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Women and the Great Rebellion in Peru, 1780-1783*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Leon G. Campbell
Leon G. Campbell*
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California
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Extract

“Who will find a strong woman? She is worth more than pearls.”

Proverbs 31: 10

“The wife of the Cacique of Tinta manifests a supermasculine will.”

Archivo General de las Indias: Audiencia de Lima Legajo 1042, Report of Father Juan de Ruis Pacheco, Cuzco, January 10, 1781

Research on women in colonial Latin America is a complex and often frustrating task, in part because the data base is narrow, especially as one descends the social ladder, which often restricts the subject to women from the elite sectors in urban settings. Too often writing on colonial women is based on a “Great Woman” approach to history in which modern concerns about feminism and women's liberation are imposed on traditional, patriarchical historical epochs where these precepts have little meaning or application. There are indications, however, that this orientation is changing. A recent collection of studies about women in colonial societies, for example, compares the economic, political, and social roles of women in twelve different colonial situations, including Peru and New Spain, and considers the changes wrought by European civilization. From an anthropological and historical perspective, the authors compare the position of women in various premodern societies prior to the emergence of the world capitalist system in an effort to determine the historic origins of inequality and subordination.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , October 1985 , pp. 163 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1985

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Footnotes

*

This paper is a revised version of a paper delivered at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, San Diego, August 13, 1983.

References

1 It would be impossible to list all of the works on women in Latin American history. Two pioneering works are Asunción Lavrin, , Latin American Women: Historical Perspectives (Westport, Conn., 1978)Google Scholar and her “Women in Latin American History,” The History Teacher 14:3 (May, 1981): 387–400. Schmitt’s, Steffen W. “Women, Politics, and Development,” Latin American Research Review, 18:18 (1983)Google Scholar offers some interesting comments on the difficulties of writing about colonial women.

2 Treatments of “Great” Latin American women might include Hahner, June E., ed., Women in Latin American History (Los Angeles, 1976),Google Scholar and James, D. and Henderson, Linda Roddy, eds., Ten Notable Women of Latin America (Chicago, 1978).Google Scholar

3 Etienne, Mona and Elenor, Elenor, eds., Women and Colonization: Anthroplogical Perspectives (New York, 1980).Google Scholar

4 Nash, June, “Aztec Women: the Transition from Status to Class in Empire and Colony,” in Etienne, and Leacock, , Women and Colonization, pp. 134–148.Google Scholar See also her “The Aztecs and the Ideology of Male Dominance,” Signs 4 (1978):347–362.

5 The history of La Perricholi, a term derived from the Catalan pretichol or “pretty little thing,” which Peruvians hostile to Amat and the European Spaniards corrupted into perra chola, or “half breed bitch,” is detailed by Sánchez, Luis Alberto, La Perricholi (Lima, 1963).Google Scholar The romance of La Perricholi was later popularized by Ricardo Palma and other Hispanophile authors of the nineteenth century. Martin’s, Luis recent work, Daughters of the Conquistadores: Women of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Albuquerque, 1983),Google Scholar continues the trend towards the study of upper-class urban women. The author (p. xii) notes that his study excludes “Black and Indian women (who) need of course, to be studied for a fuller understanding of the female world of the viceroyalty of Peru.”

