Trujillo is Peru?s third-largest city, and was also one of the first to be founded by the Spanish. When Pizarro founded the city in 1534, he named it after his hometown in Spain. It is the capital of the La Libertad department, an important sugar cane growing area.
The area around Trujillo was important long before the arrival of the Spanish, and the Moche valley was the origin of the Moche culture, one of the most important in the history of Peru. The Chimú culture emerged when the Moche culture died out, and built Chan Chán, the largest pre-Hispanic city in Peru. Although the Spanish saw the walls of the city when sailing along the coast, Chan Chán had been abandoned before their arrival, as the Incas had transferred the Chimú population to a new city as punishment for their resistance to Inca rule.
The city grew in importance during the colonial period as a result of agriculture, and there are still many fine colonial houses and churches in the city. However, the city also rebelled against Spanish rule, and declared its liberty from the crown before the rest of Peru.
Trujillo remained a centre for resisting central authority, and the city became the centre of the left wing APRA (American Revolutionary Popular Alliance) political movement in the 1920s. The APRA founder and leader, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, who was from Trujillo, claimed victory in the elections of 1931, although General Sánchez Cerro won the count. Claiming fraud, APRA supporters in Trujillo rose up in protest against the new government, and went on the rampage, killing many officials. In a brutal crackdown, the government arrested many of these supporters, took them to the ruins of Chan Chán, and executed hundreds of people. Haya de la Torre was imprisoned on the notorious El Frontón island and the APRA party was outlawed.
Despite this political oppression, support for the APRA party remained strong throughout Peru, and especially in Trujillo, and the party finally won a national election and took power in 1985 under the leadership of the eloquent Alán García. Although many Peruvians and international commentators consider much of his presidency to have been a disaster, Alán García, and the APRA party, nearly came to power again in the elections of 2001, following the flight of President Alberto Fujimori.
Trujillo is an elegant, attractive city, and it makes an excellent base for visiting the nearby archaeological sites. Although there is the occasional whiff of fishmeal from the nearby factory at Puerto Salaverry, this is rarely troublesome.
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