Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua

Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua (born in Tamburco, 1745; died in Cusco, May 18, 1781), was a courageous pioneering indigenous leader against Spanish rule in South America, and a martyr for Peruvian independence. She led a rebellion against the Spanish with her spouse, Tupac Amaru II. She was executed before her husband and eldest son by the Spanish in Cuzco in 1781. Her execution had vital importance, specifically in the Rebellion de Tinta. Her bravery and determination to defend her goals for justice and freedom, until her tragic and unexpected death by the hands of the Spaniards, have become legend and symbolic of the fight against colonial oppression and exploitation.

Biography

Micaela was born in Pampamarca (in Abancay) in 1744. She was the daughter of Manuel Bastidas (of African descent) and Josefa Puyucahua (a Native American). The young Micaela was slender, pretty, and had brown skin with a head full of waves. Due to her african roots, too many female Africans, like american indians, were known by many as Zamba, a name given in colonial period to people that are the product of a mixed race of African American and native American.

On May 25, 1760, before her sixteenth birthday, Micaela married in 1760 to José Gabriel Condorcanqui, Túpac Amaru II in the church of Our Lady of Purification in the city of Surimana. José was a young mixed-race descendent of an important figure in Peruvian history, of the Inca Tupac Amaru I. In 1764, he was named the chief of the territories corresponding with his legacy: Pampamarca, Tungasuca, and Surimana. He fixed his residency with Micaela in Tinta, a local area of Cusco.

The couple had three sons, Hipólito (1761), Mariano (1762), and Fernando (1768).

Micaela had received a privileged education in the school of jesuits in Lima and Cusco. Her language was dominated by Castilian, Quechua, and Latin and she was an avid reader with diverse interests that gave her remarkable cultural height. She was the owner of large extensions of land and risk, obeying many roles of administration of their property. As a chief, she would mediate between the chief magistrate and indigenous people and their crime charges. As she prospered, she saw how the rest of the population was affected due to the physical revolts and creation of internal customs. As the mule driver would recognize his territory, living close to stories and tragedies of the workers and their hard conditions. As a person of mixed roots, she felt that she touched all of the injustice with her people firsthand. She realized strategies and official applications to the authorities of Tinta, Cusco and Lima so that indigenous people were freed of obligatory work in the mines and and exonerated with compliance with the forced labor. She always got negativity and indifference, but began to develop a libertarian ideology based on the defense of indigenous people, slaves, creoles, and people of mixed races while guiding the independence of her territory and commerce from the decisions of the crown of Spain.

Michaela, however, received childhood education in letters and art that was unusual in this age for the time period for women. Her husband was her ideologic teacher who quickly became aware of the situation of his people and took part in the cause. He supported it firmly defending and divulging hypothesis that would resurge the conscience of the rights of farmers to free the land and its existence in the oppressive hands of the Spaniards.

declared "For the liberty of my people, I have renounced everything. I will not see my children flourish...”

After that she was captured in a failed uprising. She had joined her spouse in leading the rebellion, leading indigenous men and women in a battle for independence as well as organizing supplies and recruiting forces[1]

Finally she was executed by the Spanish very painfully on May 18, 1781, at 36 years of age. Her son Hipólito was also executed by the Spanish, both of them in front of Tupac Amaru II, who was then quartered and beheaded by the Spanish.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Uglow, Jennifer; Maggy Hendry (1999). Frances Hinton, ed. The Northeastern Dictionary of Women's Biography. UPNE. p. 75. ISBN 978-1-55553-421-9.
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