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Oruro (Hispanicized spelling) or Uru Uru is a city in Bolivia with a population of 264,683 (2012 calculation), about halfway between La Paz and Sucre in the Altiplano, approximately 3,709 meters (12,169 ft) above sea level.
It is Bolivia's fifth-largest city by population, after Santa Cruz de la Sierra, El Alto, La Paz, and Cochabamba. It is the capital of the Department of Oruro and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oruro. Oruro has been subject to cycles of boom and bust owing to its dependence on the mining industry, notably tin, tungsten, silver and copper.
Little is known about the small Aymara towns of the post-Tiwanaku and pre-Inca period. Apparently, the Incas did not found important cities in the central Altiplano.
What is certain is that when the conquistadors arrived in the Oruro region, the native population was dispersed among hundreds of small settlements.
Before the Incas arrived in what is now the territory of Oruro, the area was successively inhabited by several regional peoples, among whom the Uru people stood out.
After the disappearance of the Tiwanaku Empire, the Aymaras belonging to the Aymara kingdoms subjugated the Uru people. It is worth mentioning that one of the groups that settled near Oruro were the Soras.
Years later, the Incas arrived in the territory and subjugated the different Aymara peoples of the region. The Inca dynasty governed Kollasuyo from Paria, where the Temple of the Sun, buildings, tambos (way stations), and imperial storehouses were built.
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived, they managed to integrate the Inca Empire into the Spanish monarchy. Long before the city of Oruro was founded, the Spaniards had already founded several cities in what is now Bolivian territory: Charcas (1540), Potosí (1545), La Paz (1548), Santa Cruz de la Sierra (1561), Cochabamba (1571), and Tarija (1574). One of the most outstanding characteristics of the viceroyal period was the founding of cities, which occurred for various reasons:
In 1535, the informal founding of Paria "La Nueva" or Spanish Paria began under the Extremaduran captain Juan de Saavedra, commander of an advance unit of Diego de Almagro's expeditionary army during its journey to Chile. Had it not been for urgent military needs related to the planned conquest of Cuzco, Paria could have become the first permanent nucleus in the territory that would later form the Audiencia of Charcas, the first town founded by the Spaniards.
Between 1535 and 1564, Spanish exploration of the territories of the province of Paria began in search of silver and gold mines.
In 1565, the wealthy captain Lorenzo de Aldana—whose name is associated with the legend of his "buried treasure"—was granted the encomienda of Paria. He rediscovered silver-bearing mines and exploited them.
In 1568, Diego Alemán submitted the first request for a mining claim in the Uru-Uru mountain range (present-day Oruro).
Around 1605, the priest of Colquemarca, Francisco Medrano, and other Spaniards discovered rich silver deposits in a hill in the Uru region, which they named San Cristóbal. The city was founded on November 1, 1606, as a silver mining center, under the responsibility of Licentiate Manuel de Castro del Castillo y Padilla, judge of the Royal Audiencia of Charcas. It was named Real Villa de San Felipe de Austria in honor of King Philip III of Spain, grandson of Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire.
It was one of the Spanish towns of the Audiencia of Charcas (present-day Bolivia) that was designed by engineers in a grid pattern, following the classic European urban layouts of the time (17th century). To this end, the hamlets built at the end of the 16th century were ordered to be demolished.
At the time of its founding, Oruro had a population of 15,000 inhabitants, including Spanish miners, Creoles, Africans, and Indigenous people of the Uru, Quechua, and Aymara ethnic groups.
Fluctuations in silver prices in subsequent centuries conditioned the demographic and urban growth or decline of the town.
In 1605, the increasingly wealthy silver miners of San Miguel de Uru Uru requested authorization from the Audiencia of Charcas to found a town at the site. The Audiencia ordered Captain Gonzalo Paredes de Hinojosa, corregidor of the Villa of Salinas del Río (Mizque), to inspect the region in order to determine whether the requested founding was justified—a procedure not followed in the founding of Potosí, La Plata, Nuestra Señora de La Paz, Oropeza (Cochabamba), Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and other Spanish towns.
In July 1606, the Audiencia of Charcas commissioned Judge Manuel de Castro del Castillo y Padilla to verify whether the mining settlement of San Miguel de Uru Uru met the regulatory conditions for the founding of a town.
On November 1, 1606, the founding of the Real Villa de San Felipe de Austria was initiated by Judge Manuel de Castro del Castillo y Padilla, who traveled to the settlement of San Miguel, next to Pie de Gallo hill, to carry out the founding. The name was given in honor of the reigning monarch of Spain and to commemorate the transfer of the royal court from Valladolid to Madrid. Jerónimo Ondegardo, an encomendero resident, was appointed first ordinary mayor; the bachelor priest Francisco Medrano, first settler and discoverer of the mines, was appointed second ordinary mayor. Alonso de Mendoza Inojossa, an encomendero resident of La Plata, was appointed Royal Standard Bearer, and Manuel de Torres Villavicencio was appointed Chief Constable.
In 1607, the commissioner sent by the Audiencia of Charcas arrived directly in the Villa Felipe de Godoy to gather information on the economic conditions and life in the newly founded town. His report to the Audiencia, entitled relación de siento, minas y población de la Villa de San Felipe de Austria, llamados Oruro (Account of the site, mines, and population of the Villa of San Felipe de Austria, called Oruro), became the first chronicle of the town, and he its first chronicler.
