Gutiérrez Brothers

Gutiérrez Brothers, Peruvian insurrectionists. Persistent military rule of Peru since 1821 had spawned widespread antimilitarism, especially in Lima, in the late nineteenth century. Popular sentiment in the election of 1872 therefore lay with Manuel Pardo, the wealthy merchant who promised a severely reduced military budget and weakening of the military's grip on public offices. Most of the military agreed to stay clear of the election, but the minister of war, Colonel Tomás Gutiérrez, considered the election a direct challenge to the rightful preeminence of the military in Peruvian politics. Gutiérrez organized his brothers, fellow military officers Silvestre, Marceliano, and Marcelino, to seize President José Balta and declared himself president of the republic on July 22, a week before the inauguration of Pardo. Local military garrisons received widespread public support to actively oppose the coup d'etat. The Gutiérrez brothers tried to organize a defense against the popular rejection of their actions, but armed civilians shot Silvestre in downtown Lima and beheaded him. When enraged mobs learned that the rebels had authorized the murder of Balta, they became uncontrollable. A mob killed Tomás and mutilated his body. The bodies of Tomás and Silvestre were then hung from the facade of the cathedral of Lima. Marceliano died fighting in Callao, and Marcelino escaped unharmed. The Gutiérrez uprising marked a nadir in the popular view of the military and may have undermined the confidence of the army and navy in preparing for the upcoming war with Chile.

See alsoMilitary Dictatorships: 1821–1945 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

David P. Werlich, Peru: A Short History (1978), esp. pp. 95-96.

Margarita Giesecke, Masas urbanas y rebelión en la historia. Golpe de estado: Lima 1872 (1978).

Additional Bibliography

Valdizán Ayala, José. José Balta Montero. Lima, Perú: Editorial Brasa, 1995.

Velásquez Pérez-Salmón, Víctor. El Ejército del Perú en el siglo XIX: su participación en la seguridad y en el desarrollo nacional. Lima, Perú: CONCYTEC, Oficina de Subvenciones, 1998.

                                         Vincent Peloso