6 For example, Lockhart, James, Spanish Peru, 1532: 1560: A Colonial Society (Madison, 1968), pp 150–170.Google Scholar

7 Morner, Magnus, Perfil de la sociedad rural del Cuzco a fines de la Colonia (Lima, 1977), p. 35,Google Scholar Table XX; Klein, Herbert, “The Structure of the Hacienda Class in Late Eighteenth-Century Alto Peru: The Intendencia of La Paz,” Hispanic American Historical Review 60:2 (1980): 208–209 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Socolow, Susan M., The Merchants of Buenos Aires, 1777–1810: Family and Commerce (Cambridge, Eng., 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other important studies of colonial women, too numerous to recount here, include Lavrin’s essay on women in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mexico in Lavrin, , Latin American Women, pp. 23–59Google Scholar, Lavrin, and Edith, Couturier, “Dowries and Wills: A View of Women’s Socioeconomic Rule in Colonial Guadalajara and Puebla, 1640–1790,” HAHR 59 (1979),Google Scholar and the same authors’ “Las mujeres tienen la palabra. Otras voces en la historia colonial de Mexico,” Historia Mexicana 31:2 (1981), which suggests alternate means of obtaining data about women from colonial document groups. A recent text for colonial Mexico which is exceptional for its treatment of women is McLachlan, Colin M. and Rodriguez O, Jaime, The Forging of the Cosmic Race: A Reinterpretation of Colonial Mexico (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1980), pp. 229–250.Google Scholar

8 My article, “Recent Research on Andean Peasant Revolts, 1750–1820,” LARR 14:1 (1979): 3–49, lists many of the document collections produced by the Sesquicentenario and discusses opportunities for further research. Since the publication of this article, a new series, the Colección documental del bicentenario de la revolución emancipadora de Tupac Amaru (hereafter CDBTA), 5 vols. (Lima, 1980¬1982), which reprints the trial testimony of many female defendants in the rebellions, has been published (vols. 3–5). This article is based primarily on these trial records and research carried out in the archives of Seville, Spain, and Peru. A related study of nonwhite women in colonial Chile is that of Della M. Flusche and Eugene H. Korth, Forgotten Females: Women of African and Indian Descent in Colonial Chile, 1535–1800, which generalizes broadly in an unsuccessful attempt to reveal the activities of this “essential but exploited group” prior to 1700. The importance of women in the 1780 rebellion in Peru demonstrates that those women could and did wield power during popular protests, of which there were many, a point not emphasized sufficiently in works dealing with this social strata.

9 Spalding, Karen, Huarochiri: An Andean Society Under Inca and Spanish Rule (Stanford, 1984)Google Scholar; Silverblatt’s, Irene, “Andean Women in the Inca Empire,” Feminist Studies 4 (1978): 37–61,Google Scholar and her companion article, “Andean Women under Spanish Rule,” in Etienne, and Leacock, , Women and Colonization, pp. 149–185,Google Scholar are remarkable efforts to provide a basis for judgment. The latter article has been an important influence on my views toward this group of rebel women. For the author’s views on economic exploitation and political disenfranchisement, see pp. 165–173.

10 “Testimonio … de la Audiencia de Lima,” cited in Rosenblatt, “Andean Women,” pp. 174¬175. Burkett, Elinor, “Indian Women and White Society: The Case of Sixteenth Century Peru,” in Lavrin, , Latin American Women, pp. 101–128,Google Scholar focuses on Arequipa but is far broader in its implications for the study of females in the colonial era. See also her study concerning a common female “expe¬rience” during the colonial period, “In Dubious Sisterhood: Race and Class in Spanish Colonial Amerca,” Latin American Perspectives, 4:12 (1979): 13–26. For Peru, the difficulties of writing about women outside of Lima are exemplified by Macera, Pablo, “Sexo y coliniaje,” Trabajos de Historia 3 (Lima, 1977): 297–352,Google Scholar who is forced to hypothesize about sex and sexual attitudes exlcusively for Lima due to a lack of records about other areas.

11 Orlove, Benjamin S. and Custred, Gynn, eds., Land and Power in Latin America: Agrarian Eco¬nomics and Social Processes in the Andes (New York and London, 1980).Google Scholar A useful study of “household theory” for colonial Peru is Mayer, Enrique, A Tribute to the Household: Domestic Economy and the Encomienda in Colonial Peru (University of Texas, Institute of Latin American Studies Working Papers, 1982).Google Scholar

12 Cherpak, Evelyn, “The Participation of Women in the Independence Movement of Gran Colombia, 1780–1830,” in Lavrin, , Latin American Women, pp. 219–234.Google Scholar

13 Relacion de los presos … Cuzco, May 31, 1783, in Pedro de Angelis, compiler, Documentos para la historia de la sublevación de José Gabriel Tupac Amaru, cacique de la provincia de Tinta, en el Perú (Buenos Aires, 1836), pp. 176–178.

14 Bouroncle, Jorge Cornejo, Sangre Andina: Diez Mujeres Cuzqueñas (Cuzco, 1949), pp 84–86;Google Scholar and Cardenas Acosta, Pablo E., El Movimiento comunal de 1781 en el nuevo reino de Granada, 2 vols. (Bogota, 1960),Google Scholar 1:253.

15 This article is based largely on the testimony produced by the Tupac Amaru and Tupac Catari rebellions, the first of which is set out in the Colección documental de la independencia del Perú (hereafter CDIP) 30 vols. (Lima, 1974 ff.), tomo 2, vol. 2, which contains considerable correspondence and other materials generated by these women during the revolt. The trials of Micaela Bastidas, Tomasa Titu, and Francisco Aguirre are reproduced in CDBTA, 4:7–92, 3:487–518, and 1015–1026. This tes¬timony is reprinted from Archivo General de las Indias: Audiencia del Cuzco, Legajos 32 and 33 (hereafter AGI: AC 32/33), which I have consulted in Seville, Spain, and which form the basis of this paper. Molina’s testimony, dated Cuzco, April 21, 1781, is found in CDBTA, 4:8. The Spaniards’ fear of Micaela is expressed in Vega, Juan José, José Gabriel Tupac Amaru (Lima, 1969), pp. 112–113.Google Scholar

16 The best genealogical sources for the Tupac Amaru rebellion are Rowe, John, “La fecha de nacimiento de José Gabriel Thupa Amaro,” Historia y Cultura,Google Scholar and the same author’s “Genealogía y rebelión en el siglo XVIII: antecedentes de la sublevación de José Gabriel Thupa Amaro,” Histórica, 6:1 (1982): 65–85. Lewin, Boleslao, La rebelión de Tupac Amaru y las origines de la independencia hispano-americana (Buenos Aires, 1957), p. 427,Google Scholar holds that Micaela stated that she was from Pam-pamarca at her trial to protect relatives and conspirators in Abancay, her father’s birthplace, where she was actually born. Her birth certificate has never been found. CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2:713.

17 Rowe, , “Genealogía,” passim.Google Scholar

18 Testimony of Tupac Amaru, Cuzco, April 19, 1781, CDBTA, 3:138-142. It is likely that Tupac Amaru received advice from several quarters, probably also from important creóles such as Bishop Juan Manuel de Moscoso y Peralta, the Bishop of Cuzco. There is circumstantial evidence that Tupac Amaru also deferred his actions until Micaela had terminated her last pregnancy and was capable of taking part in the rebellion. This is consistent with her important roles as a member of the rebel High Command.

19 Declaration of Fiscal Don Pablo Figueroa, Cuzco, May 3, 1781, AGI: AC 32, reproduced in CDBTA, 4:58. Many of these correspondences are reproduced in Francisco Loyaza, A., editor, Martires y heroínas (documentos del año de 1780 a 1782) (Lima, 1954).Google Scholar This Micaelista collection, relied on heavily by Fisher, L. E., The Last Inca Revolt, 1780–1783 (Norman, 1966), p. 192–211,Google Scholar in her chapter, “The Distaff Side,” fails to consider numerous safeconduct passes and letters contained in AGI: AC 32 and reproduced in CDIP, 2:2 and CDBTA, 4:31–41. Lewin, , La rebelión de Tupac Amaru, pp. 434¬435,Google Scholar notes the importance of safeconduct passes for social history.

