Late in the year 1814 the region north of Lake Titicaca to and beyond Cuzco burst into insurrection under the lead of an Indian cacique and an indefatigable agitator of a priest named Munecas. The Indians rose _en masse_ and the Spanish army in southern Bolivia was cut off from Lima. Twenty thousand insurgents assembled near the north end of Lake Titicaca, but they possessed neither arms, officers, nor organisation. Not one in twenty had a musket, and though their invasion down the Maritime Cordillera to Arequipa was at first successful, a comparatively small force of Spanish regulars chased them back over the passes to the region of the lake and there dispersed them at the battle of Humachiri. Meanwhile the guerilla bands in southern Bolivia and the Argentines in Salta had been more successful. The Spaniards were compelled to retire from the Argentine border back beyond Potosi. The Argentines again invaded the plateau and advanced in force on the road to La Paz and Lima. Once again the Spanish forces which concentrated to meet them were victorious and the allied patriots were completely overthrown in the battle of Viluma, November, 1815, which marks the end of the first period of the war of independence. Thenceforward for seven years the Spanish generals were dominant on the plateau, and the Bolivian patriots made only a desultory and scattered resistance. With admirable foresight the victorious Spanish general, Pezuela, went to work to subdue thoroughly the whole of Upper Peru. The viceroy, Abascal, backed him up in establishing in this natural fortress a strong military state, whence money and soldiers could be drawn for offensive operations against the insurrection in any part of the continent. The mines supplied the funds of which the viceregal government stood in such desperate need, and the hardy, sturdy Indians of Bolivia afforded a stock of excellent recruits whose fidelity might be enforced by white officers and severe discipline. Pezuela remorselessly pursued the patriot chiefs; Camargo was finally run to earth, captured, and garrotted; Padilla fell in the midst of his little band and was brutally beheaded as he lay wounded on the ground. Garrisons occupied all the towns and important positions, the irregular excesses of the Spanish soldiery were sternly forbidden, a measure of order and security replaced the confusion of the previous years, and the whole resources of the people were carefully husbanded and devoted to the upbuilding of an army. Before the end of 1816 Pezuela had a well-equipped and efficient force of eight thousand men ready for an advance into the Argentine.