History of Peru : Revolts for independence
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Peru |
In 1780 a force of 60,000 Native Americans revolted against Spanish rule under the leadership of Peruvian patriot José Gabriel Condorcanqui, who adopted the name of an ancestor, the Inca Tupac Amarú. Although initially successful, the uprising was crushed in 1781. The Spanish tortured and executed Condorcanqui and thousands of his fellow revolutionaries. The Spanish suppressed another revolt in 1814. Subsequently, however, opposition to imperial rule grew throughout Spanish South America. The opposition was led largely by Creoles, people of Spanish descent born in South America. Creoles grew to resent the fact that the Spanish government awarded all important government positions in the colonies to Spaniards born in Spain, who were called peninsulares. |
Freedom from Spanish rule, however, was imported to Peru by outsiders. In September 1820 Argentine soldier and patriot José de San Martín, who had defeated the Spanish forces in Chile, landed an invasion army at the seaport of Pisco, Peru. On July 12, 1821, San Martín’s forces entered Lima, which had been abandoned by Spanish troops. Peruvian independence was proclaimed formally on July 28, 1821. The struggle against the Spanish was continued later by Venezuelan revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar, who entered Peru with his armies in 1822. In 1824, in the battles of Junín on August 6 and of Ayacucho on December 9, Bolívar’s forces routed the Spanish. See Ayacucho, Battle of; Junín, Battle of; See Latin American Independence. Encarta |
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