20 See CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 302, 533, 592. Several of these directives to local officials are set out on 352-355. I have elaborated on the lack of social banditry in the Tupac Amaru rebellion in my article, “Banditry and the Tupac Amaru Rebellion in Cuzco, Peru, 1780–1784,” Biblioteca Americana 1:3 (1983), 116-150. This fact reflects the messianic fervor and elitist social structure of the rebellion, in contrast to the more populist and radical orientation of the struggle elsewhere. The connection between elitism and messianism goes against conventional theories about these movements (CF, n. 43). Micaela’s edicts to the caciques on this point are set out in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 332–333, 357.

21 Diego Bisa Apasa to Micaela Bastidas, Capana, December 13, 1780, CDIP, tomo 2, vol, 1: 351; AGI:AC 32. Tupac Amaru to Micaela Bastidas, Livitaca, November 26, 1780; Micaela Bastidas to Agustín and Lucas Núñez de la Torre, Tungasuca, December 7, 1781.

22 AGI: AC 76, Bishop Moscoso to Visitor General Areche, Cuzco, December 20, 1780; to Viceroy Jáuregui, Cuzco, December 31, 1780. I have elaborated on the relationship of Moscoso to the rebellion in a related article, “Church and State in Colonial Peru: The Bishop of Cuzco and the Tupac Amaru Rebellion of 1780,” Journal of Church and State 22:2 (Spring, 1980): 251–270.

23 See her letters to Agustín and Lucas Núñez de la Torre and Matías Canal, Tungasuca, December 7, 1780, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 356–357. For estimates on the size of the army, see CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 292, 398.

24 See her letters to José Gabriel Tupac Amaru, Tungasuca, November 23, 24, 1780, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 302; to Diego Berdejo, Tungasuca, December 10, 1780, 343; Tupac Amaru to Micaela Bastidas, Coporaque, November 30, 1780, 320-326; Micaela Bastidas to Eugenio Canatupa Sinanyuca, Sangarara, December 29, 1780, 376. With the defection of the cacique Poma Inga, Micaela lamented to Amaru, Tupac that “even our allies are firing on us.” CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 483.Google Scholar

25 Father Antonio Chavez Mendoza to Micaela Bastidas, Sicuani, March 25, 1781, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 593–594; AGI: Audencia de Lima (hereafter AL) 1052, Testimony of Juan de Dios Pacheco, Arequipa, December 4, 1780, Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, pp. 102–103.Google Scholar

26 Micaela Bastidas to Tupac Amaru, Tinta, January 24, 1781, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 458–460. In certain of Tupac’s edicts, such as that to Chumbivilcas on February 7, 1781, Tupac accused the Church of falsehoods and of forgetting the True God, threatening to name parish priests and doctrinaries. AGI: AC 33 Edict to Chumbivilcas, February 7, 1781. The major exception was the trial of Father José de Maruri, the priest of Asillo, who was tried on the basis of his relationship with the rebels but later was acquitted.

27 Orellana to Viceroy Jáuregui, Puno, November 27, 1780, in Eguiguren, Luis A., editor, Guerra separatista del Perú (1777–1780) (Lima, 1942), p. 263.Google Scholar Spellings of Tupac Amaru vary. I employ the conventional spelling to avoid confusion.

28 Campbell, “Banditry and the Tupac Amaru Rebellion,” and “The Great Rebellion, 1780–1783: A Comparative Study of The Tupac Amaru and Tupac Catari Rebellions,” Greenleaf, Richard, ed., Unity and Diversity in Colonial Spanish America (New Orleans, forthcoming, 1985).Google Scholar There is evidence that the coming of Tupac Amaru, literally “shining serpent” in Quechua, connoted the rise of the Inca “underworld” in which the snakes and other anthropromorphic figures would escape and “put the world in the reverse” by overthrowing the Spaniards. Ossio, Juan M., editor, Ideológica messiánica del mundo andino (Lima, 1973), pp. 198–211.Google Scholar

29 See AGI: AC 32 Licenciado Martin Castilla to Micaela Bastidas, Tungasuca, December 2, 1780; and Andrés Cotâtes and Marcos Chasares to Micaela Bastidas, Pichiqua, December 12, 1780.

