History History

The dating of arrowheads and other tools found in the Andes is still the subject of much debate. The first human occupation would be situated at this period, as shown by the polychrome cave paintings with zoomorphic and geometric motifs in the Toro Toro caves.

Appearance of the Warankani culture in the Altiplano, first sedentary community of the country, and of the Chiripa culture south of Lake Titicaca. The Chiripa culture died out in the 2nd century while the Warankani culture disappeared at the beginning of the^5th century.

The construction of the city of Tiwanaku, Tiahuanaco in modern Spanish, dates back to the year 400 AD. Close to the shores of Lake Titicaca, it was the spiritual and political centre of the Tiahuanacota civilization, which practised intensive agriculture thanks in particular to developed irrigation techniques. The geographical situation of the city of Tiwanaku, between Lake Titicaca and the arid highlands, facilitated the supply of essential resources (fish, plants), as well as land for grazing llamas. Ceramics found by archaeologists suggest that the Tiwanaku empire extended to the coasts of Peru and northern Chile from 550 to 1000 AD. The reason for the collapse of the Tiwanaku empire remains an enigma. From this period, we only have the mysterious ruins of Tiwanaku, a World Heritage Site. The Tiahuanacotas had developed absolutely amazing construction techniques, assembling huge blocks of stone with incredible precision.

The disappearance of the Tiwanaku civilization gave rise to struggles between different communities in the region, notably between the Aymaras and the Lupakas. The Aymara took control of a territory including La Paz, Oruro, Cochabamba, but also Arequipa and Puno (Peru). This Aymara domination will last until the arrival of the Incas in 1438.

Arrival in Bolivia of Francisco Pizarro and a handful of Spanish conquistadors (estimated between 130 and 180 according to sources).

Atahualpa, son of Huayna Cápac and the last Inca sapa (ruler of the Inca Empire), was executed by the Spanish. It is estimated that the population of the indigenous people had fallen from 12 or 15 million to little more than 600,000.

First of a long series of Inca revolts, under the leadership of Manco Inca. The revolts continue until 1572.

Charles V created the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included Upper Peru, today's Bolivia. The operation of the entire colonial system in Alto Peru was based on the repartimiento, which followed the encomiendas. Like the encomiendas, this system consisted in imposing forced labour on the natives, but with the repartimiento the Spanish colonist had to respect the laws forbidding the punishment of the natives and to give them remuneration, working hours and care. Of course the natives are subjected to a forced conversion to Christianity.

The city of Potosi was founded by the Spaniards and declared an imperial city by Charles V. It was the first city founded by the Spaniards, and others soon followed. The Spanish economy developed greatly and Potosi became the safe of Spain. Its treasures financed the wars of conquest that the emperor led in Europe and beyond. About 6 million indigenous people died in the silver mines of Potosi from 1546 to the beginning of the 19th century. We know today that modern capitalism really took off in the black hell of these suffocating mines.

The Spaniards founded many other cities: La Paz by Juan de Villarroel and Diego Centeno in 1548, Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 1561, and Cochabamba in 1574.

The viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was created by Charles III of Spain to better defend the Spanish colonies. Alto Peru, Bolivia at that time, joined this viceroyalty in 1779.

After the execution of his brother by the Spaniards, Túpac Katari, an Aymara rebel leader, led a terrible uprising, laying siege to La Paz by blocking all access for more than a hundred days, forcing the inhabitants to rely on a limited number of supplies. This revolt ended in November 1781 when the Spaniards killed the leaders of these revolts.

Revolt led by Pedro Domingo Murillo, an independence fighter and member of a revolutionary group in La Paz, which ends in a bloodbath.

It is in Peru, in the department of Ayacucho, that the last great confrontation of the wars of independence of South America takes place. The independentists, led by Antonio José de Sucre, won a great victory against the royalist army. José de la Serna, the viceroy of Upper Peru, capitulated, thus putting an end to the Spanish domination.

Simón Bolívar wrote the constitution of this new independent Republic on August 6, 1825 in Charcas (today Sucre). On August 11, the country took the name of Bolivia in honor of the libertador.

Antonio José de Sucre succeeded Bolívar as president.

Marshal Andrés de Santa Cruz, after having been president of Peru, arrives in La Paz and takes power for 10 years.

The war was waged jointly with Peru against Chile, which won; Bolivia lost its access to the sea. This invasion provoked a wave of resentment towards Chile, a feeling exploited by future governments to cement national cohesion in times of crisis.

