Túpac Amaru II - Líder de la Gran Rebelión

INTRODUCING TÚPAC AMARU II Leader of the great rebellion José Gabriel Condorcanqui, later known as Túpac Amaru II, was born on March 19, 1738, the son of chief Miguel Condorcanqui and Rosa Noguera, inheriting from his mother the lineage of the last Inca of the Vilcabamba resistance, Túpac Amaru I. Because of his status as the son of a cacique, he studied with the Jesuits at the San Francisco de Borja school or school of caciques in Cuzco, mastering Quechua, Spanish and Latin. On May 25, 1758, he married Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua, with whom he would have three children: Hipólito, Mariano and Fernando.

Later, with the death of his father, he would inherit the position of cacique of Tungasuca, Surimana and Pampamarca, also holding the title of Marquis of Oropeza. Turned into a rich merchant, he covered the routes from Río de la Plata to Callao, passing through Potosí, Puno and Cuzco. It is during the development of these activities that he began to suffer pressure from the Spanish authorities, who subjected him to the payment of prebends and the lifting of customs and alcabala taxes.

He also knew and understood the exploitation and abuse to which the indigenous people were being subjected through the mining mita, which triggered a great mortality for those who were forced to work in the mines; the labor mita, which locked up women and children in the weaving factories for exhausting days; the commercial repartimientos, converted into a practice of enrichment for the corregidores that forced the people to buy unnecessary merchandise at unfairly high prices, and the implementation of the caste system, where the white race was considered superior to all other mestizajes. Having the function of mediating between the corregidor and the indigenous people of his cacicazgo, in 1776 he decides to present a claim before the inspector José Antonio de Areche, who had arrived in Peru to apply the new measures established by the Spanish crown, under the reign of Carlos III . , known as the Bourbon reforms; however, in the meeting that both had in the city of Lima, Areche would ignore the complaints of abuse and exploitation presented by the cacique, which led to the start of the great rebellion of 1780.

José Gabriel Condorcanqui starts the rebellion against the Spanish domination, under the name of Túpac Amaru II, declaring himself Inca. Although at the beginning he continued to recognize the authority of the Spanish crown, affirming that his movement was against the bad government of the corregidores, later the rebellion would become an independence movement. His wife, Micaela Bastidas, and various relatives had a direct participation in the uprising, accompanying Túpac Amaru even in the disastrous outcome.

On November 4, 1780, Túpac Amaru captures the corregidor of Tinta, Antonio de Arriaga, hated for his excesses and abuses against the population, being publicly executed in Tungasuca at the hands of the slave Antonio Oblitas. This fact was the starting point of the rebellion since its knowledge got many Indians and mestizos to join the rebellion. After this execution, Túpac Amaru advanced towards Quikijana and Pomacanchis, destroying mills , suppressing mitas and repartimientos, leaving taxes and alcabalas without effect, and annulling slavery to black slaves.

All these acts were known in Cuzco, which is why Corregidor Inclán Valdéz organizes, together with rich Spaniards and Creoles and the Bishop of Cuzco: Moscoso and Peralta, an army of 1,500 men together with hundreds of Indians, Zambos and mulatto allies to confront the rebel forces. On November 18, the battle of Sangarará takes place, where Túpac Amaru defeats the Spanish army under the command of Tiburcio Landa. Despite this, Túpac Amaru did not deal the final blow to Cuzco, but returned to Tungasuca and from there, tried to negotiate the surrender of the city Meanwhile, he marched south to raise up the peoples of lower and upper Peru, and part of the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata.

After 46 days touring the south, in January 1781, he had just begun his attack on Cuzco, however, the city was heavily guarded by troops sent from Lima by Viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui, being Túpac Amaru and the rebels, defeated by the Spanish forces and their allies, including the chiefs Pumacahua, Choquehuanca and Sarawaura. Túpac Amaru retreats from the city of Tinta, pursued by nearly 17,000 men from the Spanish army. On April 6, 1781, he would face the Hispanics again in the Battle of Checacupe, however, this time luck was against him, and he had to retreat to the city of Combapata, where he was betrayed by the Creole Francisco Santa Cruz, who would hand him over.

him and his family, the royalist troops, who took them to the city of Cuzco. The days following his capture, Túpac Amaru and his family were subjected to all kinds of cruel torture, with the aim of finding out the names of his accomplices and insurgent territories, but everything was useless since with the forces he had left he tried to send messages with his own blood to his comrades in rebellion, giving as his only response to the visitor José Antonio de Areche: "We are the only conspirators: your grace for having burdened the country with unbearable exactions, and I for having wanted to rid the people of such tyranny". On May 15, 1780, the visitor issued the sentence against Túpac Amaru, condemning him to death by dismemberment by horse, also sentencing his wife Micaela Bastidas and his son Hipólito to death.

The execution of these sentences were carried out 4 days after their expedition, being one of the most cruel and brutal carried out during the colony: Micaela Bastidas was sentenced to die by the garrote, however, as her neck was very thin, Death by suffocation could not be confirmed, so her executioners kicked her in the belly to death, but not before having cut out her tongue to avoid hearing her screams. Túpac Amaru, who also had his tongue cut out, had to watch the horrible death of his wife and the hanging of his son Hipólito, to later be tied by his extremities to thick ropes that would be pulled by four horses for his dismemberment. However, the animals were unable to dismember the solemn victim, so after a time of terrible suffering, the visitor Areche would order his head to be cut off and dismembered using an axe.

All this observed by his other son, Mariano. Once the sentence was completed, each part of his body was sent to a town in the rebel zones: his head was sent to the town of Tinta, an arm to Tungasuca, the other to the province of Carabaya, a leg to the town of Livitaca in Chumbivilcas, and the other to the town of Santa Rosa in Lampa. All this with a spirit of warning and frightening the peoples who want to join the rebellion.

The surviving children of Túpac Amaru, Mariano, 22, and Fernando, 12, with nearly 80 relatives, were expelled from the Viceroyalty of Peru, having to walk from Cuzco to Lima, in a true walk of death, crossing punas and mountain ranges . frosts suffering the inclemency of the weather and of the men, for finally, those who managed to survive, to be locked up in the fortress of Real Felipe and then to be shipped to the prisons of Africa and Spain. Of all the deportees , only one half-brother of Túpac Amaru managed to survive: Juan Bautista, who returned to America after 40 years in prison, managing to write his memoirs called "Forty years of captivity", where he would recount the cruelty and cruelty suffered by his family.

at the hands of his Spanish captors. The death of Túpac Amaru marked the end of a cycle of anti-colonial indigenous uprisings and the beginning of the independence dream in America, both his actions and his suffering mobilized men and ideas throughout the American continent, failing to silence his memory despite his death. Alejandro Romualdo, an outstanding Peruvian poet, represented the death and transcendence of Túpac Amaru II in the following way: They will take out his dreams and his eyes They will want to dismember him screaming.

They will spit it out. And with killing blows they will nail him: and they will not be able to kill him! They will want to fly it and they will not be able to fly it.

They will want to break it and they will not be able to break it. They will want to kill him, but, They will not be able to get it. On the third day of suffering, when everything is created consummated, shouting freedom!

on earth, must return. And they won't be able to kill him.