Tupac Amaru II

José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera (Surimana, Canas, Viceroyalty of Peru, March 19, 1738-Cuzco, May 18, 1781) (who in a proclamation signed as José I), also known as Túpac Amaru II (in Quechua for "shining serpent"), was a Peruvian indigenous warlord and leader of the "Great Rebellion" against the Spanish crown that It occurred in Latin America and began on November 4, 1780, nine years before the French Revolution, with the capture and subsequent execution of the corregidor Antonio de Arriaga. This rebellion took place in the Viceroyalty of Peru and in the Viceroyalty of Río de La Plata, both forming part of the Spanish Empire.

Túpac Amaru II was of mestizo origin, descended from Túpac Amaru I, the fourth and last of the Incas of Vilcabamba who continued to fight against the Spanish until the year 1572. Upon the death of his father, Túpac Amaru II inherited the curacazgo of Surimana, Tungasuca and Pampamarca. He was wealthy and was dedicated to commerce since he owned a mule business used at that time for the transport of merchandise. On the other hand, he was raised (until he was 12 years old) by the Creole priest Antonio López de Sosa and later at the Colegio San Francisco de Borja, where he showed a preference for the Creole; he became fluent in Latin and wore refined Hispanic clothing, he later dressed as an Inca nobleman when he claimed the Marquesado de Oropeza. He also mastered and used the native Quechua language.

He led the largest independence rebellion in the Viceroyalty of Peru. He was the first to request the freedom of all of Latin America from any dependency, both from Spain and from its monarch, implying this not only the mere political separation but the abolition of taxes (mining mita, distribution of merchandise, obrajes), of the corregimientos, alcabalas and customs (November 14, 1780). In addition, he decreed the abolition of black slavery for the first time in Latin America itself (November 16, 1780).

In Peru he has been recognized as the founder of Peruvian national identity. He was used as a major figure for the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces of General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975), as well as by various political movements and even by terrorist movements like the MRTA and since then it has remained in the popular imagination.

Childhood and youth

José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera (in Quechua kuntorkanki, "you are a Condor") was born on March 19, 1738 in the town of Surimana, province of Canas (Cuzco - Peru). He was the son of Miguel Condorcanqui Usquiconsa and Carmen Rosa Noguera Valenzuela, his father was curaca of three towns in the Tinta district: Surimana, Pampamarca and Tungasuca, a position that José Gabriel inherited.

During his childhood he lived in Surimana, but he accompanied his father on his travels throughout the district and beyond while he carried out his duties as curaca and practiced his trade as a merchant. These expeditions continued when José Gabriel became of legal age and assumed the position and profession of his father.

His initial education was in charge of his parents López de Sosa and Rodríguez. Due to her status as an indigenous noblewoman, she studied at the prestigious San Francisco de Borja school in Cuzco, directed by the Jesuit order for the children of the curacas. Later, she studied at the University of San Marcos. She obtained a careful education, having Spain sent its best teachers to the New World, where they learned the revolutionary and anti-absolutist doctrine typical of the School of Salamanca, which says that the real depository of power, which always emanates from God, was the people and not the King, and that the The first had the right to revolution, even tyrannicide, if the second did not exercise the government of the kingdom for the benefit of the people. He was fluent in Quechua, Spanish and Latin, highlighting among his readings the Royal Commentaries of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X of Castilla, the Holy Scriptures, the Quechua drama Apu Ollantay, as well as later and clandestinely texts by Voltaire and Rousseau, censored at that time.

On May 25, 1758, he married Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua with whom he had three children: Hipólito, Mariano and Fernando (all surnamed Condorcanqui Bastidas); Six years after his marriage, he was named curaca of the territories that corresponded to him by elementary inheritance. Condorcanqui established his residence in the city of Cuzco, from where he traveled constantly to control the operation of his lands.

As curaca, José Gabriel held rights to the land. He also had interests in small-scale mining and coca fields in Carabaya, to the south, and owned several houses and a small farm. He inherited 350 mules from his father, which he used to work the Cuzco-Alto Peru circuit, the trade route that linked Lima and Cuzco with the extremely important mines of Potosí. The people revered him for his Inca heritage and, according to many, for his polite manner and willingness to defend the poor peasant.