30 Both Ambrosio Cerdán y Pontero, a captive, and the painter Antonio Oblitas, a zambo commis¬sioned to execute the paintings, testified about this art which has been lost. See also Macera, Pablo, Retrato de Tupac Amaru (Lima, 1975)Google Scholar and Gisbert, Teresa, Iconografía y mitos indigenas en el arte (La Paz, 1980).Google Scholar Daniel Valcarcel has photographed a painting in the church of Yanaoca which was reportedly painted of Tupac and Micaela following in the 1781 decree ordering all vestiges of the Incas destroyed. Historia General de los Peruanos (Lima, 1973), 3:17. Zerro’s letter is reprinted in Lewin, , La rebelión de Tupac Amaru, p. 340.Google Scholar

31 Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, pp. 102–103 Google Scholar; and de Paz, Melchor, Crónica de la sublevación de Tupac Amaru 1 (Madrid, 1796): 259–260,Google Scholar 292.

32 Among the historians who have accepted Micaela’ s superiority as a military tactician for her strong support of an attack on Cuzco are Clements Markham, Francisco Loyaza, Carlos Daniel Valcarcel, Jorge Bouroncle, and Lillian E. Fisher, all of whose works are cited in Campbell, “Recent Research on Andean Peasant Revolts.” Among the adoring biographies of this unique woman are Caballero, Cesar Angeles, “Tupac Amaru y Micaela Bastidas,” Cuadernos Americanos 33:2 (March-April, 1974): 140–159 Google Scholar; Barrionuevo, Alfonsina, Habí Micaela (Lima, 1976)Google Scholar; Hidalgo, Salomon Bolo, Micaela Bastidas Puicagua. La mujer más grande de Ámerica (Lima, 1976)Google Scholar; Bouroncle, Jorge Cornejo, Sangre Andina. Diez mujeres cuzquenas (Cuzco, 1949)Google Scholar; Loyaza, Francisco, ed., Martires y heroínas (Lima, 1945)Google Scholar; Matos, Roman Hernández, Micaela Bastidas, La Precursora (Lima, 1981)Google Scholar; Collado, Lizardo Guillen, “Significado histórico de Micaela Bastidas,” Quinto Congreso Internacional de la Historia del Perú (Lima, 1971), 2:94–103 Google Scholar; Noguera, Armando, “Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua,” Revista del Centro de Estudios Histórico-Militares del Perú, 19 (1971): 186–190 Google Scholar; and Arriarián, Reuben Chauca, Micaela Bastidas (Lima, 1980).Google Scholar

33 See for example, de Paz, Melchor, Cronica de la sublevación, 1:50 Google Scholar; AGLAC 35 Benito de Mata Linares, n.d. (1786); and Bishop Moscoso in CDBTA, 1:178, 181, 236, 248.

34 These themes are covered in my article, “Social Structure of the Tupac Amaru Army in Cuzco, 1780–1781,” Hispanic American Historical Review 61:4 (1981): 675–693.

35 One could point to the voluminous literature surrounding the Argentine caudillo Eva Duarte de Perón, analyzed in these terms in Taylor, Julie, Eva Perón: Myths of a Woman (Chicago, 1979), particularly pp. 10–19.Google Scholar A comparable study of Micaela Bastidas as a charismatic leader would be welcome, since there is evidence that she may have possessed qualities usually ascribed to her husband alone. Max Weber defines charisma as “devotion to the specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism, and exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns of order revealed or ordained by him.” Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, ed., Talcott, Parsons (New York, 1947), pp. 358–363.Google Scholar

36 The events surrounding this period of the rebellion are covered in de Paz, Melchor, Cronica de la sublevación, 1:259 ff.Google Scholar and CDIP, tomo 2, voi. 2: 404, 415. See also Galindo, Alberto Flores, Tupac Amaru 1780 (Lima, 1976), p. 282.Google Scholar A more reasonable estimate of the size of the rebel army is around 6,000 persons.

