Editing La Paz (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of La Paz}}
[[File:Bolivia, La Paz; Illimani in background LCCN2016821765 (cropped).tif|left|thumb|View of La Paz between 1909 and 1920]]
This area had been the site of an Inca city on a major trading route.

Although the [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] [[conquistador]]s entered the area in 1535, they did not found La Paz until 1548. Originally it was to be at the site of the [[Native American (Americas)|Native American]] settlement, [[Laja, Bolivia|Laja]]. The town site was moved a few days later to its present location in the valley of Chuquiago, which is more clement.<ref name="Crespo-1">{{Cite book |author=Crespo, Alberto (Alberto Crespo Rodas) |title=450 Anos De La Fundación De La Paz |publisher=Canelas |year=1998 |location=Cochabamba, Bolivia |author-link=:es:Alberto Crespo Rodas}}</ref>

Control over the former [[Inca]] lands had been entrusted to [[Pedro de la Gasca]] by the Spanish king (and Holy Roman Emperor) [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Charles V]]. Gasca commanded [[Alonso de Mendoza]] to found a new city commemorating the end of the civil wars in Peru; the city of La Paz was founded on 20 October 1548, by Alonzo de Mendoza, with Juan de Vargas appointed as its first mayor.<ref name="Crespo-2">{{Cite book |author=Crespo, Alberto (Alberto Crespo Rodas) |author-link=:es:Alberto Crespo Rodas |year=1980 |title=Alonzo de Mendoza: Fundador de La Paz |location=La Paz, Bolivia |publisher=Biblioteca Popular Boliviana de Última Hora}}</ref>

In 1549, Juan Gutierrez Paniagua was commanded to design an urban plan that would designate sites for public areas, plazas, official buildings, and a cathedral. These were meant to express the ideals and relationships of Spanish colonial society.{{cn|date=September 2024}} La Plaza de los Españoles, which is known today as the Plaza Murillo, was chosen as the location for government buildings as well as the Metropolitan Cathedral.{{cn|date=September 2024}}

[[Spain]] controlled La Paz with a firm grip and the Spanish king had the last word in all matters political, but consultation was extended, taking months or longer by sea. Indigenous and other unrest was repeated around the turn of the nineteenth century.{{cn|date=September 2024}} In 1781, for a total of six months, a group of [[Aymara people]] laid siege to La Paz. Under the leadership of [[Tupac Katari]], they destroyed churches and government property. Thirty years later Indians conducted a two-month siege against La Paz. This incident was the setting for the origin of the legend of the [[Ekeko]]. In 1809, the struggle for independence from the Spanish rule brought uprisings against the royalist forces.{{cn|date=September 2024}} On 16 July 1809, [[Pedro Domingo Murillo]] said that the Bolivian revolution was igniting a lamp that nobody would be able to turn off. This uprising formally marked the beginning of the liberation of South America from Spain. The first open rebellions against the Spanish Crown took place in La Paz and the city of Sucre simultaneously.{{cn|date=September 2024}} This event is known as the Primer Grito Libertario de América and brought about the [[Bolivian War of Independence]].
[[File:La Paz in 1987.jpg|left|thumb|[[Plaza Murillo|Plaza Murrillo]], the city's main square, seen in 1987.]]
Pedro Domingo Murillo was hanged at the Plaza de los Españoles several months later, on 29 January 1810.{{cn|date=September 2024}} After Bolivia gained independence, La Paz named this plaza after him, to commemorate him always. He is remembered as the voice of revolution across South America.

In 1898, La Paz was made the ''[[de facto]]'' seat of the national government, with Sucre remaining the nominal historical as well as judiciary capital. This change reflected the shift of the Bolivian economy away from the largely exhausted [[silver]] [[mining|mines]] of [[Potosí]] to the exploitation of [[tin]] near [[Oruro, Bolivia|Oruro]], and resulting shifts in the distribution of economic and political power among various national [[elite]]s.<ref>"[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761553809/La_Paz.html La Paz]," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008. Retrieved 10 November 2008. [https://web.archive.org/web/20091029041432/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761553809/La_Paz.html Archived] 31 October 2009.</ref>

The [[Racial segregation|segregation]] of [[Chola boliviana|Cholitas]] (women of [[Andean]] indigenous background) continued until the 1980s. They were not allowed to enter certain public places and were banned from cinemas and some restaurants, with more emphasis in Bolivian eastern cities like [[Santa Cruz De La Sierra]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/10/eps/1428661748_198900.html |title=La rebelión de las cholas |first=Liliana |last=Colanzi |newspaper=El País |date=18 April 2015 |via=elpais.com |access-date=19 February 2023 |archive-date=19 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230219231132/https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/10/eps/1428661748_198900.html |url-status=live }}</ref>