After the Battle of Lircay ended the Chilean Civil War of 1829–30, Chile formed a conservative political system under the 1833 Constitution, drafted by Mariano Egaña, which established a one-party presidential polity.

In the succeeding decades, various liberal social and political movements emerged, led by intellectuals like Santiago Arcos, Francisco Bilbao, José Victorino Lastarria and Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna.

[6] Concerned that the election might not end in their favor, Cruz and other opposition groups decided to attempt a military coup, to be carried out in Santiago by Colonel Pedro Urriola Balbontín.

At dawn on 20 April, Urriola and his companions seized the main streets of Santiago and stormed the army barracks to arm more men, but few of the soldiers they had hoped for joined in the uprising.

Instead, historian Fernando Silva (1974) claims that the election of Montt meant the loss of the political hegemony Concepción had enjoyed in the 1829–1851 period under the presidents José Joaquín Prieto and Manuel Bulnes, both of whom were from that city.

However, the defeat of the Liberals in Petorca made them remain in the Province of Coquimbo, while some mining businessmen favoring the Government, decided to create a counterrevolutionary army under the command of Ignacio José Prieto.

In the meantime, an Government army detachment under the command of Juan Vidaurre-Leal Morla and Victorino Garrido landed in Papudo and headed towards the province of Coquimbo with 4,000 soldiers.

[14] These joined Prieto and marched to La Serena, a city that had barely 1,000 men for its defense, under the command of José Miguel Carrera Fontecilla, son of the Father of the Nation of the same name.

After the failure of the Revolution, the government of Montt began a program of political persecution against the instigators of the uprisings, led by his minister Antonio Varas, which included arrests and deportations.