Uladislao Silva (2 January 1840 – 3 October 1898) was a Bolivian military officer who was de facto President of Bolivia after becoming the head of the Government Junta installed in La Paz after the overthrow of Hilarión Daza.

He would reach the rank of colonel in 1876 after participating in the mutiny in Santa Cruz de la Sierra during the coup that ousted Tomás Frías.

This was done by the Bolivian National Constituent Assembly through a law, on February 14, 1878, on the condition that a tax of 10 cents per quintal of saltpeter exported by the company be paid.

[9] The Chilean owners of the affected company flatly refused to pay said tax, considering it to be abusive, and requested help from the government of Chile.

Peru participated as a mediator in the resulting crisis, deciding to send a Special Ambassador and Plenipotentiary to Santiago to try to avoid a possible war through negotiation.

[9] On November 17, 1878, the government of La Paz ordered the prefect of the department of Cobija, Severino Zapata, to enforce the 10-cent tax established by the Law of February 14, 1878 in an attempt to counteract the serious economic crisis in Bolivia.

A widely spread version of the events of the outbreak of the war affirms that Daza celebrated his birthday when Chile invaded Antofagasta.

However, after three days of marching along the Camarones ravine, he announced to Peruvian President Mariano Ignacio Prado that his troops refused to continue due to the harsh conditions of the desert, opting to return to Arica.

But the news of Daza's retreat had a tremendous demoralizing effect on the Peruvian troops, who suffered a serious defeat in San Francisco on November 19.

Daza returned to Arica, where he learned of his dismissal as President of Bolivia on December 28 after to a coup d'état was staged by the military amid enormous discontent among the population over the direction of the war.

Silva's coup coincided with Eliodoro Camacho's, essentially leading to the Council of Ministers ruling the country, under the presidency of Serapio Reyes Ortiz, to abdicate and allow this de facto takeover.

Silva, discontent with the dissolution of the junta and his exclusion from the Presidency, "had the naive illusion that the people of La Paz had anointed him Chief of the entire Nation and he remained resentful, realizing that he had only been used for an emergency".

[22]Eliodoro Camacho, in a letter he wrote to Silva on March 16, four days after the mutiny, expressed:Meanwhile, Colonel, allow me to ask you: Have you weighed the enormous responsibility that you have placed on your shoulders?

You have stopped the sending of four battalions to this [Campero] Headquarters, at the moment in which they undertake their departure by order of the President, who knew, through my repeated trades, how urgent the precise thing, which was his coming to confront the enemy, who by occupying us in Moquegua, has cut off the resources of the North.

This fact has produced in both armies, and in this people, who longingly awaited that reinforcement, such discouragement which is hardly comparable to the disappointment caused in the army of the South by the withdrawal of Camarones... That withdrawal and the Viacha revolution will be, Colonel, two equally culminating events among those which cause our defeat in this infamous war... And what do we call, Colonel, he who promotes internal anarchy at times where your country is engaged in a national war?

With the white-hot iron of eternal opprobrium, which I do not want to use as a description of the man I once called 'friend'...[23]Silva's actions only served to ruin his own reputation and solidify Campero's.