Within the framework of the State-building process in the 19th century, local powers played a fundamental role in determining its outcome. Likewise, the forces of the locality had to go through a similar generative process, whether based on colonial inheritances or emerging in territories considered territorial margins. In this paper, we try to determine the process of creating a local power on the Bolivian coast around the port of Cobija by recognizing the differentiation of its project for the region from the one proposed by the executive power. It is considered that this was catalyzed by the events surrounding Andrés de Santa Cruz’s trip to the port at the end of 1832, which led to the territorialization of the interests of the main leaders and merchants settled there and enhanced that their opinion, from that moment on, would be expressed as dissent or, at least, gave a basis to the change in the relationship with the executive, becoming a political scenario dominated by negotiation.