Due to his prosperous economic activities, he began to suffer pressure from the Spanish authorities who subjected him to the payment of perks, especially due to pressure from the muleteers who lived in the region of the Río de la Plata basin, who tried to have a monopoly on the transit of ore through Upper Peru.

In the late 1770s, the opening of Buenos Aires to trade from Upper Peru ended Lima's commercial monopoly and meant increased competition for Cuzco producers who sold their wares in Potosí and had to compete with the from Buenos Aires and even those from Spain. On the other hand, the widespread overproduction throughout the Andes pushed prices down. Furthermore, in the years 1778 and 1779, extremely cold weather damaged crops and made travel difficult. In 1780, Tupac Amaru, who also experienced this crisis, had considerable resources but, likewise, numerous debts. He also witnessed the economic malaise and heard about it from a variety of authors, from merchants on the brink of bankruptcy to communities unable to afford the growing tax burden.

Condorcanqui lived the typical situation of the curacas: he had to mediate between the corregidor and the indigenous people under his charge. However, he was affected, like the rest of the population, by the establishment of customs and the increase in the alcabalas, which strongly affected his mule business that transported merchandise between Peru and the Río de la Plata. He made claims on these issues, also asking that the indigenous people be released from compulsory labor in the mines, claims addressed through regular channels to the colonial authorities in Tinta, Cuzco and later in Lima, obtaining refusals or indifference.

In addition, he adopted the name Túpac Amaru II, in honor of his ancestor Túpac Amaru I, the last Inca of Vilcabamba, seeking to have his royal Inca lineage recognized for which he followed for years a judicial process in the Royal Audience of Lima, for the recognition of the title of Marquis of Santiago de Oropesa on the death of the last holder María de la Almudena Enríquez de Cabrera y Almansa in the year 1741.

Leader of the "Great Rebellion"

Current monument in the Cuzco, in tribute to José Gabriel Túpac Amaru, in the square of the same name.

On November 4, 1780, he captured, tried, and executed the Spanish corregidor Antonio de Arriaga, thereby starting the rebellion against colonial domination. At the beginning the movement recognized the authority of the Spanish Crown, since Túpac Amaru affirmed that his intention was not to go against the king but against the "bad government" of the corregidores. Later the rebellion radicalized becoming an independence movement.

His wife Micaela Bastidas, as well as relatives of both, played a leading role in the movement, both in recruiting, supplying, and to a certain extent in decision-making. With the support of other curacas, mestizos, and some criollos, the rebellion spread, reaching troops of tens of thousands of combatants. Among its offers were the abolition of both the distribution and the alcabala, customs, and half of Potosi.

In 1777 Túpac Amaru demanded that he be recognized as the Marquesado de Oropesa, a title that came with lands and haciendas, but also with the political burden of being recognized as heir to the Inca throne; however, he lost the lawsuit, determining that it did not correspond to him, after this event José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera declared himself Inca and took the name of Tupac Amaru II, Lord of the Caesars and Amazons , and swears with the following his coronation banner: «... Don José Primero, by the grace of God, Inca King of Peru, Santa Fe, Quito, Chile, Buenos Aires and Continents of the South Seas, Duke of the Superlative, Lord of the Caesars and Amazon with domain in the Great Paititi, Distributor Commissioner of Divine Mercy, etc...».

Their movement had two phases:

• The first phase or phase of tupacamarist, where the hegemony of José Gabriel Túpac Amaru, his wife Micaela and captains stand out.
• The second phase or tupacatarist phase, continuation of the rebellion by Diego Cristóbal Túpac Amaru, the cousin of José Gabriel, and where the protagonist of Túpac Katari stands out.

Túpac Amaru II sought to win the support of the church and integrate indigenous, criollo, mestizo and black freedmen into an anti-colonial front, but he could not prevent the massification of the movement from converting the independence movement in a racial struggle against Spaniards and Creoles (in the Viceroyalty, the Creoles did not have antagonism with the Spaniards in their actions, being at most contrary to the Bourbon reforms but faithful to the crown in other aspects).

