154 CHAPTER 7 THE BOURBON REFORMS AND SPANISH AMERICA
A descendant of the last great Inca, José Gabriel
Condorcanqui assumed the name Tupac Amaru II,
and in 1780 he and his wife, Micaela Bastidas, led
a broad-based rebellion against the corruption of
the corregidores. The revolt became a precursor
of the independence wars that spread across the
continent a few decades later. [The Art Archive/Coll
Abric de Vivero Lima/Mireille Vautier]curacas, or chiefs, who were responsible for meet-
ing tribute quotas. Areche himself foretold the
storm to come when he wrote, “The lack of right-
eous judges, the mita of the Indians, and provin-
cial commerce have made a corpse of this America.
Corregidores are interested only in themselves....
How near everything is to ruin if these terrible
abuses are not corrected, for they have been going
on a long time.”
The discontent of the masses with their intol-
erable conditions inspired messianic dreams and
expectations of a speedy return of the Inca and
the Inca Empire. The popular imagination trans-
formed this Inca Empire into an ideal state, free
from hunger and injustice, and free from the pres-
ence of oppressive colonial offi cials and exploitative
mines, haciendas, and obrajes. This utopian vision
of a restored Inca Empire played a part in causing
the great revolt of 1780–1781 and determining its
direction.
That revolt had its forerunners; between 1730
and 1780, 128 rebellions, large and small, took
place in the Andean area. From 1742 to 1755, a
native leader called Juan Santos, “the invincible,”
waged partisan warfare against the Spaniards
from his base in the eastern slopes of the Andes.
The memory of his exploits was still alive when
the revolt of José Gabriel Condorcanqui began.
A well-educated, wealthy mestizo descendant
of the Inca kings, who was strongly infl uenced
by accounts of Inca splendor in the Royal Com-
mentaries of Garcilaso de la Vega, Condorcanqui
made repeated, fruitless efforts to obtain relief for
his people through legal channels. In November
1780 he raised the standard of revolt by ambush-
ing the hated corregidor Antonio de Arriaga near
the town of Tinta and putting him to death after a
summary trial. At this time he also took the name
of the last head of the neo-Inca state and became
Tupac Amaru II. His actions were preceded by an
uprising led by the Catari brothers in the territory
of present-day Bolivia. By the fi rst months of 1781,
the southern highlands of the viceroyalty of Peru
were afl ame with revolt. Although the various
revolutionary movements lacked a unifi ed direc-
tion, the rebel leaders generally recognized Tupac
Amaru as their chief and continued to invoke his
name even after his death.
In the fi rst stage of the revolt, Tupac Amaru
did not make his objectives entirely clear. In some
public statements he proclaimed his loyalty to the
Spanish king and church, limiting his demands to
the abolition of the mita, the repartimiento, the
alcabala, and other taxes; the suppression of the
corregidors; and the appointment of indigenous
governors for the provinces. But it is diffi cult to
believe that the well-educated Tupac Amaru, with
years of experience in dealing with Spanish of-