Acre War with Brazil; Bolivia loses another large part of its territory.

Chaco War with Paraguay; Bolivia loses another 200,000 km² of its territory.

The military government was installed and elections placed General Peñaranda at the head of the state. He was overthrown in 1943 by a civil-military insurrection led by Gualberto Villaroel. Villaroel, a member of the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), became president in 1944.

The Conservatives are back in power.

Great workers' and peasants' revolution organized by the MNR. Establishment of universal suffrage and nationalization of mining companies.

After 12 years in power, the MNR was overthrown by the military junta in 1964. Military governments followed one another.

Che arrived in Bolivia in 1966 to propagate his Marxist revolutionary action. He created the Bolivian National Liberation Army (ELN) with the opposition forces in order to fight against the military dictatorship of General Barrientos, then president of the country. He was executed on August 9, 1967 by the Bolivian army, supported by the CIA. In July 1997 the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara were finally found in a mass grave in Vallegrande, and transported to Havana.

General Banzer's coup d'état.

Certainly the child of the country with the darkest history and who will mark Bolivia forever. Born on May 10, 1926, this Bolivian general led the military dictatorship from August 1971 to July 1978. He came to power with the support of Klaus Barbie, then a refugee in Bolivia. His government joined forces with other military dictatorships (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) in the repression of opponents, tracked down in Europe and the United States by the secret services: this was Operation Condor. Thousands of opponents were arrested, hundreds were tortured or killed in the cellars of the Ministry of the Interior. This period is also marked by a strong recrudescence of corruption and drug trafficking. Hugo Banzer Suárez will be thereafter elected president of Bolivia in 1997, at the age of 71 years. In order to fight against drug trafficking, he launches with the support of the United States the controversial plan of eradication of the coca. Health problems prevented him from finishing his mandate and he died on May 5, 2002 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

A woman, Lidia Gueiler, became president... but was ousted by the bloody coup d'état of General García Meza (sentenced to 30 years of criminal imprisonment in the mid-1990s and incarcerated since then in the high-security prison of Chochocoro, near La Paz).

The ruling military junta was overthrown. The newly elected left-wing government of Hernán Siles Suazo tried to reduce coca and cocaine production with the support of the United States, but these measures were unpopular and only relatively successful.

Victor Paz Estenssoro, leader of the MNR, returns to power.

Jaime Paz Zamora, nephew of Victor Paz Estenssoro, was elected with the support of the right-wing group Acción Democrática Nacionalista (ADN) and General Banzer, whom he had fought against during his seven-year term. The neo-liberal policy was continued, accompanied by financial scandals and increased corruption. The involvement of this government in drug trafficking was also proven.

Election of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. He entered the government with the first Indian vice-president in Latin American history, Victor Hugo Cardenas, and proposed a " Plan de Todos", the plan for all, which consisted of educational reform, decentralization of the administration, and privatization of state assets.

Election of General Hugo Banzer Suárez. His management of the country was marked by an upsurge in corruption, an aggravation of the crisis and violent conflicts with the cocaleros and campesinos of the Altiplano.

Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada returns to power and narrowly wins the elections against a certain Evo Morales.

Flight of the president to the United States under the pressure of incessant social movements (gas war); interim of Carlos Mesa.

New social movements that lead to the resignation of President Mesa; formation of a provisional government led by Eduardo Rodriguez Veltzé, President of the Supreme Court.

After his victory in the December 2005 elections, Evo Morales of the Movimiento alSocialismo (MAS) party was sworn in before Congress and became the first president of Aymara origin in Bolivia. His radical positions often meet with incomprehension from the middle classes and the Cambas (the term Cambas designates the inhabitants, often mixed, of the lowlands, as opposed to the Kolas (or Collas), Indians of the highlands. This duality still symbolizes the fracture of Bolivian society). However, it was necessary to act quickly and strongly to reform a society that had been unequal since the Spanish colonization.

Agreement between the government and some twenty foreign oil companies as part of the major plan to nationalize the country's hydrocarbons announced on¹ May 2006 by the President.

The constitutional crisis that the country has been going through since the election of Evo Morales has still not been resolved. A referendum to adopt a constitutional reform was organised on 4 May, but it was boycotted by the opposition.

The region of Santa Cruz, led by Ruben Costas, kept the same date to organise a popular consultation on the autonomy of the region. The referendum was widely supported but considered illegal by the national authorities. In June, it was the turn of the Pando and Beni regions to vote for autonomy.

