After a period of intense civil strife similar to the political chaos during the immediate postindependence period half a century earlier, the armed forces, led by General Andrés Avelina Cáceres (1886-90, 1894-95), succeeded in establishing a measure of order in the country. Cáceres, a Creole and hero of the guerrilla resistance to the Chilean occupation during the War of the Pacific, managed to win the presidency in 1886. He succeeded in imposing a general peace, first by crushing a native rebellion in the Sierra led by a former ally, the respected native American varayoc (leader) Pedro Pablo Atusparía. Cáceres then set about the task of reconstructing the country after its devastating defeat...

Since the late nineteenth century, various regional movements have arisen to address abuse. Historian Wilfredo Kápsoli Escudero had documented thirty-two peasant revolts and movements from 1879 to 1965, a number that is not exhaustive but which contradicts the view that Peru's native peasantry was passive in accepting its serfdom. Characteristically, virtually all of these efforts were specifically directed against the abuses of gamonales and hacendados, at least in their initial phases. The forces in the 1885 Ancash uprising, led by Pedro Pablo Atusparía, an alcalde pedáneo from a village near Huaraz, eventually captured and held the Callejón de Huaylas Valley for several months before federal troops reclaimed it.