Sucre: History

Pre-20th-Century History

Prior to Spanish domination, the town of Charcas, where Sucre now stands, was the indigenous capital of the valley of Choque-Chaca. When the Spanish arrived, the entire area from Southern Peru to the Río de la Plata in present-day Argentina came to be known as Charcas.

In the early 1530s Francisco Pizarro, the conquistador who felled the Inca empire, sent his brother Gonzalo to the Charcas region to oversee indigenous mining activities that might prove valuable to the Spanish realm. As a direct result, in 1538 a new Spanish capital of the Charcas was founded. The city, later to become Sucre, was named La Plata.

Whereas previously all territories in the region had been governed from Lima, in 1559 King Felipe II (Philip II) created the Audiencia (Royal Court) of Charcas, with its headquarters in the young city, to help administer the eastern territories.

In 1776, a new Viceroyalty was established in what is now Buenos Aires, and the Charcas came under its control. The city became known as Chuquisaca (a Spanish corruption of Choque-Chaca). During the 17th century, the city received an archbishopric, established the University of San Xavier and opened the Academía Carolina law school - factors which fostered continued development of liberal and revolutionary ideas and set the stage for 'the first cry of Independence in the Americas' on May 25, 1809.

The minirevolution set off the alarm throughout Spanish America and, like ninepins, the northwestern South American republics were liberated by the armies of the military genius Simón Bolívar. After the definitive liberation of Peru, Alto Peru, historically tied to the Lima government, was technically free of Spanish rule and disputes soon arose about what to do with the territory.

On February 9, 1825 Bolívar's second-in-command, General Antonio José de Sucre, delivered a declaration that rejected Buenos Aires authority and suggested that the political future of the region should be determined by the provinces themselves. Bolívar rejected the idea, but de Sucre stood his ground, convinced that there was sufficient separatist sentiment in Alto Peru to back him up. As he expected, the people of the region refused to wait for a decision from the new congress and rejected subsequent invitations to join the Buenos Aires government.

On August 6, the first anniversary of the Battle of Junín, independence was declared in the Casa de la Libertad at Chuquisaca and the new republic was christened Bolivia, after its liberator. On August 11 the city's name was changed for the final time to Sucre, in honor of the general who had promoted the independence movement.

Modern History

Sucre became one of Bolivia's two seats of power, but because its power base was primarily judicial - it's still the seat of the Supreme Court - it played second fiddle to La Paz and didn't attract the same levels of economic and population growth. In 1898, Bolivia's seat of government was officially moved to La Paz, leaving Sucre to develop at a relatively slow pace and retain its pretty, colonial facade.

Recent History

Sucre's role as a second capital continued into the 21st century. The major event of recent times to have made a significant impact on the city ironically occurred in Morocco. In 1991 the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) inscribed Sucre as an historic city, thus putting the city once known as 'the Athens of America' on the international travel map.

Since the 1600s Sucre has been a center of learning, and both the city and its university enjoy reputations as focal points of progressive thought within the country. It was no coincidence that it was chosen as the seat of the Asamblea Constituyente, a committee which gathered in 2006 to thrash out a new, more representative constitution for Bolivia. The project is still very much a work in progress.

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