Evo Morales organized a revocatory referendum that confirmed his position with 63% of the votes in his favor. A change in political trajectory was observed with the announcement of the opening of a dialogue with the autonomist opposition.

Approval by referendum of the new Constitution.

Evo Morales was re-elected in the presidential elections with 64.22% of the vote and the MAS won two-thirds of the seats in Congress.

Municipal elections that are not very favourable to MAS.

Continuous demonstrations and strikes throughout the country.

March of the Indigenous people of Beni against the proposed road through a national park, leading to a violent police crackdown that received worldwide media coverage.

President Morales decides to bring the territorial dispute (maritime coastline) with Chile before the International Court of Justice.

Bolivia hosts the G77 summit of non-aligned countries + China in Santa Cruz.

Evo Morales was re-elected president for a 5-year term. In order to calm down the social situation, a 10% increase in public sector salaries was granted. Evo Morales also intends to protect the cultivation of the coca leaf while intensively fighting against cocaine production in the country. He receives the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which notes the validity of his policy.

Bolivia votes "no" on the referendum that would have allowed Evo Morales to seek a^4th term in the 2019 elections.

Bolivia, under the leadership of a super-active Evo Morales, has the lowest unemployment rate in South America (4.1%).

Evo Morales cools relations with the United States by denouncing the unilateral sanctions wanted by President Trump against Venezuela and Russia. Sanctions against officials of these countries that, according to him, go against the international law in place and short-circuit his authority.

After five years of proceedings, the International Court of Justice has ruled that Chile does not have to negotiate with its Bolivian neighbour for access to the Pacific Ocean.

Fires in the Amazon rainforest are spreading to Bolivia, particularly in the eastern part of the province of Santa Cruz.

The first round of presidential elections plunges the country into an unprecedented crisis. Evo Morales was declared the winner, but his government was accused by the opposition of having rigged the results. He is also accused of not having respected the results of the February 2016 referendum.

The electoral votes were recounted by the Organization of American States and the fraud seems to have been proven. After violent demonstrations for about twenty days and about thirty deaths, following the defection of the army and the police, Morales announces his resignation and takes refuge in Mexico. Evo's supporters cried coup d'état, while Senator Jeanine Añez was appointed interim president and promised to hold new elections soon, without Evo Morales.

Evo Morales leaves his exile in Mexico to go to Argentina, where he has refugee status.

After being postponed because of the Covid 19 health crisis, the presidential elections took place peacefully despite a sometimes electric atmosphere. Luis Arce, a member of the MAS and former runner-up to Evo Morales, was declared the winner with 52% of the vote, against only 31% for his opponent, the centrist Carlos Mesa. As soon as the results were published, Evo Morales, Arce's mentor and then in exile in Argentina, announced that he would soon return to the country. Luis Arce is aware that he will have the heavy task of reconciling the Bolivian people, strongly divided by numerous tensions: between political opponents, between the plains and the Altiplano, between the cities and the rural regions... His investiture speech is proof of this: "We are starting a new stage in our history and we want to do it with a government for all, without discrimination of any kind: our government's aim is to rebuild a united country where people can live in peace.

Luis Arce announces his plan to industrialize Bolivian lithium by launching a research center and a pilot program. A call for foreign companies' expertise and capital has been launched to test their extraction technologies. With nearly 40 million tons, Bolivia has the world's largest deposit of lithium, a metal essential for the energy transition. Mr. Arce wants Bolivia to produce up to 40% of the world's supply by 2030. Lithium could thus transform Bolivia into a middle-income country.

Former transitional president Jeanine Áñez was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "decisions contrary to the constitution. Convicted of organizing a coup against Morales in 2019, she will serve her sentence in a women's prison in La Paz. However, she said she would appeal to international organizations for justice.

Luis Fernando Camacho, governor of the Santa Cruz region and main opponent of the MAS, was arrested, accused of "terrorism".

In recent years, Luis Arce has continued his economic policy based on the country's natural resources (mainly lithium) and seeking to maintain economic stability after the political crisis of 2019. He faces inflation on food products due in part to the war in Ukraine, and tensions with the private sector. Rising fuel prices and demands from indigenous communities have been the main reasons for bloqueos (strikes) in recent years.

Morales and his supporters voted to expel 30 MAS members, including President Arce himself, in order to designate Morales as the party's leader and sole candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections in 2025.