37 The testimony of Figueroa, located in AGI: AC 32, has been reproduced in Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, pp. 126–130.Google Scholar The testimony of Figueroa, Andres Castello, Felipe Bermudez, Mariano de la Banda, Diego Ortigoso, Esteban Escarcena, and Diego Berdejo, among others, generally accept the fact that both Micaela and Tupac were in control of events and made their own decisions, although the possibility of this group shading meanings or altering the text of letters does exist. Tupac’s experience in Lima left him a master of text analysis, however, during the prosecution of his lawsuit. It is unlikely either would have let these changes go unnoticed. See also CDBTA, 3, passim., which includes the trial testimony of several scribes. Neither Tupac or Micaela requested the services of an interpreter at their trials, indicating that they understood Spanish and probably read it also.

38 AGI:AC 33 Micaela Bastidas to Tupac Amaru, Tungasuca, December 6, 1780, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 329–331. This letter is widely commented on by Lewin, , La rebelión de Tupac Amaru, p. 429 Google Scholar; Hahner, , Women in Latin American History, pp. 29–31 Google Scholar; Fisher, Last Inca Revolt, p. 204 Google Scholar; Valcarcel, , Tupac Amaru, pp. 100–116 Google Scholar; and Hidalgo, Bolo, Micaela Bastidas, pp. 421–426.Google Scholar

39 These letters, which were not consulted by Loyaza, are located in AGI: AC 32, and form part of Micaela’s trial testimony, CDBTA, 4:7–92. Several others are reprinted in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2. See, for example, AGI: AC 33, Micaela Bastidas to Juan de Zubizarreta, Tungasuca, December 2, 1780, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 324–325. Her comment is from her letter to the governors of Maras, Urubamba, December 7, 1780, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 340–345. At her trial, several witnesses testified that Micaela was fully aware of the events in question and acted independently of her husband, demanding Arriaga’s death when Tupac hesitated on the matter. CDBTA, 4:8–62. The royalists worked hard to insure Micaela’s prosecution since the case against her was weaker than against her husband and because it was unusual to prosecute women in the first place. Bishop Moscoso testified that Micaela had called Tupac Catari, the caudillo of Upper Peru, “a usurper of her husband's right of dominion over this kingdom” fully six months before the outbreak of the Tupac Amaru rebellion in November, 1780. See the declarations of the fiscal Figueroa Cuzco, May 3, 1781, CDBTA, 4:58–62; AGI: AC 76, Moscoso to Areche, Cuzco, December 20, 1780; and Moscoso’s testimony about the Yauri rebellion, Cuzco, October 13, 1783, CDBTA, 2:196.

40 AGI: AC 33, Micaela Bastidas to Antonio Bastidas, Pucacasa, February 13, 1781, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 421–426; and undated letter from Micaela Bastidas to Tupac Amaru, cited in Hidalgo, Bolo, Micaela Bastidas, p. 512.Google Scholar

41 AGI: AC 33, Tupac Amaru to Micaela Bastidas, Coporaque, November 30, 1780. See also cor¬respondence between the pair set out in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 342-359, which attests to Micaela’s fidelity. Chaves, Julio César, Tupac Amaru (Asunción, 1973), pp. 113–115,Google Scholar betrays his chauvinism when he refers to Tupac’s replies as “patient and tolerant, mindful of the profound spirituality” behind Micaela’s views, which, in his opinion, “bordered on the obsessive.”

42 These arguments are made in my book, The Military and Society in Colonial Peru, 1750–1810 (Philadelphia, 1978), pp. 112–115, as well as in my two subsequent articles, “Social Structure of the Tupac Amaru Army,” and “Banditry and the Tupac Amaru Rebellion.” For a complementary view of Tupac’s behavior, see Vega, Juan José, José Gabriel Tupac Amaru (Lima, 1969), pp. 112–113.Google Scholar Vega is one Peruvian historian who challenged the views of the Micaelista school, arguing that the couple worked together for the success of the rebellion.

