Upper Peru was attached to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata since 1776, when it separated from Peru. The Spanish command knew that it had the sympathy of the Creoles, fearful of a racial revolt of Quechuas and Aymaras.
University students from Chuquisaca (present-day Sucre) led an uprising that had some initial successes. In La Paz, Pedro Domingo Murillo and Fray Antonio Medina seized power and launched a radical proclamation, but Viceroy Abascal's troops captured and executed them.
However, the Constitution of 1812, which sought to impose a mob led by the Angulo brothers, achieved few followers. Chief Mateo García Pumacahua, who had served in Abascal's royalist army, rebelled and, after taking several cities in Upper Peru, was executed by General Pezuela. The same thing happened with the Angulo brothers. Abascal gave amnesty to the other independentistas.
In 1823, a mestizo from La Paz, General Santa Cruz , invades Upper Peru but, lacking support, he falls back to the north.
An absolutist Spaniard, Antonio Pedro de Olañeta , he receives the command of Upper Peru when having to face the troops of Bolívar, the realistic generals Valdés and Canterac. What Olañeta intended was to establish an absolutist monarchy, so in 1824, learning that Ferdinand VII had restored absolutism, he destroyed constitutionalism in Upper Peru, mutinied against Viceroy La Serna and created a regime to suit him.
General Valdés, sent to quell the movement, signed the Treaty of Tarapaya (March 9, 1824), by which Olañeta undertook to obey the viceroy of Peru and send relief troops against Bolivar, but Olañeta violated the agreement and proclaimed himself commander-in-chief of the Río de la Plata provinces, which provoked the outbreak of civil war between the liberators of Viceroy La Serna and the fundamentalists of Antonio de Olañeta. The American insurgents were the only winners. Olañeta deprived Canterac of the services of Valdés in the battle of Junín (August 6, 1824) with which they evacuated Upper Peru, leaving Olañeta the road open.
The Creole aristocracy joins Sucre and Bolívar and decides to abandon the Spanish cause and seek an alternative to retain its political and socioeconomic dominance and control of the indigenous workforce.
Olañeta enters Chuquisaca (February 11, 1824) where he proclaims the absolute monarchy. Simultaneously the royalist armies of La Serna and Canterac are defeated in the decisive battle of Ayacucho. Its winner, Marshal Sucre, liberates Upper Peru, negotiates with Olañeta and liquidates the last redoubts (such as Potosí) of Spanish power in the mountains. The Creole aristocracy joins Sucre and Bolívar and abandons Olañeta, who falls mortally wounded in the battle of Tumusla.
February 9, 1825 , Sucre decrees in La Paz the independence of Upper Peru. Bolívar did not approve the project, fearful of the claims of Peru and Argentina, but he changed his mind and chose to convene an Assembly in Chuquisaca (July 10, 1825), elected by census suffrage. The Creole landowning oligarchy ratified independence on August 6, 1825 and adopted the name Bolívar for their country, later modified as Bolivia, in honor of the Liberator.
The government remained in the hands of Marshal Sucre. Bolívar promulgated a Constitution that established a presidency in perpetuity, abolished social privileges, and emancipated slaves. However, the Creoles did not want these reforms and discrimination and inequalities soon returned.