Túpac Amaru II
Túpac Amaru II led the largest rebellion against Spanish rule in colonial South America. Born José Gabriel Condorcanqui in 1738 near Cuzco, he was a kuraka — a hereditary indigenous chief — educated by Jesuits, and claimed descent from the last Inca ruler, Túpac Amaru, executed in 1572, whose name he took. He was wealthy, owning mule trains that carried goods between Cuzco and Potosí, and was literate in Spanish, Quechua and some Latin. He spent years pursuing legal petitions in the colonial courts against the repartimiento, the forced sale of goods to indigenous communities at inflated prices, and against the mit'a labour draft for the Potosí silver mines. The petitions failed. In November 1780 he seized and publicly executed the corregidor of Tinta, Antonio de Arriaga, and issued a call for an end to the mit'a, the repartimiento and the customs duties. The rising spread across the southern Andes into Upper Peru, drew in perhaps a hundred thousand people, and became a general war that killed an estimated hundred thousand over two years. It began as a protest against specific abuses in the king's name and turned into a war against colonial rule, alienating the creole elite whose support he had initially sought. He was betrayed and captured in April 1781. In May, in the main square of Cuzco, he was made to watch the executions of his wife Micaela Bastidas, his son and his uncle, had his tongue cut out, and was tied to four horses to be torn apart. When that failed he was beheaded and his body quartered. Spain banned Inca dress, Quechua theatre and the title Inca.
- Lived: 1738 CE – 1781 CE
- Nationality: Peruvian
- Roles: rebel_leader, indigenous_leader