43 AGI: Buenos Aires 512, Dr. Pacheco to the Crown, Buenos Aires, January 15, 1781. See also the comments of Bishop Moscoso and Lorenzo Zata in CDBTA, 1:146, 178, 181, 236, 248. I have examined this phase of the rebellion in an unpublished paper, “Organization and Factionalism in the Great Rebellion, 1780–1783,” delivered at the Conference on Resistance and Rebellion in the Andean World—18th-20th Centuries, University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 27, 1984.

44 Tupac Amaru to the Ecclesiastical Cabildo of Cuzco, Ococoro, January 3, 1781, CDBTA, 1:328¬330. In this sense, it may have been that Tupac saw himself as lnkarrí, that is, not specifically as an Inga Rey, or Inca King, as much as a unifying “principle,” capable of reconciling the differences between Incas and Españoles. Ossio, Juan M., Ideologia mesiánica, pp. 193–211.Google Scholar

45 AGI:AC 32 Micaela Bastidas to José Mamani and Simón Aymi Tupa, Tungasuca, December 13, 1781.

46 Tomasa’s trial testimony, dated Cuzco, April 26, 1781, is reproduced in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 739–754. The entire trial record is reproduced in CDBTA, 3:487–519. Her defense of the Pilipinto bridge is found in the Relación de las operaciones de los habitantes de Paruro, located in the Real Academia de Historia; Madrid: Colección Mata Linares (hereafter RAH: ML) Vol. 57, folios 82 ff.

47 For a detailed description of her land and other holdings, see CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 751–752. Just prior to the rebellion the priest Melchor Huaman testified that he had sold 520 sheep to the couple. The support of these caciques gamonales, which was never forthcoming, might have turned the rebellion in favor of the Inca because of the material and human base which it would have provided.

48 Tomasa Titu Condemayta to Micaela Bastidas, η.d., CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 341.

49 The possibility of an affair between Tomasa Titu, who was about 40 in 1780, and Tupac, who was 42, is raised by Hidalgo, Bolo, Micaela Bastidas, pp. 421–426,Google Scholar 433–434, and Vega, Juan José, José Gabriel Tupac Amaru, p. 114.Google Scholar Although a letter of December 4 indicated that the pair was not together, Vega surmises that this possibility could be behind Micaela’s “outburst” in her passionate letter to Tupac of December 6. This sort of speculation about sexuality tends to debase otherwise serious concern about womens’ history. In general, the letters between Mica and Tomasa were cordial and open, the latter rendering great deference to the Coya. Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, pp. 64–66.Google Scholar

50 AGI:AC 32 Trial testimony of Micaela Bastidas, Cuzco, May 1, 1781, republished in Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, 118–121,Google Scholar and CDBTA, 4:7–92. Tupac’s testimony is set out in Martires y heroínas, pp. 141–145. For an extensive group of documents between these women see CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2.

51 Diario y operaciones de la columna de Arequipa … Abril de 1782, in de Paz, Melchor, Cronica de la sublevación, p. 243.Google Scholar Taylor, William, in his book Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (Stanford, 1979), p. 116,Google Scholar surmises that since men often travelled outside villages or worked afield, in colonial Mexico it was not unusual for more women than men to take part in rebellions. He calculates that in at least one-fourth of the revolts studied in eighteenth-century Mexico, “women led the attacks and were visibly more aggressive, insulting, and rebellious in their behavior toward outside authorities.”

52 Infomation about Cecilia Escalera comes from her trial testimony, dated June 7, 1781, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 754–765; CDBTA, 5:3–28; and from Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, pp. 183–202.Google Scholar For the activities of the women involved in the Tupac Catari rebellion, which broke out in La Paz in March, 1781, see Vega, , José Gabriel Tupac Amaru, pp. 105–106.Google Scholar A monographic treatment of Bartola Sisa is Vega, Alipio Valencia, Bartola Sisa (La Paz, 1978),Google Scholar which sheds light on the other women as well. See also my comparative article, The Tupac Amaru and Tupac Catari Rebellions in Comparative Perspective, (note 28, above). Her confession, taken in La Paz on July 5, 1781, is reproduced in Lewin, , La rebelión de Tupac Amaru, pp. 811–816.Google Scholar

