay in the Chaco War (1932–1935) marked a turning point. to have been tainted by clear signs[example needed] of electoral fraud[citation needed]. The country has a rich history. Llama, alpaca and vicuña were domesticated and used for transport, food and clothing. Extending some 950 miles (1,500 km) north-south and 800 miles (1,300 km) east-west, Bolivia is bordered to the north and east by Brazil, to the southeast by Paraguay, to the south by Argentina, to the southwest and west by Chile, and to the northwest by Peru. But its government is not stable, because it is supported only by a minority of the army and the country's middle class. 4 (2008): 110-124. His government was notorious for human rights abuses, narcotics trafficking, and economic mismanagement. Hyperinflation had reached an annual rate of 24,000%. The miners’ complaints against outrageous working conditions, pitifully low pay and the export of profits to Europe, raised the political consciousness of all Bolivian workers. In 1964, a military junta overthrew President Estenssoro at the outset of his third term. The so-called Federal Revolution ended with the Liberals seizing power. To encourage the settlement of the Amazon, he promoted road building (with Japanese aid) in the wilderness and opened up vast indigenous lands and pristine rain forest to logging interests. The constitutional capital is the historic city of Sucre, where the Supreme Court is established, but the administrative capital is La Paz, where the executive and legislative branches of government function. In 1524, the Spanish conquest began and was mostly completed by the year 1533. With Standard Oil backing Bolivia and Shell siding with Paraguay, Bolivia entered into the Chaco War. The Inquisition had not kept the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and others out of Spanish America; their ideas were often discussed by criollos, especially those educated at the university in Chuquisaca. The viceroy was aided by the audiencia (council), which was simultaneously the highest court of appeal in the jurisdiction and, in the absence of the viceroy, also had administrative and executive powers. by clicking the Privacy policy link at the bottom of the page. The following discussion focuses on events in Bolivia since the time of European conquest. However the new republic of Bolivia faced an economic depression and many silver mines were abandoned. It began when Napoleon's army occupied Spain and he deposed the Spanish king and made his brother Joseph king of Spain. Lake Titicaca, one famous natural feature of Bolivia, is the highest lake in the world that is deep enough for sailing a... Bolivia has one of the highest degrees of income inequality in the world. A SHORT HISTORY OF BOLIVIA. The military stayed out of politics, and all major political parties publicly and institutionally committed themselves to democracy. It created an intendancy system, giving extensive powers to highly qualified officials who were directly responsible to the king. The Gateway of the Sun from the Tiwanaku civilization in BoliviaAfter 12 years of tumultuous rule left the MNR divided. In the 1997 elections, Gen. Hugo Banzer, leader of the ADN, won 22% of the vote, while the MNR candidate won 18%. already dissatisfied with Spanish rule that was the last straw. Francisco Pizarro, Diego de Almagro, and Hernando de Luque led the Spanish discovery and conquest of the Inca empire. Ancient Bolivia. From the high, snowcapped slopes of the Cordillera Real and the Apolobamba range, the descent to the eastern plains is extremely precipitous, plunging through a rainy and heavily forested belt of rugged terrain known as the Yungas—an Aymara word roughly translated as “Warm Lands” or “Warm Valleys.” The Yungas form the southern end of a region that extends along the eastern Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (where it is called the Alto Selva [“High Rainforest”]) and continues southeast through Bolivia as far as Santa Cruz. Olañeta was killed by his own men on 1 April 1825. The church was tolerant of local Native American religions. 2018 Pizarro killed Atahualpa's 12-man honor guard and took the Inca captive at the so-called ransom room. But in 2005, rising fuel prices led to major protests. During most of the Spanish colonial period, this territory was under the authority of the Viceroyalty of Peru. He undertook a privatization campaign and under him, the Bolivian economy grew. The result was a war called the War of the Pacific. Only with the execution of Gonzalo Pizarro in 1548 did the Spanish crown succeed in reasserting its authority; later that year colonial authorities established the city of La Paz, which soon became an important commercial center. When the Spanish arrived, they heard an Inca legend about a battle between the Kollas and ‘bearded white men’ on an island in Lake Titicaca. Olañeta did not relinquish his command even after the Peruvian royalists included him and his forces in their capitulation agreement following their defeat in the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824. He was succeeded by his vice-president, Jorge Quiroga. Contact Lonely Planet. It had been offered to both Chile and Argentina, the former in exchange for return of the Litoral, the latter in exchange for clarification over Bolivia’s ownership of Tarija. They had a point: while potential investors clamored for the oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) and the huge agribusinesses of the Santa Cruz department, the antiquated Comibol mining operations and the hopelessly inefficient Empresa Nacional de Ferrocarriles (ENFE) railways drew little more than polite sneers (and many components of these operations have indeed closed down). Although Banzer and Sánchez were placed ahead of Paz Zamora, no candidate received a majority, so it was left to the National Congress to select a winner.