Tupac Amaru Thesis

On November 17, 1780, during the Andean age, Tupac Amaru II led an infamous rebellion against the Spanish colonists that sought to correct Spanish misgovernment and the evils arising towards the indigenous peoples. Tupac Amaru II, originally named José Gabriel Condorcanqui, was a legitimate descendant of the last Inca ruler, Tupac Amaru, with whom he took advantage to construct his identity to lead the indigenous natives in the uprising against the rigorous repression and injustice that stripped them of their human rights. This was a time when the Spanish Crown decided to colonize the Andean lands in hope of bringing them to the Holy Mother Church; however, the colonists became vain and took advantage of their remoteness to abuse their powers.

King Ferdinand and Isabella had “never [slipped] an opportunity to exhort their officials to be kind and reasonable to the Indians” (Means), yet, the colonizers infected their minds with greed, and merely corrupted the social conditions in Peru. This contrasting attitude led the colonizers to no longer fear the King’s order who was so far from the Andean lands that they did not fear punishment for their corruptions and thus let their selfishness and thievery make the conditions of the Indians worse. Hence, the image uses chiaroscuro to convey that it favors the Spanish colonists because the audience at the time believed that the Andean people were too weak to be able to govern themselves and were seen as the barbarians of the land. The contrasting shades of light and dark shadows on the upper half of the image that depicts the sky, creates a juxtaposition that shows how the Andeans were a threat that marred the land and infested themselves among what the Spanish now called solely theirs. Unlike the general depiction of darkness seen as evil and light as good, in the image the light centers down onto the killing of Tupac Amaru II, his wife, and friend that shows them as the individuals who committed treason against the Spanish rule. The use of light makes them appear as if they are the true criminals in the Andean lands who are getting the punishment that they deserve for

It also illustrates that because of the evil nature that their colonization took course, they supported their colonization since it meant that they would become able to make the indigenous Indians disappear. While the primary source does not resent the colonist’s acts of injustice, the secondary sources provide the accounts of the natives that resisted their conquest because they were seen as barbaric, and biologically feeble and degenerate. Thus, the different perspectives of the primary and secondary sources suggests that conquest of the indigenous people lead to the colonizers creating and adapting into their illusions of the indigenous to make them appear as subhumans to justify their wants for taking everything in their path; colonization, in this sense of time, made indigenous people a monstrous and savage-like creation when they were