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Rebellion
and Independence
When the Habsburg monarchy gave way to
the Bourbon kings in Spain at the beginning of the 18th century, shivers
of protest seemed to reverberate deep in the Peruvian hinterland. There
were a number of serious
native
rebellions against colonial rule during the next hundred years. One
of the most important, though least known, was that led by
Juan
Santos Atahualpa, a "mestizo" from Cuzco. Juan Santos had
travelled to Spain, Africa and, some say, to England as a young man in
the service of a wealthy Jesuit priest. Returning to Peru in 1740 he was
imbued with revolutionary fervour and moved into the high jungle region
between Tarma and the Ucayali River where he roused the forest Indians
to rebellion. Throwing out the whites, he established a millenarian cult
and, with an Indian army recruited from several tribes, successfully
repelled all attacks by the authorities. Although never extending his
powers beyond Tarma, he lived a free man until his death in 1756.
Protests
Against the "Repartimiento" System and Administrative Reforms
Twenty years later there were further
violent native protests throughout the country against the enforcement
of the "repartimiento." Under this new system the peasants were
obliged to buy most of their essential goods from the "corregidor,"
who, as monopoly supplier, sold poor quality produce at grossly inflated
prices.
In 1780, another "mestizo," José Gabriel
Condorcanqui, led a rebellion, calling himself Tupac
Amaru II. Whipping up the already inflamed peasant opinion around
Cuzco into a revolutionary frenzy, he imprisoned a local
"corregidor" before going on to massacre a troop of nearly six
hundred Royalist soldiers. Within a year Tupac Amaru II had been
captured and executed on 18
May 1781, but his
rebellion had demonstrated both a definite weakness in colonial control
and a high degree of popular unrest.
Over the next decade several
administrative reforms were to alter the situation, at least
superficially: the "repartimiento" and the "corregimento"
systems were abolished. In 1784, King Charles III appointed a French
nobleman - Teodoro de Croix - as the new viceroy to Peru and divided the
country into seven "intendencias" containing 52 provinces. This
created tighter direct royal
control, but also unwittingly provided the pattern for the Republican
State of federated "departmentos."
Liberalism
and the Philosophy of the Enlightenment
The end of the 18th century
saw profound changes
throughout the world. The North American colonies had gained their independence from Britain; France had been rocked by a people's
revolution; and liberal ideas were spreading everywhere. Inflammatory
newspapers and periodicals began to appear on the streets of Lima, and
discontent was expressed at all levels of society. A strong sense of Peruvian
nationalism emerged in the pages of the Mercurio
Peruano (first printed in the 1790s), a concept that was vital to
the coming changes. Even the architecture of Lima had changed in the mid-eighteenth
century, as if to welcome the new era. Wide avenues suddenly appeared,
public parks were opened, and palatial salons became the focus for the
discourse of gentlemen. The philosophy of the enlightenment
was slowly but surely pervading attitudes even in remote Peru.
When,
in 1808,
Napoleon
took control of Spain, the authorities and elites in all the Spanish
colonies found themselves in a new and unprecedented position. Was their
loyalty
to Spain or to its rightful king? And just who was the rightful king now?
28
July 1821
Initially, there were a few
unsuccessful, locally based protests in response both to this ambiguous situation and to the age-old agrarian problem, but it was
only with the intervention of outside forces that independence was to become a serious issue in Peru. The American War
of Independence, the French Revolution, and Napoleon's invasion of Spain
all pointed towards the opportunity of throwing off the shackles of
colonialism, and by the time Ferdinand returned to the Spanish throne in
1814, Royalist troops were struggling to maintain order throughout South
America. Venezuela and Argentina had already declared their independence,
and in 1817 José de San Martín
liberated Chile by force. It was only a matter of time before one of the
great liberators - San Martín in the south or Simón
Bolívar in the north - reached Peru.
San Martín was the first to do so. Having already liberated Argentina
and Chile, he contracted an English naval officer, Lord Cochrane, to
attack Lima. By September 1819 the first rebel invaders had landed at
Paracas. Ica, Huánuco and then the north of Peru soon opted for
independence, and the Royalists, cut off in Lima, retreated into the
mountains. Entering the capital without a struggle, San Martín
proclaimed Peruvian independence
on 28 July 1821.
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