Juan Santos Rebellion
| Juan Santos Rebellion | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Juan Santos Atahualpa expels the Spanish missionaries from Quimiri | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Indigenous Peruvian rebels |
 Spain | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Juan Santos Atahualpa |
José Antonio de Mendoza José Manso de Velasco | ||||||
The Juan Santos Rebellion was an Indigenous uprising against the Spanish Empire in Colonial Peru that took place from 1742 to 1752.[1] The rebellion was led by and named after Juan Santos Atahualpa, an Indigenous man from Cusco. Juan Santos had worked as an assistant to Spanish Franciscan missionaries in the Yungas region, and overtime he became outraged at the abuses committed by the Spanish missionaries against the local Asháninka tribe, which led him to plan a rebellion against the Spaniards. Juan Santos declared himself to be the reincarnation of Inca emperor Atahualpa, and he managed to gather a large following among the Asháninkas.[2]
Juan Santos Atahualpa and his followers began their rebellion in 1742, and they quickly destroyed the Spanish Missions in the Yungas region. The Spanish authorities in Lima responded by sending military expeditions against the rebels in the Yungas, but these expeditions would be constantly defeated by Juan Santos Atahualpa and his guerrilla warfare tactics.[3] As Juan Santos Atahualpa's military success grew, more people flocked to his cause, and his rebels amassed a large arsenal of muskets and cannons.[4] Most of the rebels were Asháninka Indians, but some of them were also Quechuas, Yaneshas, and Piros.
The rebellion would last a decade, and in 1752, Juan Santos Atahualpa would lead his rebels on an incursion into the Andes region of Peru, but he withdrew after just a few days. After this incursion, the Spaniards gave up their attempts to reoccupy the Yungas, and they instead shifted to a defensive strategy to prevent the rebellion from spreading to the Andes.[2] At this point, the Spanish troops and the rebels mostly stopped attacking each other, and the conflict gradually began to end. Because of Juan Santos Atahualpa's successful rebellion, the Indigenous tribes of the Yungas gained their freedom from the Spanish, and they remained independent for the rest of the colonial period of Peru.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ Hamnett, Brian R. (2017-04-03). The End of Iberian Rule on the American Continent, 1770-1830. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-17464-1.
- ^ a b Brown, Michael F.; Fernández, Eduardo (2023-09-01). War of Shadows: The Struggle for Utopia in the Peruvian Amazon. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-91135-2.
- ^ Pearce, Adrian J.; Beresford-Jones, David G.; Heggarty, Paul (2020-10-21). Rethinking the Andes–Amazonia Divide: A cross-disciplinary exploration. UCL Press. ISBN 978-1-78735-735-8.
- ^ Jones, Cameron D. (2018-06-19). In Service of Two Masters: The Missionaries of Ocopa, Indigenous Resistance, and Spanish Governance in Bourbon Peru. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-1-5036-0838-2.
- ^ Perz, Stephen G.; Hurtado, Jorge Luis Castillo (May 2023). The Road to the Land of the Mother of God: A History of the Interoceanic Highway in Peru. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-1-4962-2587-0.