Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Jose de San Martin was the Spanish-trained Argentinean general who liberated Argentina from Spain in 1816 and then led his army over the Andes to join his Chilean ally Bernardo O'Higgins in liberating Chile. To secure these gains, he took his 4,500-strong army of blacks and mixed-race mestizos north in 1820 to dislodge the Spaniards from Peru. . . . The anniversary has been celebrated as Independence Day in Peru ever since, but there were three years of fighting before Peruvian independence was finally established, largely in the teeth of the Creole ruling class, by Simon Bolivar and his right-hand man, Antonio Jose de Sucre, who won a succession of victories against the Spanish loyalists." [Furtado: 1001 Days] "Today, this subregion, and perhaps Peru as a whole, appears to be on the threshold of a new era owing to major new discoveries of oil and gas reserves in the Oriente. . . . Peru’s economic development is not proceeding without adversity, however, as the government is being challenged on at least two fronts. Environmentalists and supporters of indigenous rights . . ." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 127-8]