Areas such as Casa Grande, Cartavio and Laredo, previously influenced by revolutionary syndicalism and libertarian ideas, became strongholds of the Peruvian Aprista Party, a political organization with a socialist orientation founded by the student leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre.

On January 8, 1932, the then President of Peru Luis Sánchez Cerro (constitutionally elected the previous year), perpetrated a "self-coup"; publishing an unconstitutional law that outlawed political freedoms and allowed the arrest of any citizen without a court order; this fact, added to social inequalities, the lack of respect for the labor rights of workers in the sugar plantations located north of the city of Trujillo, increased the social discontent that the union organization, with marked APRA influence, channeled.

From that moment on, the demands for the end of the Sánchez government and for the release of the political leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, who had been imprisoned since May 6 in the El Frontón prison, became unstoppable.

[1] On the dawn of July 7, 1932, an insurgent group composed mainly of peasants and workers, led by Manuel Barreto, attacked and captured the artillery barrack Ricardo O'Donovan, located at the former entrance to the city.

On July 7, 1932, at two in the morning, a group composed mainly of sugarcane workers from the Hacienda Laredo and students from the Colegio Nacional San Juan assaulted the "Ricardo O'Donovan" artillery barracks, located at the then entrance to the city.

One of the first to fall was "El búfalo" Barreto, but the insurgents were gaining ground, taking soon after the Security Headquarters and the Prefecture premises, whose leadership was assumed de facto by the young APRA member Alfredo Tello Salavarria, who managed to take the barracks, marching triumphantly to Trujillo, where he hands over command to Agustín Haya de la Torre (brother of the APRA leader).

Faced with the Trujillo insurgency, the Congress of the Republic held an emergency meeting approving a state of siege and the creation of martial courts; for its part, the government of Sánchez Cerro sent troops from Lima, whose command was assumed by Major Alfredo Miró Quesada.

At dusk on Saturday the 9th, Miró Quesada's troops approached Trujillo , but found such stubborn resistance that they decided to retreat to Salaverry, suffering losses of life and war material in the area known as "La Floresta".

Previously, an air attack was ordered to clear machine gun nests and other pockets of resistance in the city, an operation that was the first action of military aviation in Peru, using the recently acquired fighter planes.

In the early hours of July 10, the few army and police officers who had not joined the insurrectional movement like the majority, were captured in the O'Donovan Barracks and then transferred to the Iturregui Palace, where the revolutionary prefecture would operate.

On July 18, the chief of operations, Colonel Ruiz Bravo, reported having full territorial control, after committing numerous reprisals against the civilian population in Chepén, Mansiche, Casa Grande, Ascope and Cartavio (the last three sugar plantations where some of the insurgents worked).

But it is estimated that the number of victims at the end of the conflict reached approximately 9 thousand civilians, closely linked to the APRA party, who were shot extrajudicially.