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In-Depth Information
depression (caused by a decline in silver production) in the late seventeenth and early eight-
eenth centuries.
The revival of the Inca kings
Above all, though, the rebellion was inspired by the Andean belief that a
reincarnated Inca
king
would return to drive out the Spanish. The uprising's leading figure was José Gabriel
Condorcanqui, an indigenous
kuraka
who in November 1780 declared himself the direct des-
cendant of the last ruling Inca (Túpac Amaru, who had been executed in 1572) and rightful
Inca king of Peru, adopting the name
Túpac Amaru II
. Raising a large indigenous army and
slaughtering a Spanish force, he seized control of most of the southern Peruvian highlands
and laid siege to Cusco for several months. Though Túpac Amaru himself was subsequently
captured and killed, his nephews - all of whom also took the name Túpac Amaru - continued
the rebellion around Lago Titicaca. Here, they formed an uneasy alliance with Aymara forces
led by the radical Julian Apaza, who adopted the name
Túpac Katari
.
Though they joined forces to lay siege to La Paz, however, the two movements were fatally
divided by ideology and
factionalism
. While the moderate Túpac Amarus sought to form a
broad-based, rebel coalition - including mestizos and even white criollos - Túpac Katari and
his followers were extreme Aymara nationalists intent on killing all whites and completely
erasing Spanish rule. Several powerful indigenous
kurakas
rejected the revolutionary mes-
sage altogether and sided against the rebels, leading large indigenous forces to fight on the
Spanish side. The war was characterized throughout by great brutality on both sides: in two
years, about one hundred thousand people were killed.
In October 1781, La Paz was relieved by a royalist army from Argentina. The Túpac Amaru
leaders surrendered in return for pardons or exile, while Túpac Katari was captured and ex-
ecuted. By early 1782, the rebellion had been comprehensively crushed, and the indigenous
nobility destroyed. Thus ended the last major
indigenous uprising
against Spanish rule in
theAndes.Thenextgreatrebellionwasledbywhitecriollosratherthanwould-beIncakings.
The Independence War
By the early nineteenth century, growing discontent with
Spanish rule
had spread amongst
the white criollo and mestizo population of Alto Peru, the result of severe economic depres-
sion, their exclusion from high-level administrative jobs (which were reserved for Spanish-
born immigrants), and regulations preventing trade with any country other than Spain. At the
same time the powerful ideas of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, as well as
the successful revolt in North America, made independence from Spain seem more realist-
ic. However, the traumatic experience of the
Great Rebellion
had left the white criollo and
mestizo population with an abiding fear of disorder and indigenous revolt, so it wasn't until
the sudden collapse of the government in Spain, following Napoleon's invasion in 1808, that
the impetus for revolutionary change arrived.
