Túpac Katari

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Katari was born Julián Apasa in the jurisdiction of Sicasica and later moved to the nearby town of Ayo Ayo. He was born a peasant and worked as a trader of coca and baize.{{Cite book |last=Thomson, Sinclair |title=We alone will rule - native Andean politics in the age of insurgency |date=2002 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=0-299-17790-4 |page=183 |oclc=49512082}}

A member of the Aymara, Apasa took the name "Tupac Katari" to honor two earlier rebel leaders: Tomás Katari and Túpac Amaru, executed by the Spanish in 1572. Katari's uprising was simultaneous with the rebellion of Túpac Amaru II, whose cacique leader claimed to be a descendant of the earlier Túpac Amaru. Túpac Katari had no traditional claim to leadership similar to that of Túpac Amaru II, which may well have prompted Katari to associate himself with earlier leaders. Katari claimed authority from Túpac Amaru and proclaimed himself viceroy of the region. (Katari means "serpent, large snake" in Aymara; Amaru means the same in Quechua, the language of Tupac Amaru. Tupac means "brilliant, resplendent" in both languages.)Thompson, Sinclair (2002), We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, p. 190.

He raised an army of some 40,000 and laid siege to the city of La Paz in 1781. Katari and his wife Bartolina Sisa set up court in El Alto and maintained the siege from March to June and from August to October. Sisa was a commander of the siege and played the crucial role following Katari's capture in April. The siege was broken by the Spanish colonial troops who advanced from Lima and Buenos Aires.{{Cite book |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-84467-070-3 |last=Hylton |first=Forrest |title=Revolutionary horizons - Popular struggle in Bolivia |location=London |date=2007}} During the siege, 20,000 people died.{{cite web |url=http://www.duke.edu/~ems19/rebellions/rebellions.html |title=Rebellions |publisher=History Department, Duke University |date=22 February 1999 |access-date=14 July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120131062804/http://www.duke.edu/~ems19/rebellions/rebellions.html |archive-date=31 January 2012}}

Katari laid siege again later in the year, this time joined by Andrés Túpac Amaru, nephew of Túpac Amaru II, but Katari lacked adequate forces to be successful.

{{cquote|By 5 August, Túpac Katari and his forces had besieged the city, and a few weeks later they were joined by forces led by Andrés Túpac Amaru. In mid-September, another cousin of the Inca rebel leader, Miguel Bastidas Túpac Amaru, arrived to help prosecute the siege before it was finally broken by Spanish loyalists led by Josef Reseguín on 17 October 1781. As the royalist noose tightened, Túpac Katari was captured and was executed on November 13. Diego Cristóbal Túpac Amaru was captured at Marcapata in Quispicanchis on 15 March 1782. Having no alternatives to survive, Miguel Bastidas Túpac Amaru obtained a pardon by assisting the Spanish in suppressing what was left of the rebellion.{{Cite web |url=http://migs.concordia.ca/documents/RobinsSymbolicDiscourse.doc |title=Symbolic Discourse and Exterminatory Movements – The 1680 and 1696 Pueblo Revolts of New Mexico and the 1780–1782 Great Rebellion of Peru and Upper Peru |last=Robins |first=Nicholas A. |publisher=Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies |website=migs.concordia.ca |page=10}}

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Katari had a reputation as a fierce and often violent leader. Other leaders in the rebel camps testified to his "homicides and enormous violence"; he was known not only for violence toward his enemies but also those who fought on his side, executing people for having "spoken against him, stolen his property, acted in an overweening fashion, challenged his authority, or humiliated him".{{Cite book |last=Thomson |first=Sinclair |title=We alone will rule native andean politics in the age of insurgency |date=2003 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=0-299-17794-7 |page=193 |oclc=1074951244}}

On his death on 15 November 1781, Katari's final words were, according to oral tradition, "{{Lang|ay|Nayawa jiwtxa nayjarusti waranqa waranqanakawa kutanipxa}}". This is translated from Aymara as "I die but will return tomorrow as thousand thousands".{{harvnb|Robin|Jaffe|1999|p=199|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nSHKN0kpM3EC&pg=PA199}}

File:Lapazcolonia.jpg

As part of the uprising, Túpac Katari formed an army of forty thousand men and surrounded twice for a time, in 1781 the Spanish city of La Paz.{{Cite web |title=The prophecy of Túpac Katari – New Cold War |url=https://newcoldwar.org/the-prophecy-of-tupac-katari/ |access-date=10 August 2021 |website=newcoldwar.org |date=5 December 2019}} The two attempts, however, ended in failure due to political and military maneuvers by the Spanish, as well as alliances with indigenous leaders against Túpac Katari. Eventually all the leaders of the rebellion were arrested and executed, including Túpac Katari's wife, Bartolina Sisa, and his sister, Gregoria Apaza.{{Cite web |last=Fischer |first=Eva |date=11 August 2014 |title=TÚPAC KATARI - Notas Historicas de Bolivia |website=notasdelahistoriadebolivia.blogspot.com |url=http://notasdelahistoriadebolivia.blogspot.com/2014/08/tupac-katari.html |access-date=10 August 2021}}

This indigenous uprising at the end of the 18th century was the largest geographically and with the most support. It took the affected viceroyalties two years to suffocate it.

