It was formed from the Department of Loreto and existed as de facto autonomous region of the country.

The state was proclaimed in 1921 in response to the region's perceived neglect on the part of the Peruvian government, in both trade and its intent of ceding cerritory to Colombia, by local Peruvian captain Guillermo Cervantes Vásquez, who had participated in a conflict against Colombia in 1911.

[3] The provisional government, headed in Iquitos, soon expanded its control to the departments of Amazonas and San Martin.

[5] The revolution was quickly accepted by the local population, but was met negatively by Peru's president Augusto Leguía, who sent a few troops to the area, and shut down trade to the region.

[2][5] The local guerrillas' military inferiority soon became apparent, and by early 1922, a famished Iquitos had been occupied by Peruvian troops headed by Peruvian Captain Genaro Matos, while Cervantes had escaped on January 9 and sought refuge in the Ecuadorian jungle and his army soon became little more than an insurgency.