During its peak and, especially, after the capture and execution of Túpac Amaru and his family, the rebellion spread in an extremely violent manner, without taking prisoners and with the practice of murdering anyone who spoke Spanish or dress in the European manner; the indigenous people who dressed in Spanish fashion were also attacked. Thus, the systematic execution of the "puka kunka" (literally red necks or gringos) turned the rebellion into a true bloodbath in which it is estimated that the murder of between eighty and one hundred thousand people.

Capture and run

Trying to dismember Tupac Amaru II.

After refusing to take Cuzco, sacrificing the indigenous people that the royalists placed in the vanguard and before the arrival of an army of 17,000 soldiers from Lima, Túpac Amaru II ordered the withdrawal of his army to his military base in Tinta, while the royalist forces send a punitive expedition of almost 20,000 soldiers against him. It was in this campaign that, after being defeated in the battle of Checacupe, Túpac Amaru II was betrayed by two of his supporters, the mestizo Francisco Santa Cruz and the Spaniard Ventura Landaeta, and was captured in Langui on April 6, 1781.

He was taken to Cuzco chained and mounted on a mule, a city where he entered a week later, "with a serene countenance," while the bells of the Cathedral rang in celebration of his capture. Arrested in the chapel of San Ignacio of the convent of the Company of Jesus, he was successively interrogated and tortured.

When the Spanish visitor José Antonio de Areche, envoy of the King of Spain, suddenly entered the dungeon to demand names in exchange for promises, Túpac Amaru II replied: «Only you and I are guilty, you for oppressing my people, and I for trying to free him from such tyranny. We both deserve death."

On Friday, May 18, 1781, in a public act in the Plaza de Armas of Cuzco, the sentence of Túpac Amaru, his relatives and main captains was carried out, who were taken from their cells, guarded by heavily armed members of the mulatto militia and that of Huamanga, until they reached the square where gallows had been erected, also guarded by armed mulattoes. The prisoners were dressed in sacks, which were used to bring yerba mate from Paraguay, and their hands and feet were tightly bound.

Diego Verdejo; Antonio Oblitas (black servant who participated in the hanging of Arriaga and possibly drew a portrait of Tupac Amaru); Micaela's brother, Antonio Bastidas; and Antonio Castelo, were the first victims. Later, Francisco Túpac Amaru (José Gabriel's uncle) and Hipólito (eldest son of Túpac Amaru and Micaela Bastidas) were executed, whose tongues were cut out before being hanged. At the foot of the scaffold, the soldiers forced Túpac Amaru and Micaela to watch. She was then executed by garrote Tomasa Tito Condemayta, at one time called the favorite of Túpac Amaru.

Later, Micaela Bastidas was taken to the gallows where an attempt was made to cut out her tongue, but it is stated that the executioners were unable to do so and could only do so after her execution with the garrote.

José Gabriel's tongue was cut out, as was the case with several of his lieutenants, his uncle, and his eldest son. They tried to dismember him alive, tying each of his limbs to horses so that they would pull them and to tear them off, but their attempts failed due to their physical build.

They tied four loops to his hands and feet, and tied these to the four-horse belt, threw four mestizos into four different parts: a show that had never been seen in this city. They tried for a long time but couldn't quite divide it after they were shooting him for a long time, so they had him in the air, in a state that looked like a spider.

Frustrated by these unsuccessful attempts, Areche ordered him beheaded.

The Tumba de Túpac Amaru II is located in the Plaza de Armas del Cuzco.

His youngest son, Fernando, screamed as he witnessed his father's agony. In the words of English geographer and traveler Clements R. Markham, who visited Peru numerous times in the mid-19th century, Fernando:

He threw a tearing cry, a cry that for many years he had an impact on the hearts of all the concurrents, increased his hatred against the oppressors. This shout was the death sentence of Spanish domination in South America.

Clement Markham

After his death, the body of Túpac Amaru was torn to pieces; His head was placed on a spear exhibited in Cuzco and Tinta, his arms in Tungasuca and Carabaya, and his legs in Livitaca (present-day province of Chumbivilcas) and in Santa Rosa (present-day province of Melgar, Puno). In the same way they tore up the bodies of his family and followers, and sent them to other towns and cities. All of this is described in the Spanish document Distribution of the bodies, or their parts, of the nine main prisoners of the rebellion, executed in the Plaza de Cuzco, on May 18, 1781.

