Tupac Amaru II's Rebellion Analysis

614 Words2 Pages

The case of Tupac Amaru II’s rebellion was the perfect example of race relations coming to a boil. Philip Ainsworth Means wrote a great piece on the rebellion, emphasizing this very topic of race relations, with his thesis being that when you have two unevenly powered races this type of rebellion will pretty much happen. Means began this article detailing the genealogy of Tupac Amaru II, being sure to point out issues that arise from the Spanish takeover, such as maintaining the established Inca family in power. The Inca was controlled by the Spanish and acted as puppet kings. Ending with the Inca power being taken away through the what seems to be an uncalled for execution of Tupac Amaru I. This then moves onto the culture and events which catalyzed this rebellion, such as Viceroy Toledo acting out, executing obscene …show more content…

Eventually Tupac Amaru II took his fathers place as curaca, during his reign he meet with a Spanish regional governor or corregidor and killed him, this being the beginning of his rebellion. This is one of the few areas theres an issue with the article, this being that Means gives two stories, one which Tupac Amaru II ambushes the corregidor after the meeting, and the other is that he stands up during the meeting claiming he has “royal authority” to punish the corregidor, then killing the him. The former is the story the author prefers, reasoning that the latter is unlikely, even his footnotes cites this a the main reason. Means begins laying out Tupac’s conquest, like how he was able to gain so much native help finishing with his execution. Importantly, Means does not give an account of Tupac being proficient as a leader, in fact he states that Tupac was inept both as a politician and a general, as shown through losing the war war, although Tupac’s army was more

Open Document