500 Years of Indigenous resistanceKeeping pace with colonial developments in North America, the
Spanish introduced a series of laws in the 17th century known as the
Leyes de Indias. Similar to the later 1763 Proclamation introduced in
British North America, the laws partitioned the Andean region into a
‘Republic of Spain’ and a ‘Republic of Indians’—each with its own sepa-
rate courts, laws and rights. The Leyes de Indias were, “from the point of
view of the colonial state...a pragmatic measure to prevent the extermina-
tion of the [Indigenous] labour force...”^19
Despite its seeming “liberalism”, forced labour accompanied by tax
laws remained in place, and the regulation was never fully enforced.
In 1742, Juan Santos Atahualpa led an Indigenous resistance movement
in Peru comprised largely of Yanesha (Amuesha) and Ashaninka (Campa)
peoples that fought off Spanish colonization for more than a century.
In the 18th century, Indigenous resistance broke out in a major revolt in
the colony of Upper Peru (now Bolivia), led by Jose Gabriel Tupac Amaru.
Much has been written about the 1780 Indian rebellion led by
Jose Gabriel Tupaq Amaru and his successors; less is known
about the Chayanta and Sikasika revolts which occurred at the
same time, the latter led by Julian Apasa Tupaq Katari. For more
than half a century, colonial tax laws had provoked a groundswell
of protest... In mid-1780, an apparently spontaneous revolt broke
out in Macha, in the province of Chayanta, to free an Indian
cacique, Tomas Katari, jailed after a dispute with local mes-
tizo authorities... Then in November 1780, Jose Gabriel Tupaq
Amaru led a well-organized rebellion in Tungasuca, near Cuzco.
Julian Apasa Tupaq Katari, an Indian commoner from Sullkaw
(Sikasika) rose up and laid siege to La Paz from March to October
1781 during which one fourth of the city’s population died. After
the defeat in April 1781 of Tupaq Amaru in Cuzco, the rebel-
lion shifted to Azangaro, where his relatives Andres and Diego
Cristobal led the struggle. Andres successfully laid siege to Sorata
in August of that year, but by November he and Diego Cristobal
were forced to surrender to the Spanish authorities. The rebellion
was crushed by the beginning of 1782.^20The leaders, perceived or real, were captured and executed; they were
quartered, decapitated, or burned alive.
- Sylvia Rivera Cusicanqui, op. cit.
- Ibid. pg. 21.