Scientists who have studied this dismemberment attempt concluded that due to Túpac Amaru II's physical build and resistance, it would not have been possible to dismember him in this way, however, probably if they dislocated his arms and legs along with his pelvis. It is theorized that, even if he had survived this execution, he would have been rendered a virtual invalid.^{[citation needed ]}

Despite the execution of Túpac Amaru II and his family, the viceregal government was unable to quell the rebellion, which continued to be led by his cousin, Diego Cristóbal Túpac Amaru, as it spread throughout Upper Peru and the region from Jujuy. Likewise, ill will on the part of the Spanish Crown began to be evidenced against the Creoles, especially for the Cause of Oruro, and also for the lawsuit filed against Juan José Segovia, born in Lima and Colonel Ignacio Flores, born in Quito, who he had served as president of the Royal Audience of Charcas and had been Governor Intendant of La Plata (Chuquisaca or Charcas, current Sucre).

Descendants

Túpac Amaru II and his wife, Micaela Bastidas, had 3 legitimate children: The eldest of them, Hipólito Túpac Amaru, was a prominent commander in his father's army and accompanied him during various campaigns until he was captured and executed along with his family in the main square of Cuzco. There is no information on whether he had a wife or how many children they had, if this is the case.

Mariano Túpac Amaru, the second son of Túpac Amaru II, was pardoned by the Spanish after his uncle, Diego Cristóbal Túpac Amaru, who assumed leadership of the rebellion, signed a peace agreement with the royalists. Mariano received a pension of 600 pesos as salary and was able to return to his family's lands. He had conflicts with the viceregal authorities for relating to María Nieves Paita, from Sicuani. The authorities, specifically the corregidor Salcedo, considered her a zamba and a prostitute, in addition to implying that they did not want the Tupac Amaru clan to reproduce. For which Paita, who was pregnant, presumably by Mariano, was arrested and confined in the convent of Santa Catalina del Cuzco, from where she was released by Mariano and eight accomplices on September 19, 1782. The fate of María Paita or her pregnancy is unknown. Later, after a conspiracy in which her uncle was involved, Mariano was captured and exiled to Spain, dying on the coast of Brazil in 1784.

The youngest of Túpac Amaru's sons, Fernando, being a 10-year-old boy, was not executed, but he was forced to witness the torture and death of his entire family and to pass under the gallows of those executed, to later be exiled to Africa with life imprisonment orders, although Viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui suggested that he not be sent to Africa but to Spain for fear that some enemy power would rescue him. Off the coast of Peniche, Portugal, the ship capsized, but Fernando managed to survive and was taken to Cádiz, where he was imprisoned. It is presumed that he died in Spain in 1798, victim of a reserved order.

According to the journalist Antonio Vergara Collazos, the Polish nobleman Sebastián de Berzeviczy married the indigenous noblewoman Umina Atahualpa having a daughter named Umina de Berzeviczy Atahualpa, who married one of the members of the family of Túpac Amaru having with him a son named Antonio Túpac Amaru de Berzeviczy, nephew of Túpac Amaru II. After the rebellion, Antonio Túpac Amaru de Berzeviczy fled to Poland where he was adopted by Waclaw Benesz de Berzeviczy, adopting his last name. One of Antonio's descendants was Andrzej Benesz, a Polish politician and World War II veteran.

Messianism of Túpac Amaru II

Efigie de Túpac Amaru II in the Pantheon of the Proceres in Lima.

The general rebellion of Upper and Lower Peru in 1780, was led by José Gabriel Condorcanqui with the aim of freeing his compatriots from the heavy burdens to which they had been forced by the Spanish authorities for almost three centuries, although aggravated in the previous decade by the Bourbon reforms: mitas, repartimiento of effects, taxes, alcabalas and other rights; works in corregimientos and obrajes; tithes and ecclesiastical first fruits, and the elimination of caste divisions. He sought the creation of a kingdom independent of Spain, governed by an Inca hereditary monarchy, through the creation of its own army and administration, introducing a single taxation for all subjects, freedom of trade and work.

