Deconstructing Legitimacy

The overthrow of Viceroy Joaqun de la Pezuela on 29 January 1821 has not received much attention from historians, who have tended to view it as a simple military uprising. Yet in this careful study of the episode, based on deep archival research, Patricia Marks reveals it to be a pivotal event in the emerging commercial conflict between liberal free-traders and protectionists that retarded the establishment of a stable national state in post-independence Peru. The overthrow of the viceroy thereby may be seen as an early manifestation of Latin American praetorianism, in which a particular sector of the civilian population, unable to prevail politically and unwilling to compromise, pressures army officers to act in order to save the state.