Who was Túpac Amaru II, and what was his rebellion in Peru?
The rebellion of Túpac Amaru II
La rebelión de Túpac Amaru II
4 November 1780–18 May 1781. José Gabriel Condorcanqui, born in 1738 in Surimana near Cusco, was the kuraka (hereditary chief) of three villages, a mule-train owner educated by the…
Where: Peru, Bolivia, Cusco
What happened
José Gabriel Condorcanqui, born in 1738 in Surimana near Cusco, was the kuraka (hereditary chief) of three villages, a mule-train owner educated by the Jesuits, and claimed descent from the last Inca, Túpac Amaru. On 4 November 1780 he seized the corregidor Antonio de Arriaga, had him tried and hanged, and called on Indians, mestizos and creoles to end the forced sales, the mita and the new taxes. His army won at Sangarará but failed to take Cusco; betrayed and captured at Langui, he was sentenced on 15 May 1781 and on 18 May executed in Cusco's main square with his wife Micaela Bastidas, his son Hipólito and six companions, after watching them die. The rising spread to Upper Peru under Túpac Katari and was crushed with tens of thousands dead.
Say it
Túpac Amaru II se levantó contra los impuestos y el trabajo forzado.
Túpac Amaru II rose against taxes and forced labour.
Why it matters
It was the largest rebellion in colonial Spanish America; its memory runs from the repression of Inca culture that followed to Peru's twentieth-century reformers and the name of a famous rapper.
Read about it
Connected
- Cajamarca: Pizarro captures Atahualpa (16 November 1532)
- Silver is found at Potosí (1545)
- Silver is found at Potosí (1545)
- The Bourbon reforms (c. 1765–1788)
- The Bourbon reforms (c. 1765–1788)
Sources
- Túpac Amaru II — Biblioteca Nacional del Perú
- La Rebelión de Túpac Amaru II, vol. 4, p. 144 — Congreso de la República del Perú, Fondo Editorial
- About the Gálvez Visita — LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin