[5] As Spanish settlements expanded to the south, the jurisdiction of the Audiencia of Charcas grew to include not only present day Bolivia, but also Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and even parts of Peru.

For the next few decades, the question of the political and economic ties with Charcas was constantly fought over by Peru and Río de la Plata.

The sense of uncertainty was heightened by the fact that news of 17 March Mutiny of Aranjuez and 6 May 1808 abdication of Ferdinand VII in favor of Joseph Bonaparte arrived within a month of each other, on 21 August and 17 September, respectively.

[15] In the confusion that followed, various juntas in Spain and Portuguese Princess Carlotta, sister of Ferdinand VII, in Brazil claimed authority over the Americas.

The President-Intendant Ramón García León de Pizarro, backed by the Archbishop of Chuquisaca Benito María de Moxó y Francolí, was inclined to recognize the Seville Junta, but the mostly Peninsular Audiencia of Charcas, in its function as a privy council for the President (the real acuerdo), felt it would be hasty to recognize either one.

[17] Over the next few weeks García León and Moxó became convinced that recognizing Carlotta might be the best way to preserve the unity of the empire, but this was unpopular with the majority of Charcasvians and the Audiencia.

[18] On 26 May 1809, the Audiencia oidores received rumors that García León de Pizarro planned to arrest them in order to recognize Carlotta.

It removed García León de Pizarro from office and transformed itself into a junta, which ruled in Fernando's name, just as cities and provinces had done in Spain a year earlier.

[19][20] José de la Serna, the Spanish Viceroy in Lima dispatched five thousand soldiers led by none other than Goyeneche, who had become the president of Audiencia in Cuzco.

[21] After Buenos Aires successfully established a junta in May 1810, Charcas came under the control of the Viceroyalty of Peru and managed to fight off several attempts to take over it militarily.

The Peninsulares had very divided opinions regarding which form of government was that best and what claims from Spain were actually true, thus they unconsciously left room for other groups to take the initiative for the future of Charcas.

[22] The Criollos were excited about this break between the President and the Audiencia because they took it as an excellent opportunity to gain the power they had always craved but never obtained because of the Spanish government.

The final group was made up of the Radicals who wanted an independent government, not to solely accomplish that end, but to bring about deeper social reforms.

The middle class Criollos as well as the Mestizos did not actively participate in expressing their opinions because they lacked leadership but were very attentive to all that was happening during the war.

This allowed them to create quasi-states which attracted varied followers, ranging from political exiles of the main urban centers to cattle rustlers and other fringe members of Criollo and Mestizo society.

These Criollo and Mestizo republiquetas often allied themselves with the local Indian communities, although it was not always possible to keep the Natives' loyalty, since their own material and political interests often eclipsed the idea of regional independence.

Ultimately the republiquetas never had the size nor organization to actually bring about the independence of Charcas, but instead maintained a fifteen-year stalemate with royalist regions, while holding off attempts by Buenos Aires to control the area.

Therefore, on 20 June 1811, Goyeneche attacked Castelli's army in Huaqui, south of Titicaca lake, causing them to flee back toward Argentina.

[21] The areas of Charcas which remained under royalist control elected a representative to the Cortes of Cádiz, Mariano Rodríguez Olmedo, who served from 4 May 1813, to 5 May 1814.

Rodríguez Olmedo was a conservative representative, signing the 1814 request, known as the " Manifesto of the Persians"" ("Manifiesto de los Persas"), by seventy Cortes delegates to Ferdinand VII to repeal the Spanish Constitution of 1812.

[29] Therefore, because of this strong conviction that as long as Spain controlled the seas they would have a foothold on the continent, he created a fleet led by Lord Cochrane, who had joined the Chilean service in 1819.

[32] Although Bolívar and San Martín met in Guayaquil, they could not agree on the form of government that should be established for the liberated countries,[32] and so both went on their separate ways for the time being.

San Martín returned to Peru, only to face a revolution in Lima that had started because the men left behind were incapable of governing the country.

Sucre, Bolívar's most successful general, did not trust Olañeta and so despite his plan to make peace, he started to occupy Charcas.

"[41] The reason for this statement was that La Paz was the first place people were murdered for the desire for independence and now, decades later, the last Royalist forces had been defeated.

[49] From then on, local elites dominated the congress and although they supported Sucre's efforts, they chafed under the idea that a Gran Colombian army remained in the nation.

Santa Cruz had been a former royalist officer, served under José de San Martín after 1821 and then under Sucre in Ecuador, and had a short term as president of Peru from 1826 to 1827.

In face of this sensation of unsafety and fearing the chaos, in June 1822, the three governors of the Spanish departments of Upper Peru (which had already being threatened by the troops of General Antonio Jose de Sucre and Simon Bolivar), reunited in Cuiaba (Capital of the Captaincy of Mato Grosso / Brazil) and solicited the governor that he interceded along with the Prince Regent Dom Pedro (that soon would be crowned as Dom Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil), in order that the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves annexed these territories, seeking to spare its population from the massacre and the chaos.

In this way, when the Prince Regent received the letter he had already decided not to annex Upper Peru, rejecting the solicitation from the governors of the region and ordering that the troops were removed from there.

With this, Dom Pedro I left the region of Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) up to its own luck, what culminated with the invasion of the Bolivar and Sucre troops and the Bolivian independence from Spain.