53 de Odriozola, Manuel, editor, Documentos históricos del Perú (Lima, 1863), 1:11.Google Scholar

54 See the correspondence between these pairs in de Siles Salinas, Maria Eugenia, “Tupac Katari, el aimara caudillo que sitió La Paz,” La rebelión de los Tupac Amaru de los Tupac Amaru, Antología (Lima, 1981), pp. 289–322.Google Scholar Edict of Diego Tupac Amaru, in de Angelis, , Documentos, p. 110.Google Scholar In a letter dated Pomacanchi, March 4, 1781, to Micaela from Gregorio de Yepez. Yepez, a Spaniard who acted as Micaela’s chaplain, was accused of sending his brother to help defend Cuzco. The author expressed his fear that the rebels were going to kill Españoles. He noted that since Tupac “was the owner of your will” Micaela would’have done the same to whites. CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 531.

55 Loyaza, , Martires y heroínas, pp. 118–121,Google Scholar 141–145. See also the trial testimony in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 708–765; and CDBTA, 4:63–68. A summary of Micaela’s separate property was elicited by Bishop Moscoso and gives a human dimension to the women. CDBTA, 2:459–461. The bishop noted that neither she nor Tomasa Titu could write.

56 Diaz Rementería, Carlos J., “El delito de lesa majestad humana en las Indias. Un estudio basado en la sublevación de Tupac Amaru (1780–1781),” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 31 (1974): 229¬242.Google Scholar

57 Murillo’s defense of Micaela and his interrogation of Tupac Amaru, as well as Areche’s sentence against her, dated Cuzco, May 15, 1781, are found in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 729–739. Tupac’s arm had been broken earlier in a torture session.

58 The trial testimony of Tomasa Titu Condemayta and Cecilia Escalera Tupac Amaru is reproduced in CDIP tomo 2, vol. 2: 740-765. See also CDBTA, 3:487–518; 5:3–28.

59 Areche’s edict and the sentences are described in CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 756–778. There is some question about the validity of the chronicle describing Micaela’s death, based on the fact that garrots with screws were designed to pierce objects as thin as playing cards. The machine was described as “being mounted on a little platform and consisting of a torno de fierro, or iron collar,” rather than a screw, which makes the story plausible, since the object had “never been seen before in Cuzco.”

60 Because of the problems arising from the misuse of the garrot in Micaela’s case, the authorities reverted to hanging the female Tupac Catari defendants by authority of Law 33 of the Cortes de Navarra, January 14, 1781. The Council of the Indies, in a correspondence dated November 8, 1793, chastized Areche for having executed the women publicly but otherwise upheld the sentences against them, a further confirmation of their roles in the struggle.

61 Recommendation of Figueroa, Pablo, Cuzco, May 3, 1781,Google Scholar in Loyaza, , Martires y heroinas, pp. 132–134 Google Scholar; statement of Diez de Medina, in Lewin, , La rebelión de Tupac Amaru, p. 697.Google Scholar See Carlos Daniel Valcarcel’s genealogy of the Tupac Amarus, CDIP, tomo 2, vol. 2: 845–882.

62 AGI: AC 32 Petition of Ramon Delgado, July, 1781, discussed in Rementeria, Diaz, “El delito de lesa majestad,” pp. 241–242.Google Scholar I have dealt with the rebellion as a criminal act in my article “Crime and Punishment in the Tupacamaru Rebellion in Cuzco,” Criminal Justice History, III (1985).

1 For example, the list in Arrarian, Reuben Chauca, Micaela Bastidas, (Lima, 1980), p. 201.Google Scholar

2 de Angelis, Pedro, Documentos para la historia de la sublevación de José Gabriel Tupac Amaru, cacique de la provincia de Tinta en el Peru (Buenos Aires, 1836), pp. 176–178.Google Scholar