With the masses, the Inca was going to communicate using a symbolic language, of messianic roots. This language was manifested in the use of traditional musical instruments, in the use of flags, insignia and Inca clothing, as well as the name Inca, which had messianic implications (linked to the myth of Inkarri), since the Inca was not shown only as king and legitimate sovereign, but also as a redeemer, restorer of the world, savior of the indigenous people, expecting miraculous behavior from him. He was given divine or prodigious traits.

In this regard, the words of Túpac Amaru II to his fellow fighter, Bernardo Sucacagua, affirming that the people who died being faithful to him would have their reward, suggest that he saw himself, in principle, as a redeemer. The bishop of Cuzco affirmed that Túpac Amaru II had persuaded the Indians that those who died in his service would rise on the third day. Sahuaraura Tito Atauchi affirmed that the indigenous people threw themselves into battle without fear and blindly, but even when badly wounded they did not want to invoke the name of Jesus or confess. This was due to the fact that Túpac Amaru II had told them that whoever did not say Jesus would rise on the third day, and those who invoked him would not. The Peruvian model was also presented, which provided for the resurrection on the fifth day.

The indigenous belief system accepted Túpac Amaru as a god, redeemer and liberator of the oppressed, that is, as a figure equivalent to that of Jesus Christ. The Inca reinforced this belief, stating that the Spanish had prevented the indigenous people from accessing the true god, being himself the one who would designate people who would teach them the truth.

The Inkarri myth, imagining the return of an Inca to right the unjust world, was a powerful unifying symbol used to unify indigenous populations divided by geography and ethnic boundaries. But it was also a divisionist symbol, when all the necessary conditions to govern were not met; Such is the case of José Gabriel Condorcanqui or Túpac Amaru II, whom many Inca nobles considered a "fraudulent upstart", rather than a true redeemer, although he claimed to be a descendant of the last Incas of Vilcabamba, Felipe Túpac Amaru., or Tupac Amaru I.

For most of the Peruvian rebels, the source of their beliefs about the end of Spanish rule lay in their conception of the future, whereby the returning Inca puts an end to Spanish rule and restores order to the world. Likewise, the death of the Inca implied a destruction of order, of the ruling principle of the world. The death of Túpac Amaru, being the death of an Inca, was the death of a man who united the earth, the sky and the elements; it was the death of the son of the sun.

Acknowledgment

Monument of Tupac Amaru in Plaza Libertad in El Alto, Bolivia.

The fame of Túpac Amaru II spread to such an extent that the indigenous rebels in the Casanare plains, in the region of Nueva Granada, recognized him as "King of America".^{[citation required]}

Subsequent movements invoked the name of Túpac Amaru II to obtain the support of the indigenous people, such as Felipe Velasco Túpac Amaru Inca or Felipe Velasco Túpac Inca Yupanqui, who tried to rise up in Huarochirí (Lima) in 1783. The rebellion of Túpac Amaru II marked the beginning of the emancipatory stage of the history of Peru.

This great rebellion produced a strong influence on the Conspiracy of the three Antonios, indications discovered in Chile on January 1, 1781, in full development of the insurrection. The conspirators were encouraged to act thanks to the news of the advances of Túpac Amaru II in the Viceroyalty of Peru.

20th and 21st centuries

Monument to Tupac Amaru II in the Comas district.

In Peru, the government of General Juan Velasco Alvarado (1968-1975) welcomed the stylized effigy of Túpac Amaru II, designed by the artist Jesús Ruiz Durand, as a symbol of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces that he headed. He recognized him as a national hero in 1969, which was a novelty since since independence the figure of Túpac Amaru II was taken with indifference or omission by official Peruvian education and historiography. The first mention of Túpac Amaru in the military government occurred on June 24, 1969 when, in the climax of the speech for the Agrarian Reform law, Velasco mentioned: Campesino, the boss will no longer eat your poverty, which he attributes to the Cuzco rebel since it was a phrase invented by his advisers. In his honor, he renamed one of the main rooms of the Government Palace, the until then called Francisco Pizarro room (which the elite of republican Lima created and maintained for the first two-thirds of the 20th century in their appreciation of the Spanish conquistador), removing In addition, his portrait from the upper center of the room and replacing it with that of the indigenous rebel. Likewise, during his government, the Túpac Amaru avenue was built, one of the longest (22 km) in the capital and that connects Lima Norte (at that time excluded from the rest of the city) with the center of Lima.

