| “ | You kill me now, but I will return, and then I will be millions.
— Túpac Amaru II
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” |
A few decades before the larger wars of independence in South America, a cacique of Incan descent named José Gabriel Condorcanqui led a coalition of Indigenous and mestizo peasants in rebellion against the colonial government, partly in response to the Bourbon Reforms. Condorcanqui took the name Túpac Amaru II, after the last Inca leader, who died in 1572. Although Túpac Amaru's rebellion began with relatively limited goals protesting the abuses of corrupt officials, it transformed into a millenarian neo-Inca uprising that outlived Túpac Amaru himself.
In November 1780, Túpac and his supporters captured Antonio Arriaga, the corregidor and executed him in public, claiming that they were acting on behalf of the Spanish crown while simultaneously issuing a series of demands relating to the mita forced labor system. On November 18, thousands of Túpac’s rebels defeated around 1,000 colonial soldiers at the Battle of Sangarará, where the rebels surrounded the town, set the church on fire, and routed the Spanish soldiers as they tried to flee. Against the advice of his top commander and wife, Micaela Bastidas, Túpac chose not to march on Cuzco and instead turned south, toward Lake Titicaca.
Túpac's army swelled in size into the tens of thousands, but by the time he finally returned to besiege Cuzco in December 1780, the colonial forces had rallied and pulled reinforcements from Lima and New Granada. The rebels were forced to lift the siege in January 1781, and the multi-ethnic character of the coalition fragmented, with many criollos and mestizos defecting to the loyalist forces. In April, Túpac and many of his family members were betrayed and taken prisoner; in May, after being forced to watch Micaela’s execution, Túpac himself was sentenced to a botched quartering by horse before being decapitated.
The rebellion did not end with Túpac's execution. Some of his surviving relatives continued the revolt around Lake Titicaca, where the fighting developed along racially-charged lines between Indigenous and non-Indigenous fighters. The colonial government struggled to put down the rebellion by force of arms, although the rebels were largely contained to backcountry lands. In late 1782, most rebel leaders accepted a general amnesty from Viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui, ending the rebellion. The colonial government would nonetheless execute or exile prominent rebel leaders through 1783 after they had accepted the amnesty.
Battle vs. Regulators (by Field Marshal Montgomery)[]
TBW
Expert's Opinions[]
The Peruvian rebels were better organized and fought more battles against a superior force. That allowed them to overcome the disadvantage of slightly less musketeers in their ranks.