An approach to the experience of fear: Independence at Trujillo city, Peru

This paper analyzes individual and collective fear manifestations and expresses that the presence of insurgents from Chile and Rio de la Plata at the north of the Peruvian Viceroyalty generated a context of uncertainty and fear from a possible armed incursion at the city of Trujilo, allowing the criollo elite start to question its loyalty to the king and look for government alternatives. Starting in 1811, with the delivery of a document from Castelli to the city council and the news of insurgent prisoners from Cusco in 1815, the first manifestations of social fear begun. In 1816, with Brown expedition to the viceroyalty, they experienced fear to a real menace for the first time. Nevertheless, the breaking point was with Cochrane’s assault to the Port of Santa in 1819 and finally with the presence of San martin at the north of Lima in 1820. In this study we examine fear, considering it as one of the factors which allows to understand the decision for independence, but from the dimension of human emotion against the dangers of subversion of stablished order.