In the same era as the American, French, and Haitian revolutions, a powerful anticolonial movement swept across the highland Andes in 1780–1781. Initially unified around Túpac Amaru, a descendant of Inka royalty from Cuzco, it reached its most radical and violent phase in the region of La Paz (present-day Bolivia) where Aymara-speaking Indians waged war against Europeans under the peasant commander Túpaj Katari. The great Andean insurrection has received scant attention by historians of the "Age of Revolution," but in this book Sinclair Thomson reveals the connections between ongoing local struggles over Indian community government and a larger anticolonial movement. "One of the most brilliant books written in colonial Andean history in years. It takes on an issue of immense importance, dramatically remolding our understanding of the political upheaval of the 1780s and its consequences."—Steve Stern, author of Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest Sinclair Thomson is assistant professor of history at New York University. We Alone Will Rule Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency By Sinclair Thomson THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS Copyright © 2002 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-299-17794-2 Contents Illustrations............................................................................................................viiPreface and Acknowledgments..............................................................................................ix1. Contours for a History of Power and Political Transformation in the Aymara Highlands..................................32. The Inherited Structure of Authority..................................................................................273. The Crisis of Andean Rule (I): Institutional and Intracommunity Strife................................................644. The Crisis of Andean Rule (II): The Reparto Connection and Breakdown of Mediation.....................................1065. Emancipation Projects and Dynamics of Native Insurgency (I): The Awaited Day of Andean Self-Rule......................1406. Emancipation Projects and Dynamics of Native Insurgency (II): The Storm of War under Tpaj Katari.....................1807. The Aftermath of Insurgency and Renegotiation of Power................................................................2328. Conclusions and Continuations.........................................................................................269Abbreviations............................................................................................................283Notes....................................................................................................................285Bibliography.............................................................................................................351Index....................................................................................................................373 Chapter One Contours for a History of Power and Political Transformation in the Aymara Highlands To some, civilization itself seemed to hang in the balance in 1781. To others, it seemed the dawning of a new day, when men and women could live freely and with dignity. In that year, the most powerful anticolonial movement in the history of Spanish rule in the Americas was sweeping across the southern Andes. For Spaniards and the colonial elite as well as for Indian insurgents, it was a decisive time matched only by the sixteenth-century conquest of the continent. Indian leaders imagined now a counterconquest, a "new conquest" of their own; colonial officials likewise saw their campaigns of repression as a "new conquest" or "reconquest" of the realm. One of the two primary theaters of the violent Andean civil war in the early 1780s was La Paz (in present-day Bolivia), a region situated around the southern rim of the Lake Titicaca basin in the heartland of the Aymara-speaking indigenous population. As an exploration of Indian community and peasant politics, this study sets out to recover and illuminate the history of the Aymara people of La Paz in the age that produced the momentous pan-Andean insurrection. Since the 1720s and 1730s, the Andean region had been the scene of growing turmoil. Local conflicts flared up with increasing frequency throughout the countryside. The exploitative commercial practices of provincial Spanish governors not only wrought hardship among communities but also stirred trenchant opposition. Indian protests poured into the courts. Anticolonial sentiment found expression in prophecies, conspiracies, and occasional revolts. In the 1770s, after Bourbon state officials imposed a set of universally unpopular measures (including higher taxation and stricter control of trade), Andean society reached an explosive conjuncture. In 1780, a chain of riots expressing Indian, mes