Túpac Amaru and Religion

When I studied in Lima, my favorite class was 'The History of the Church in Latin America and Peru.' It was taught by Fr. Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J. Among the many topics covered were Messianic Movements, and we looked at Túpac Amaru's rebellion in that context. It would be a disservice to my late professor's memory to neglect the religious aspect of Túpac Amaru II's rebellion when discussing him here.

You may have been wondering (but probably weren't) how it was that a man claiming to be the Inca lead an army right through Andahuaylillas and yet there is still a overwhelmingly ornate church here. It's because Túpac expressly forbid the killing of priests and the destruction of churches. This was despite the fact that the official church opposed him. Yet many priests sympathized with his cause of protecting indigenous people from the crown's abuses.

For his part, Túpac Amaru never publicly condoned or repudiated the Catholic Church. But he did use Christrian as well as Andean symbols in his movement. Professor Klaiber taught that it was most likely that Túpac Amaru used Incan and Christian symbols in his campaign primarily to attract followers to his cause. The Spanish, and in particular the Jesuits, had been around long enough to attract many of the indigenous people to Christian beliefs.

In class we ended up defining the Great Rebellion as a “quasi-messianic” movement. Túpac Amaru comes from the same tradition as leaders like Moses, David, and Solomon, who used religious reasons to justify their movements on behalf of their people. Túpac Amaru mixed Christian and Incan religious elements to justify his rebellion.

As a final note from our study of Túpac Amaru with Professor Klaiber, anyone seriously studying Túpac Amaru has to be very careful about their sources. Just like with the Incas, most of our knowledge about Túpac Amaru comes from Spanish writers. Since they were the people who killed him and then quartered his body, they tend to have a bit of a bias. You always have to read between the lines when reading accounts of conquest and colonization.