The rebels besieged the city of La Paz from 13 March 1781 for one hundred and nine days without success, due to resistance and the support of troops sent from Buenos Aires. In this context, Viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui took advantage of the low morale of the rebels to offer amnesty to those who surrendered, which gave many fruits, including some leaders of the movement. Túpac Katari, who had not accepted the amnesty and went to Achacachi to reorganize his dispersed forces, was betrayed by some of his followers and was captured by the Spanish on the night of 9 November 1781.{{Cite journal |last=Fischer |first=Eva |title=From rebellion to democracy - The many lives of Túpac Katari |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2017.1401536 |journal=History and Anthropology |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=493–516 |doi=10.1080/02757206.2017.1401536 |s2cid=148833834 |issn=0275-7206 |date=8 August 2018}}

During the second siege, Andrés Túpac Amaru, a nephew of Túpac Amaru II and romantically linked to Gregoria Apaza, Túpac Katari's younger sister, joined the Tupac Katari rebels.{{citation needed|date=April 2022}}

As a moral reward for the efforts and sacrifices that the Spanish of the city of La Paz had to endure, through the royal decree of 20 May 1784, the city of La Paz was awarded the title of "noble, courageous and faithful" (faithful to the king of Spain, it is understood).{{Cite web |title=Túpac Catari (Julián Apaza) (c. 1750–1781) |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/tupac-catari-julian-apaza-c-1750-1781 |access-date=19 August 2021 |website=encyclopedia.com}}

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For his effort, his betrayal, defeat, torture and brutal execution, Túpac Katari is remembered as a hero by modern indigenous movements in Bolivia, who call their political philosophy Katarismo. A Bolivian guerrilla group, the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army, also bears his name.

In Bolivia, on 15 July 2005, former President Eduardo Rodríguez Veltzé declared (through Law No. 3102) "National Aymara Hero and Heroine to Julián Apaza and Bartolina Sisa".{{Cite web |date=5 September 2021 |title=Bartolina Sisa - An Aymara fighter against the Spanish Empire |url=http://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/09/05/bartolina-sisa-an-aymara-fighter-against-the-spanish-empire/ |access-date=9 September 2021 |publisher=Peoples Dispatch |website=peoplesdispatch.org |language=en}}

In Argentina, as part of the Bicentennial celebrations, a Gallery of South American Patriots was inaugurated on 25 May 2010, in which Bolivia is represented by portraits of Túpac Katari, Pedro Domingo Murillo and Bartolina Sisa. The pictorial sample is located in the so-called "Hall of the Bicentennial Heroes", in the Casa Rosada.{{Cite web |title=Galería de los Patriotas Latinoamericanos abrió ante siete presidents |url=https://www.diario26.com/110788--galeria-de-los-patriotas-latinoamericanos-abrio-ante-siete-presidentes |access-date=4 January 2022 |website=diario26.com}}

The first Bolivian telecommunications satellite, Túpac Katari 1, whose purpose is to support educational initiatives and maintain state security, bears his name.{{Cite web |date=20 December 2013 |title="Túpac Katari" el satélite boliviano |url=https://www.semana.com/mundo/articulo/bolivia-lanzo-su-primer-satelite/369048-3/ |access-date=4 January 2022 |website=semana.com |language=es}}{{Cite web |title=Infobae América |url=https://www.infobae.com/america/ |access-date=4 January 2022 |website=infobae.com |language=es}}

Since 2019, his appearance has been incorporated into the new design of the 200 Bolivian banknote.

• Túpac Amaru II
• Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II
• Tomás Katari
• Aymara people
• Bolivia
• Bartolina Sisa
• Katarismo
• Túpac Katari Guerrilla Army

{{Reflist}}

• del Valle de Siles, María Eugenia, Historia de la rebelión Túpac Catari, 1781–1782. (1900)
• Fisher, Lillian Estelle, The Last Inca Revolt, 1780–1783, 1966
• O'Phelan Godoy, Rebellions and Revolts in Eighteenth-Century Peru and Upper Peru, 1985
• Paredes, M. Rigoberto, Túpac Catari: Apuntes biográficos (1897, 1973)
• {{Cite book |last1=Robin |first1=Diana |last2=Jaffe |first2=Ira |date=1999 |title=Redirecting the Gaze: Gender, Theory, and Cinema in the Third World |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=9780791439937}}
• Stern, Steve J. ed., Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th Centuries, 1987
• Valencia Vega, Alipio, Julián Tupaj Katari - caudillo de la liberación india, 1950

• [http://tupackatari.org/ tupackatari.org] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051221163007/http://www.tupackatari.org/ |date=21 December 2005}} - Bolivian indigenous activist page (in Spanish) (link broken)
• [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/09/28/coca_politics/] Boston Globe article on Bolivian politics, mentioning Tupac Katari
• [http://migs.concordia.ca/documents/RobinsSymbolicDiscourse.doc] Great Rebellion of Peru and Upper Peru by Nicholas A. Robins

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Category:Bolivian people of Aymara descent

Category:Bolivian torture victims

Category:Executed revolutionaries

Category:People executed by dismemberment

Category:1750s births

Category:1781 deaths

Category:Executed Bolivian people

Category:Rebellions in South America

Category:Rebellions against the Spanish Empire

Category:Indigenous rebellions against the Spanish Empire

Category:18th-century executions by Spain

Category:18th-century Bolivian people