Túpac Amaru II is considered a precursor of the Independence of Peru par excellence. His name and figure are currently widely welcomed by Andean indigenous movements, as well as by movements of the political left.

In another sense, his name was also used by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), a guerrilla group, later a terrorist group, which operated in Peru from 1985 to 1997. The MRTA became internationally known for taking hostages of the Japanese embassy (1996-1997) and was one of the belligerents of the period of terrorism in Peru (1980-2000).

In Uruguay, the Tupamaros, also known as the National Liberation Movement or by its acronym MLN-T, was an insurgent group that was active between the years of 1960 and 1970, which was named as such because of the admiration and respect that according to its militants felt for Túpac Amaru II.^{[citation needed]}

In Venezuela, inspired by the aforementioned Uruguayan guerrilla, the Tupamaro (Venezuela) developed armed actions between 1992 and 1998, to later integrate into formal politics.

In the United States, the famous rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996) had as his birth name Túpac Amaru Shakur due to the admiration that his mother Afeni Shakur (activist of the African-American organization Black Panthers) had for Túpac Amaru II.

In Argentina, the name of this rebel leader was adopted by the Túpac Amaru Association, a political and social indigenous movement that emerged in 2001 in the province of Jujuy and currently has a presence in 15 Argentine provinces. He also belongs to the Gallery of Latin American Patriots, created in the Casa Rosada by President Cristina Fernández in 2010 (year of the Bicentennial of the May Revolution).

Eduardo Galeano collected the story of a tourist who asked a shoeshine boy if he knew Túpac Amaru. The boy, without raising his head, answered yes and in a whisper said: "It is windy."

Ancestors

• Author Maria Rostworowski explains that the seed within the pancakes is inherited by the Matrilineal way, in other words, one belongs to the mother's pancake.
• The Historical-Biographic Dictionary of Peru indicates that Catalina del Camino's last name is really Catalina Usquiconsa as well as her son's.

In fiction

• Angel Avendaño wrote the novel Tupac Amaru. The days of prophetic timepublished in Lima in 2006 by INC-Cusco and UNMSM.
• In 1984 it was premiered Tupac Amaru, directed by Federico García and starring Reynaldo Arenas.
• In 2021, the context of the Peru Bicentennial, Latina Television released the series Other liberators, where Túpac Amaru was played by Cristhian Esquivel.

Music

• Tupac Amaru, symphonic poem by the Venezuelan composer Alfredo del Monaco (Premio Tomás Luis de Victoria), premiered in 1977, has been played at numerous international festivals.
• Tupac Amaru, symphony No5 of the Peruvian composer Armando Guevara Ochoa.
• The song Thunder eagle (part II) of the album Kamikaze by Luis Alberto Spinetta is inspired by the figure of Túpac Amaru II.
• The French group of hip-hop Canelason brought to light a theme called "Free", in which he narrates the history of this revolutionary and his tragic death.
• The resident rapper in his song "This Is Not America" mentions that the Afro-American rapper 2pac bears his name because his mother wanted to give him the name of an inca revolutionary.

Predecessor: Tupac Amaru I Like Inca de Vilcabamba	Inca Proclaimed by the advice of Amautas and mamacunas 26 November 1780 - 18 May 1781	Successor: Ultimate Owner Diego Cristóbal Túpac Amaru (As Leader of the Rebellion)
Predecessor: Miguel Condorcanqui	5° Cacique de Surimana Tungasuca, Pampamarca y Tinta 1764-1780	Successor: The annexation of the territory to the Corregimiento de Canas y Canchis
Predecessor: Diego Felipe Betancourt	Claimant to the title of Marquez de Santiago de Oropesa 1777-1780	Successor: Manuel Laza Ladrón de Guevara (Reclamante al Mayorazgo)