The only Spanish troops which remained in the field were Olaneta's in southern Bolivia. He struggled desperately to hold his men together and make another stand, but the news of Ayacucho was the signal for an uprising of the patriots all around him. The royalist officers and troops had no heart for a hopeless fight, and as Sucre approached the detached garrisons deserted. In March Olaneta received word that one of his lieutenants, Medina Celi, who was in command at Tumusla near Potosi, had declared for the patriots. The Spanish general promptly marched with the few troops who remained faithful, and, on April 1, 1825, fought the last action of the war of independence. Olaneta was defeated and himself slain, probably by a ball fired by one of his own men. CHAPTER IV BOLIVIA INDEPENDENT After his great victory at Ayacucho, Sucre advanced rapidly to Cuzco and thence into the Titicaca basin. By February he had reached Oruro in what is now central Bolivia, and Upper Peru rose as one man to welcome the deliverer. The next step was to decide upon the future government. For thirty years before the beginning of the revolution this country had been part of the viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, and when the city on the Plate had expelled its Spanish rulers the patriots there had expected that Upper Peru would continue to be connected with the new nation. Although in the early years of the war these provinces sent delegates to congresses which assembled in the Argentine cities, the Creoles of the plateau never showed any anxiety to incorporate their country with the Argentine, and the successes of the Spanish generals virtually renewed Bolivia's ancient connection with Lima. Now that the Spaniards were expelled, the Bolivian Creoles were no more willing to unite with Lower Peru than with Buenos Aires, and Bolivar encouraged this sentiment. The ambitious and lucky soldier had formed the Napoleonic conception of making himself supreme dictator of a confederation of small states, each of which was to be ruled by a subordinate dictator named from among his creatures. To organise Upper Peru into a separate country with Sucre at its head would be a long step in this direction. Bolivar himself was president of the confederation of Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador, as well as dictator of Lower Peru, and at the head of a victorious army of Colombians. Argentina's influence was nullified by civil war. Chile's strength was as yet unsuspected. For the moment Bolivar was supreme in South America. At his dictation Peru and Buenos Aires promulgated decrees leaving to the provinces of Upper Peru the right "to decide freely and spontaneously as to what form of government would be most conducive to their prosperity and good government."