Túpac Amaru II

Born José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera around 1742, he was a direct descendant of the last Inca of Vilcabamba and inherited chieftainships in three communities after his father's death. Educated in Cusco, he built wealth as a muleteer transporting goods through Upper Peru while serving as a recognized curaca who petitioned colonial authorities to ease tribute burdens and the brutal mining mita on his people. When his requests were ignored in Tinta, Cuzco, and Lima, he executed corregidor Antonio de Arriaga for repeated abuses on November 4, 1780, and proclaimed himself Sapa Inca of a new Inca Empire. The rebellion spread across the Viceroyalty of Peru and into Upper Peru and the Río de la Plata, targeting not independence but the economic violence of Bourbon colonial reforms - the forced labor, the textile workshops, the compulsory purchases that enriched Spaniards at indigenous expense. On November 16, 1780, he issued the first decree abolishing slavery for Black people in Spanish America. He was executed May 18, 1781, after the rebellion's collapse, but successive governments have reinterpreted him ever since - nationalist regimes, leftist movements, and conte