Juan Santos Atahualpa
Juan Santos Atahualpa Apu-Inca Huayna Capac was the messianic leader of a successful indigenous rebellion in the Amazon Basin and Andes foothills. The rebellion began in 1742 in the Gran Pajonal among the Asháninka people in what was then Spanish Peru. The indigenous people expelled Roman Catholic missionaries and destroyed many missions in the central jungle area of Peru. Several Spanish military expeditions attempted to suppress the rebellion but failed. In 1752, Santos attempted to expand his rebellion into the Andes and gain the support of the highland people. He was able only to capture the city of Andamarca, holding it for three days before retreating to the jungle. Santos disappeared from the historical record after 1752.
Santos, Jesuit-educated with both Christian and millenarian ideas, claimed to be the reincarnation of Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor. His objective seems to have been the expulsion of the Spanish from Peru and the restoration of the Inca Empire. He failed in that ambitious goal, but he and his followers succeeded in expelling Catholic missionaries and preventing Spanish settlement in a large area of the Peruvian yungas for more than one hundred years.
Early life
Little that can be said with certainty about the early life of Juan Santos. He was born about 1710, probably in Cuzco, although several other birthplaces have been proposed. He had three brothers. He was educated by the Jesuits in Cuzco. He said that he had visited Europe and Angola, presumably as a servant to the Jesuits. Quechua was his native language and he also spoke Spanish, Latin, and Asheninka. Santos apparently had contemplated revolution for a long time. He was said by the Spanish to have traveled widely in Peru as a young man to preach his message and sow the seeds of rebellion. Those travels apparently included the Gran Pajonal where Santos learned to speak Asheninka. The Franciscans later claimed that he fled Cuzco for the Amazon jungles as a fugitive because he murdered his master, a Jesuit priest, although no contemporary evidence backs up that story.The name Atahualpa comes from the Inca ruler Atahualpa, ruler of the Inca Empire at the time of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. Santos appropriated the names Atahualpa and Huayna Capac as he claimed to be the reincarnation of the former Incan emperors.
The indigenous people
The Asháninka people were the most populous of the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon, occupying a territory of about from 10 to 14 degrees south latitude in the foothills of the Andes and in the lowlands of the Amazon Basin. They numbered about 52,000. Not all the widely-dispersed Asháninka and other groups participated in the rebellion. Juan Santos' rebellion began on the Gran Pajonal, an elevated plateau, and his area of influence extended into the regions of the Cerro de la Sal ; and the Chanchamayo. Other indigenous groups supporting the rebellion were the Amuesha and Nomatsiguenga peoples.The missions
Missionary activities by the Franciscans began in 1635 in the area of the later rebellion. From the beginning there was opposition from the Asháninka and others. The Asháninka killed several priests and missions were often abandoned due to the hostility of the local people. A determined and extensive attempt to make Christians of the indigenous people began in 1709 as many missions were founded. Franciscan efforts reached the isolated Gran Pajonal in 1733. In 1736, the missionaries reported that they had established 24 mission stations with 4,835 inhabitants. The Franciscans maintained discipline in their missions with armed men, often African slaves. Several of the missions had military garrisons armed with muskets and cannons. The Franciscans also encouraged settlement by imported farmers and artisans who used indigenous slave labor in their work places.The indigenous people were attracted to the missions for three reasons. First may have been interest in the Christian religion. Secondly, the missionaries distributed steel tools such as axes and shovels which made the life of a slash-and-burn Asháninka farmer easier and which also made it possible for steel tools to be turned into weapons which gave the possessor an advantage over his enemies in war. Thirdly, the indigenous people needed salt as a seasoning and to preserve food and the missionaries attempted to control access to the salt vein at the Cerro de la Sal. Balancing these incentives were the undesirable features of life at the missions. The missionaries attempted to make the semi-nomadic indigenous people sedentary and to regiment strictly their lives. This created problems with food production as jungle soils were infertile and easily exhausted and a sedentary people had difficulty producing sufficient food. However, the most serious problem of the reductions, as the Spanish called the policy of encouraging or forcing indigenous people to live in permanent settlements, was the pandemics of European diseases which ravaged the populations of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas, especially those living in close proximity to each other in settlements. For example, an epidemic at the mission of Eneno in 1722-1723 resulted in a decrease in population at the mission from 800 to 220 as most of the inhabitants died of the disease or fled the settlement.
Rebellions against the Franciscans and the missions were common. The most recent of the revolts before the rise of Juan Santos was in 1737. An Asháninka headman named Ignacio Torote destroyed two missions killing 13 people, including five priests. A survivor reported that Torote gave his reasons to a priest for the rebellion, "you and yours are killing us every day with your sermons and doctrines, taking our freedom away." Torote's twenty followers were captured and executed by the Spanish and he disappeared into the jungle.
Rebellion
In May 1742, Juan Santos along with a Yine named Bisabequi appeared at the Franciscan mission called Quisopango at the southern edge of the Gran Pajonal a few kilometers north of the 21st century town of Puerto Ocopa. What he did or said is unknown but he gained support among the Amuesha and other indigenous people in addition to the Asháninka. Within a few days half a dozen missions in the Cerro de la Sal and Chanchamayo region had been abandoned by the indigenous people.In June, a priest, Santiago Vásquez de Calcedo, journeyed to Quisopango to meet Juan Santos. From that contact and others reported by indigenous leaders, some of Santos's personality and aims became clearer. Santos said that he was a Christian and recited the creed in Latin. He had come to the Pajonal to reclaim "his kingdom." He claimed to be a reincarnation of Atahualpa, the last Inca emperor. He was going to effect that reclamation with the help of indigenous people. Santos said he opposed violence, but he was going to expel the Spanish and their African slaves from Peru with the help of the British. The scholar Stefano Varese says the Santos's "attitudes were those of a moderate man" full of "mystical inspiration." He based his rebellion, typical of Millenarianism in colonial societies, on religion. Juan Santos promised his revolt would bring peace and prosperity to all the Andes, beginning in the jungle and spreading to the highlands and the coast. The culmination of his rebellion, Juan Santos said would be his coronation as Sapa Inca.
Santos's aims seemed more directed at the highland peoples who had been subjects of the Inca Empire rather than the Asháninka and other jungle peoples who had not been subjects and probably did not share his ambitious goals. As told to two African captives, their motivation in supporting Santos was that "they wanted no priests and they did not wish to be Christians." Santos's initial hostility to Africans changed quickly and several former African slaves of the Franciscans became important supporters of the rebellion. The Africans were valued for their knowledge of European weapons and battle tactics. Many indigenous people and mestizos from the Andes also joined the rebellion.
As Atahualpa's rebellion began to grow in both numbers and support Spanish authorities in the Tarma and Jauja provinces attempted unsuccessfully to pacify the rebellion. Emboldened, Atahualpa ordered the eviction of all Franciscan missionaries from the land he controlled. This in turn led to the viceroy of Lima sending out General Jose de Llamas, a seasoned veteran, to crush the revolt. This too was unsuccessful and the general and his men suffered constant defeats at the hands of the rebels. In 1752 Atahualpa and his men left the lowlands and seized the mountain city of Andamarca in the highlands of Jauja province. Although he and his men retreated back to the lowlands three days later, it seemed to have frightened the Viceroy. The assault on the highlands forced the viceroy of Lima to place Tarma and Jauja into the hands of military governors, who built a defensive string of fortresses to keep Atahualpa's rebellion from spreading beyond the region.
Juan Santos Atahualpa died sometime between 1755 and 1756 of unknown causes. Following his death, Santos's rebellion remained contained in the eastern jungles of the Tarma intendancy.