I’m Protector of Peru!

I believed that the best way to liberate Peru was to get the Peruvian people to accept independence voluntarily. By 1820, royalist Peru was an isolated outpost of Spanish influence. I had liberated Chile and Argentina to the south, and Simon Bolivar and Antonio Jose de Sucre had freed Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela to the north, leaving only Peru and present-day Bolivia under Spanish rule. I had brought a printing press with me on the expedition, and I began bombarding citizens of Peru with pro-independence propaganda. I maintained a steady correspondence with Viceroys Joaquín de la Pezuela and José de la Serna in which I urged them to accept the inevitability of independence and surrender willingly in order to avoid bloodshed. My army was closing in on Lima; I captured Pisco on September 7 and Huacho on November 12. Viceroy La Serna responded by moving the royalist army from Lima to the defensible port of Collao in July of 1821, basically abandoning the city of Lima to me. The people of Lima, who feared an uprising by slaves and Indians more than they feared my army of Argentines and Chileans at their doorstep, invited me into the city. On July 12, 1821, I triumphantly entered Lima to the cheers of the populace. On July 28, 1821, Peru officially declared independence, and on August 3, I was named "Protector of Peru" and set about setting up a government. My brief rule was enlightened and marked by stabilizing the economy, freeing slaves, giving freedom to the Peruvian Indians and abolishing such hateful institutions as censorship and the Inquisition. The Spanish still had armies at the port of Collao and high in the mountains. I decided to starve out the garrison at Collao and wait for the Spanish army to attack me along the narrow, easily defended coastline leading to Lima in which they wisely declined, leaving a sort of stalemate. I was victorious and happy for my people and I resigned from my position of “Protector of Peru”.