[1919–1930] The Oncenio of Leguía

In the pre-dawn chill of July 4th, 1919, the air in Lima did not crackle with fireworks, but with conspiracy. The old order of Peru, the so-called "Aristocratic Republic" run by a tight-knit oligarchy of sugar and cotton barons, was about to be shattered. The man holding the hammer was Augusto B. Leguía, a charismatic and ambitious former president who felt cheated out of a recent election. He wasn't going to wait for a recount. Backed by the military, he stormed the Government Palace, deposing the president and seizing power for himself. This was no mere change of guard; it was the birth of a new era, an eleven-year reign so transformative and absolute it would be known simply as the *Oncenio*. Leguía’s promise was a "Patria Nueva"—a New Fatherland. It was a seductive idea for a nation yearning for modernity. He courted the emerging middle class—the clerks, the shopkeepers, the professionals—who had long been shut out of power by the old landed families. He spoke of progress, of industry, of a Peru that would take its rightful place on the world stage. And for a time, the New Fatherland seemed to be rising from the very ground. Lima, a city of elegant but aging colonial balconies and quiet plazas, was thrust into the 20th century. The sound of construction became the city’s new anthem. Grand avenues, inspired by Haussmann's Paris, were carved through the old urban fabric. The most famous, the Avenida Leguía (known today as Avenida Arequipa), connected the city center to the seaside district of Miraflores, becoming a artery for the city’s new lifeblood: the automobile. Shiny Ford and Studebaker cars, once a rare luxury, now rumbled down freshly paved streets, their horns adding to the urban cacophony. The centennial celebrations of Peru’s independence in 1921 and the Battle of Ayacucho in 1924 became grand showcases for Leguía’s vision. Foreign governments were encouraged to bestow gifts upon the capital: a Moorish Arch from the Spanish community, a stadium from the British, a Museum of Italian Art, an elegant clock tower from the Germans. These monuments, which still stand today, were symbols of Leguía’s international ambitions and the physical manifestation of his "Patria Nueva." Daily life was changing. Telephones began to connect businesses and the homes of the wealthy, while new sanitation and water systems promised to combat the diseases that had long plagued the capital. For a resident of Lima, it must have felt as if history was accelerating before their very eyes. But this new fatherland had a long, dark shadow. To build his modern state, Leguía needed absolute control. He swiftly rewrote the constitution in 1920 to allow for his re-election, and then again, and again. Political opposition was not tolerated; it was crushed. Critics, journalists, and student leaders who dared to speak out would disappear into the regime’s burgeoning security apparatus. Many were shipped to the desolate prison island of San Lorenzo, a barren rock off the coast of Lima, whose name was whispered in fear. A pervasive sense of surveillance settled over the country. One had to be careful what one said in a café or wrote in a letter. And where did the money for all this asphalt, concrete, and bronze come from? It flowed from the north, from the booming financial markets of Wall Street. Leguía threw open Peru’s doors to American investment like never before. The national foreign debt, which stood at a modest $10 million when he took power, exploded to over $100 million by 1929. U.S. banks financed the roads, the ports, and the palaces. In return, American corporations gained unprecedented access to Peru’s resources, particularly its oil and copper. Peru was modernizing, but it was doing so on borrowed money and borrowed time, mortgaging its future to foreign interests. Perhaps the most glaring contradiction of the "Patria Nueva" lay in its treatment of the indigenous population. Leguía, in a progressive move, had the 1920 Constitution officially recognize the legal status of indigenous communities and their lands. He even established a bureau for native affairs, positioning himself as a protector of the Indian. Yet, this rhetoric masked a brutal reality. In 1920, he passed the *Conscripción Vial*, or Road Conscription Law. This law required all able-bodied men between 18 and 60 to work for a set number of days each year on state road-building projects. While in theory it applied to everyone, the wealthy could simply pay a fee to be exempted. For the poor, rural, and overwhelmingly indigenous population, it was nothing less than a system of forced labor. The very men Leguía claimed to be protecting were now conscripted to build the roads of progress with their bare hands, often under harsh conditions, for no pay. While Leguía tightened his grip, new and powerful ideas were being forged in the crucible of his authoritarianism. Two of the most important Latin American thinkers of the 20th century emerged from this era of opposition. From exile, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre founded the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), a populist political movement that would dominate Peruvian politics for decades. At home, the frail but intellectually brilliant José Carlos Mariátegui, writing from his wheelchair, penned his seminal work, *Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality*, offering a Marxist analysis of the nation’s problems and championing an indigenous-led socialism. The seeds of Peru’s future political battles were being sown in the shadows of the *Oncenio*. For eleven years, Leguía’s balancing act held. The foreign loans kept flowing, the construction continued, and the secret police kept dissent in check. But the foundation of the "Patria Nueva" was not stone, but paper—the paper of Wall Street stock certificates. In October 1929, that paper world burned. The Great Depression hit the United States, and the river of credit to Peru dried up overnight. The prices for Peru's exports—cotton, sugar, copper—plummeted. The economy collapsed. The construction stopped. The illusion of prosperity vanished, leaving behind only staggering debt and widespread unemployment. The man who had built his power on the promise of modernity was now exposed. The military, which had brought him to power, now saw him as a liability. On August 22, 1930, a young, fiery commander in the southern city of Arequipa, Lieutenant Colonel Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro, led a revolt. The coup spread like wildfire. Leguía, old and sick, tried to flee but was captured. The all-powerful ruler of the *Oncenio* ended his days as a prisoner, dying in a naval hospital in 1932. The New Fatherland was over, leaving behind a legacy as complex and contradictory as the man who built it: a nation more modern, more centralized, and more connected than ever before, but also one deeply in debt, politically fractured, and with its social wounds laid bare for all to see.