By 1618, the town was inhabited by thousands of Spaniards and a large Indigenous population. According to Vásquez de Espinoza, in its surroundings there were 20 ore-processing mills dedicated to refining minerals extracted from the surrounding hills. This mining district was expanded to include the populations of Paria and Berenguela.
Between 1608 and 1675, there was an extraordinary extraction of silver and prospecting of other mines, with settlements of Creoles, natives from other towns, and Europeans. By mid-century, churches and convents had been built, such as those of San Francisco, Santo Domingo, San Agustín, La Merced, La Compañía, as well as a hospital for the sick run by the Brothers of St. John of God.
In 1678, a census recorded 75,920 inhabitants in the town, of whom 37,960 were Spaniards and Creoles, with the rest being Indigenous people, making it at that time the second-largest city in Upper Peru. From 1680 onward, silver mining entered a period of stagnation and decline.
In 1739, Juan Vélez de Córdova issued the Manifesto of Grievances, which laid the foundation for the first attempt at insurrection in the town, though it failed due to betrayal.
That same year, the Creole Juan Vélez de Córdova led a rebellion against the Spanish Empire. His Manifesto of Grievances was a document of great political value and for a long time served as a model for conspiracies in the Audiencia of Charcas, especially the Oruro Rebellion of 1781.
On February 10, 1781, in the Real Villa of San Felipe de Austria (Oruro), one of the libertarian cries of Latin America took place, continuing the rebellions against the Spanish Crown. On that occasion, the uprising led by Sebastián Pagador, Jacinto Rodríguez de Herrera, and other leaders issued the solemn proclamation:
"Amigos paisanos y compañeros: en ninguna ocasión podemos dar mejores pruebas de nuestro amor a la patria, sino en ésta, no estimemos en nada nuestras vidas, sacrifiquémosla gustosos en defensa de la libertad".
“Friends, compatriots, and companions: on no occasion can we give better proof of our love for the homeland than on this one; let us value our lives as nothing, and gladly sacrifice them in defense of liberty.”
The libertarian rebellion was led by Jacinto Rodríguez de Herrera. Sebastián Pagador played a prominent role until he lost his life during an Indigenous uprising. The rebellion was suppressed by the Spanish Crown in 1783, after Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo ordered a secret summary investigation, sending the main rebels to Buenos Aires, then the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata.
In 1789, the image of the Virgin of Candelaria (Virgin of the Socavón) officially appeared in a cavity of the Pie de Gallo hill.
In January 1793, a process began to gather informational material on the virtues of the Franciscan friar Juan Espinoza, aimed at his beatification.
In 1803, the secular town council (cabildo) and other authorities submitted a petition to King Charles IV, requesting confirmation of the founding of the town and the granting of a coat of arms, among other privileges. In 1806, the British invasion of Buenos Aires began. The defeat and expulsion of the invaders were celebrated in the Filipense town with great festivities, as in the other towns of Charcas. Oruro sent to Buenos Aires a plaque or sheet forged in gold and repoussé silver, as a token of gratitude and praise for the victory over the British.
In 1809, the independence revolutions began in Chuquisaca and La Paz, marking the start of what became known as the War of Independence. On October 6, 1810, the population of the town of San Felipe de Austria rose up in arms, led by Tomás Barrón, in a libertarian declaration against Spanish domination and in support of the patriots of Cochabamba. On December 27, 1810, the patriot lieutenant colonel Eustoquio Díaz Vélez, commanding the vanguard of the Army of the North of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, entered the town with the apparent approval of the population.
In 1814, the destruction of the fortress began—a viceregal building used as a prison, barracks, and police headquarters, alternately by royalists and patriots. It was later precariously rebuilt and eventually demolished. The Bolivian soldier José Santos Vargas, known as Tambor, began writing a campaign diary that would become the only chronicle of the struggles in the western and valley regions of Bolivia. Oruro was an important royalist center throughout the war of independence. After the Battle of Falsuri, in which the patriot colonel José Miguel Lanza was defeated by the royalist general Pedro Antonio Olañeta, the latter departed with his army to establish his headquarters in Oruro.
Near the end of the war, on February 9, 1825, General Antonio José de Sucre issued in the city of La Paz the decree convening a General Assembly of the provinces of Upper Peru to decide their future, to be held in the town of Oruro. The assembly did not meet there due to the advanced age of some representatives from Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, who cited “distance and poor climate conditions.” The historic assembly ultimately deliberated in Chuquisaca between April 10 and August 6, during which the Republic of Bolívar—today Bolivia—was founded.
On September 5, 1826, the Department of Oruro was created, composed of the provinces of Oruro, Paria, and Carangas. The city of Oruro was established as the departmental capital, and the viceregal name "Villa San Felipe de Austria" was discarded.
On December 11, 1826, the College of Sciences and Arts was founded. It began operating in 1827 and was later renamed the Simón Bolívar National College. At that time, the city's population reached 8,000 inhabitants. For a period, the tin mine La Salvadora was the most important source of this mineral in the world.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Oruro”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.