Tupac Amaru II
Just towards the end of the 1400s,
European explorers reached the Americas
and began to colonise this new world.
The Spanish controlled most of the territory from Mexico south to Argentina.
At first, the Spanish soldier-adventurers who arrived
wanted only gold, silver and jewels and to leave again as soon as possible.
However, more and more Spaniards came,
not looking for easy gold but wanting to set up large farms.
In many parts of the Americas,
the Indians were simple hunter-gatherers, nomadic and few in number.
In Peru, in the Andean Pacific region,
most of the Indians were peasant farmers.
Their old Inca culture had an aristocracy and they, the peasants,
obeyed and served their lords.
When the Spanish took the best lands,
they killed or ran off the Inca lord,
bought a title from the king in Spain,
for example the 'Count of Cochabamba',
and then acted as aristocrats did in Spain,
with native Indians as their peasants.
Nonetheless, there were only a few whites and many Indians and so,
in a lot of areas, the local Inca lord was left alone
and recognised by the Spanish king.
This made two, separate aristocracies:
the one native Indian, the other white Spanish.
Very soon, there were mixed marriages
and so a class of 'mestizos' (people of white and Indian parentage) grew up.
Some of them came from aristocratic families on both sides.
'Tupac Amaru' was from exactly this kind of background.
The Spanish colonists had created new laws and systems
to get free labour from the Indians.
The governor demanded a poll tax from all Indian men,
payable only in cash or work.
Almost all the Indians lived outside the money economy of Spanish America
so they had little or no money
and the men often spent up to six months of the year doing forced labour
on what the Spanish colonists called 'public works'
but usually meant working on private property.
Only a very few built bridges and roads.
The tiny amount of money they received often didn't pay off the tax
and many adult male Indians spent their lives in debt
and at hard labour while their own little farms suffered without them.
Whites were not taxed in this way.
By the time 'Tupac Amaru' was born in 1742,
all these racial and social tensions were coming to a head.
Born Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui,
the future 'Tupac Amaru' studied at the best schools and colleges
but always identified with the native Indian population
despite being 'mestizo' and of high family.
Perhaps his strong Indian identity was because he believed
he was the direct descendant of the last Inca emperor,
Tupac Amaru I.
He took the name, calling himself Tupac Amaru II in true dynastic style.
It also clearly meant that he wanted to take all Peru from the Spanish
and rule it himself as an Inca, a native ruler.
But, this would come later.
Early in his life, Tupac Amaru was known as the 'Marquis of Oropesa',
a position that gave him a lot of standing and respect among the Spanish.
However, an important Spanish family,
the Betancurs, said that the title should be theirs
and they took the matter to law.
It was a very long case but, in the end,
the courts favoured the white claimant as they almost always did.
Tupac Amaru's family title, awarded for merit and service,
was given to a Spanish family.
Now, Tupac Amaru was no longer tied to the Spanish ruling class.
They had first rewarded him for his good work,
then insulted him just because he wasn't white.
He became much more interested in his Indian roots,
his personal link to the last Inca emperor,
and the terrible suffering of most Indians under Spanish rule.
In 1760, he married an Afro-Indian woman and started a family.
He had stepped further away from his white side.
At first, Tupac Amaru, or the Marquis as he still was,
wrote letters of complaint to the governor
about the treatment of the Indians and took other peaceful,
political protests to the authorities.
He even used his own money to help poor Indians pay their tax.
The governor and the Spanish ruling class ignored him.
It was at this point that the former Marquis decided on a rebellion
as the only way to solve the problem.
Around this time in Spanish America,
there had been a series of revolts by Indians or by African slaves.
Tupac Amaru's rebellion was notable for its success,
at least at first, and the way it spread.
Tupac Amaru II, as he was now called,
played his hand cleverly at the beginning.
He went to a dinner party at which the Spanish governor of Peru
Antonio de Arriaga, and one of his top officials, were present.
When the two Spaniards left,
they were very relaxed by their excellent dinner and, so,
Tupac Amaru had his men capture the two officers.
He then forced them to call, by letter,
hundreds of important Spaniards in Peru
to a meeting at a certain time and place.
Two hundred important white colonists arrived in the next few days.
Tupac surrounded them with 4,000 Indian rebel troops
who killed them all.
Then, they turned to the governor, de Arriaga,
who was to be hanged along with the other official from the dinner party.
De Arriaga seems to have been a cruel man
who did not inspire loyalty in people:
when his personal slave, Antonio Oblitas,
was offered the chance to kill the governor,
he accepted at once.
Oblitas, the slave, did not do a very good job.
At the first try,
the rope slipped from the governor's neck
and the condemned man ran off at speed, chased by the crowd.
In what must have been a very undignified few minutes for all,
the crowd caught him and dragged him back to the waiting rope.
This second time, there was no mistake
and the hated governor was hanged by the neck until dead.
With this action, and the killing of the two hundred white colonists,
Tupac Amaru closed the door to any negotiations with the Spanish.
Tupac Amaru went on the march,
capturing district after district and city after city.
Soon, a mixed army of 1,300 men,
about half Indians and half Spaniards,
was sent from the city of Cuzco to put down the rebellion.
Faced with 6,000 Indian rebels, the force was defeated.
Few of the native soldiers from Cuzco died
but every last white, 578 men,
was killed in battle or executed afterwards.
It was at this point
that the extremely racial nature of Tupac Amaru's rebellion
became clear.
And, when it did,
a lot of early support for the rebellion disappeared.
All whites, most Mestizos and many of the Indians felt that,
if genocide of the whites in Peru was the plan,
they wanted no part of it.
Next, there came a string of defeats
and then two of Tupac Amaru's most important officers,
a colonel and a captain, betrayed him to the Spanish.
The authorities questioned Tupac Amaru
to find out who may have secretly helped him.
He refused to talk so the Spanish executed his wife,
his son, many other family members
and some of his best friends as he watched.
They then tied each of his arms and legs to a strong horse.
The four horses ran in opposite directions and, so,
his limbs were ripped off.
His guts were pulled out while he was still alive and,
finally, they cut his head off.
His head and other body parts were taken to the areas
where the rebellion had gone well to show the Indians there
that their rebel leader was dead and so was his rebellion.
But was it?
The rebellions and attacks on whites tore across the Andes
to Bolivia, Argentina and Chile.
It took the Spanish many years and a lot of hard fighting
to bring that region of South America back under control.
And just as soon as they had got control back from rebellious Indians,
the wars of independence from Spain started.
This revolt was created by the very American-born whites
that Tupac had so hated.
What is Tupac's legacy?
He left a certain racial pride among the Indians
that they had put up a real fight against the Spanish colonists.
His name struck fear into South American whites for generations
but inspired guerrilla fighters and racial equality activists
long after his terrible death.
To many black or Indian Latin Americans, he is a hero.
Even in North America,
his name was adopted by a rap singer to show his aggressive,
black consciousness and attitude to whites.
To others, black, white or mixed race,
he was a good man who was pushed too hard
and could not control the vengeful massacres of whites
by his Indian rebel soldiers.