Abaroa was an engineer by trade, working in a silver mine located in the coastal region of Litoral, which Chile took from Bolivia during the War of the Pacific.

Refusing to surrender, after the outnumbered Bolivian military forces withdrew, he fought to his last breath, a feat that later transformed him into a revered national hero.

When, injured and surrounded, he was asked to surrender by the Chilean forces, he provided an answer that has gone into Bolivian folklore: "¿Rendirme yo?

In 1952, on the 73rd anniversary of his death, the Bolivian Government repatriated Abaroa's body, burying it with full honors and in the midst of an impressive crowd (numbering in the tens of thousands) in the popular La Paz square that bears the hero's name.

The anniversary of Abaroa's heroic death (March 23) is the national holiday in Bolivia Día del Mar, or the Day of the Sea.