President Ramón Castilla

Ramón Castilla y Marquesado, President of the Republic between 1845-1851 and 1855-1862. Son of the Buenos Aires Pedro de Castilla and Juana Marquesado Romero, tarapaqueña with Indian blood, Ramón Castilla was born on August 30, 1797. During his childhood, according to Clemente Markham, he worked as a lumberjack in the service of his father and made trips to the desert to collect the pieces of firewood that fell from the carob trees. He went to Chile and joined the realistic regiment Dragones de la Frontera, with which he fought the patriots in Concepcion, Talcahuano, Chillan and Rancagua, falling prisoner in the battle of Chacabuco (January 1817) and transferred to Buenos Aires. After his release, he went to Rio de Janeiro and undertook, in the company of the Spanish colonel Fernando Cacho, his return to Peru (December 1817) via the Mato-Grosso. It passed through Chiquitos, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Valle Grande, Chuquisaca, Oruro, La Paz, Puno, Cuzco, Huamanga, Huancavelica, Lunahuaná and Lurín until reaching Lima; crossing in total leagues of forest, mountain range and sandy area. In the capital (October 1818), the viceroy Joaquín de la Pezuela assigned him to the Dragones de la Unión regiment, stationed in Arequipa; however, it was at that time that he abandoned his realistic position and presented himself in Lima before Torre Tagle and then before the Liberator José de San Martín (February 1822). After a series of tests and interrogations, he was incorporated into the Hussars of the Peruvian Legion as a cavalry lieutenant. He did not attend the Battle of Junín because he belonged to the Patriot General Staff, but he did attend the one in Ayacucho (December 9, 1824), where he was wounded.

Ramón Castilla and the Peru-Bolivia Confederation

In 1825 he was named prefect of Tarapacá and was one of the first officials of his rank to break with Bolívar, because he disagreed with the so-called constitution for life. Promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel of cavalry and for his friendship with Domingo Nieto, he emerged as an enemy of Andrés de Santa Cruz and the project of the Peru-Bolivian Confederation (1836-1839). For that reason it resigned to the prefecture of Puno and it separated of the president Luis Jose de Orbegoso, happening soon to Chile with other Peruvian emigrants opposed to the santacrucino regime and supporters of the plans of the Chilean minister Diego Portales to end the confederation; in the southern country, commanded by a Peruvian battalion, he defeated the enemies of Portales in Baron's battle at Quillota (June 1837).

He participated in the first restoration expedition commanded by Manuel Blanco Encalada who failed in Paucarpata; during the second restoration expedition, commanded by Manuel Bulnes and next to Agustín Gamarra, he was in the battle of Portada de Guía (August 1838) and had an outstanding performance in the battle of Yungay (January 1839) and in the final defeat of Santa Cruz and the confederation, becoming worthy of the promotion as division general. In these campaigns promoted by Chile against Santa Cruz, his phrase became famous: "We have not come to run!". Linked to the second government of Agustín Gamarra (1839-1841), first as a general minister and then as minister of war and finance, he seconded the president in his attempt to invade Bolivia being defeated at the battle of Ingavi, remaining a prisoner in the fortress of Oruro (November 1841). After the war with Bolivia, he returned to Peru and, during the military anarchy (1842-1845), he confronted Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco, whom he finally defeated in the battle of El Carmen Alto (July 1844). In this way, the legal vice president, Manuel Menéndez, calls for elections resulting in the election of Ramón Castilla to the Presidency of the Republic.

First government of Ramón Castilla

When assuming the government in 1845, Castilla found a disorganized country due to the struggles between military caudillos, and an economy that could be recovered thanks to the income from the sale of guano in Europe. Therefore, the time that his government inaugurated has been called the "apogee" or "deceitful prosperity", since the income obtained from the sale of the excrement of birds from our coast allowed the execution of numerous public works and a relative political calm . In effect, Castilla and his advisers wanted to order the country. In the economic aspect it inaugurated the system of the consignments for the sale of the guano giving almost all of this business to the British house Gibbs, it implanted the first budget of the Republic, it created the law of the "consolidation of the internal debt" to cancel the expenses of Peruvians in favor of the wars of independence, arranged the external debt with England, the United States and Chile, except the "debt of independence" with Spain and allowed the arrival of Chinese workers, the coolies for the plantations of the coast and the extraction of guano in the Chincha islands.

Abolition of slavery

Desde Ayacucho, donde decretó la abolición del tributo indígena (5 de julio de 1854), derrotó por primera vez a Echenique en la batalla de Izcuchaca; pasó luego a Huancayo donde dictaminó la abolición definitiva de la esclavitud en el Perú (5 de diciembre de 1854), derrotando finalmente a Echenique en la batalla de La Palma (5 de enero de 1855).