Shifting Loyalties. From defense of the Crown to support for the Independence of Peru among the indigenous of Huamanga, c. 1784-1824

Abstract

This work studies the factors that allowed the identification of the indigenous people with the Spanish Crown and their subsequent rejection. Through information form unpublished documents we propose that a significant sector of the indigenous people of Huamanga defended the Bourbon administration, because they enjoyed tax privileges, possibilities of ‘Spanishization’, continuity in their positions of chiefs, greater economic income, exemption from taxes, defense of communal lands and, health and education benefits. However, towards the last years of the war the imposition of tithes, imprisonment for non-compliance with the mitas de tambo and illegal alcabalas, and, fundamentally, war contributions motivated the breakdown of loyalties. That is to say, the actions of the indigenous people were not static and, on the contrary, loyalty or rejection of the Crown depended greatly on the administrative policies and each group’s interests.