We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency

by Sinclair Thomson

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299177942
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	01/08/2003
Series:	Living in Latin America
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Sinclair Thomson is assistant professor of history at New York University.

Table of Contents

	Illustrations	vii
	Preface and Acknowledgments	ix
1.	Contours for a History of Power and Political Transformation in the Aymara Highlands	3
2.	The Inherited Structure of Authority	27
3.	The Crisis of Andean Rule (I): Institutional and Intracommunity Strife	64
4.	The Crisis of Andean Rule (II): The Reparto Connection and Breakdown of Mediation	106
5.	Emancipation Projects and Dynamics of Native Insurgency (I): The Awaited Day of Andean Self-Rule	140
6.	Emancipation Projects and Dynamics of Native Insurgency (II): The Storm of War under Tupaj Katari	180
7.	The Aftermath of Insurgency and Renegotiation of Power	232
8.	Conclusions and Continuations	269
	Abbreviations	283
	Notes	285
	Bibliography	351
	Index	373

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher